Lydia Davis

Three More Claims to Fame

Claim to Fame #7 :  Early Boyfriend

The older half-sister of an early boyfriend of mine, it turns out, is the daughter, unacknowledged until decades after her conception, of the British philosopher and Oxford don A.J. Ayer.

Claim to Fame #8 : On the Way to Detroit

In the airplane on my way to Detroit, on a recent trip, I sat next to the widow of Lewis Mumford’s nephew.

Claim to Fame #9 : In Detroit

In Detroit, standing in a line, I met the daughter of Samuel Beckett’s publisher, Barney Rossett.

Author: Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis’s most recent collection of stories is Can’t and Won’t (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014). Her translation of Proust’s Letters to His Neighbor was published in 2017 by New Directions, and a collection of essays is forthcoming in 2019.

Plume: Issue #90 February 2019