The Cry of Sirens
by
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I'm fading fast, Frank. This is tough stuff. Let's get back to the swank affair and see if I can make it through. I want you to have as full and fair a portrait of Mark and me as possible. I imagine you have a friend from college days whose relationship seemed special and with whom you keep in touch. If you do, consider this tale, among other things, a cautionary one.
A few drinks had put Maureen into
a hyper-reality mode which a cluster of editors from the magazine establishment
had found appealing. I was a bit
chagrined, I admit, to discover at this late date she was qualified to critique
the publications represented, ranging from Harper's
to The New Yorker. Expressed sensibly, her soft-spoken comments
on their strengths and weaknesses had aroused the guys’ curiosity and, I
detected in some instances, their privates.
Come to Elaine's with us, one
group pleaded, Woody's sure to be there.
Come to
Mark ushered me away from the sparkling repartee for what would be our final dialogue of the evening and personal encounter for a few years.
"I like her. Why don't you get married and settle down or don't marry her and settle down - whatever they do out there! Speaking of which, how is it different? I mean from East Coast nookey? I haven't had any yet."
We'd reached an uncrowded part of a terrace that commanded a visceral view of the Central Park South skyline which, on a night like this one, would make a Thoreau believe in the seductive, mystical power of a great city.
"Wholesomely lubricious. That's the difference, I think. Here it's just lubricious."
"You should have gone to Harvard, wise-ass. Speak American English, for chrissake!"
"Well, let me see. If you want me to descend to your level,
let's take sixty-nine. With a
"Sounds right. I look forward to the taste treat. By the way, Maureen reminds me a little of Mindy Wharton, don't you think?"
"Mindy Wharton?"
Neither of us had seen her nor heard her name since graduation but she'd obviously made a mark on his memory.
"You were schtuping her, weren't you?"
"Would that I had been. It was as advertised - platonic."
"Sure, buddy."
"Why would I lie about it?"
"Yeah. Just like with Naomi."
"Naomi? What're you talking about?"
"You were screwing my sister under my nose the whole time and never said a word."
Caught off-guard, I still laughed as I remembered the lengths we went to keep it from him.
"Said a word? What was I supposed to say, Mark? When did you find out?"
There had always been moments with him when you weren't quite sure if he caught a philosophical point or if a joke registered; whether he was reasoning it out or had simply drawn a blank. His mouth would go slack and a stillness would sweep away the high-energy he normally projected. This time, after holding that obscure expression for several beats, he broke out with the broad grin I'd always regarded as his way of acknowledging an insight, arrived at thoughtfully, into the human comedy. I badly misread this grin for more than thirty years.
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About the Book
Synopsis
Ben
Hawthorne, self-exiled to an absent friend's crumbling
While
Ben's claim that Mark accidentally fell -they were both drunk -is readily
accepted by the police and public, he knows otherwise.
Ben
and Mark met at college. During the ensuing thirty years, they stayed in touch,
but had gone dramatically different ways. They were each other's oldest, not
best, friend. That is, until the past year, 1992, when Mark chose to enter
Ben's world.
By
now, Mark had become one of the country's foremost financier/entrepreneurs,
with a Time Magazine cover to his credit for effecting the major mergers of the
Eighties. Ben, by now, was considered a "world class" motion picture
director, with hit films and an Oscar nomination attesting to his success.
Four
years prior to killing Mark, however, Ben suffered two shattering setbacks: His
agent of two decades, who had shielded him from most of the harsh truths of the
business, died from a stroke. Only weeks later, an IRS agent informed Ben that
his business manager, also of twenty years, was a compulsive gambler who had
disappeared, leaving his clientele bereft of all assets, including pension
investments. Suddenly, at forty-eight, Ben had to cope alone in a hostile
environment, with no production prospects and his several million, gone.
Does
Mark know any of this when he offers to finance The Cry of Sirens, from a
controversial script Ben owns? What part does Martha, Mark's assistant and Ben's
eventual wife, play in the final encounter on the penthouse roof-garden? How do
ego, guilt and envy bear on the impulse of one American high-achiever to
destroy another?
During
his intense odyssey to uncover his motivation to murder, Ben must re-live relationships
with friends, lovers, relatives and adversaries. Well-known figures, ranging
from John Huston and Robert Redford to political activist Allard Lowenstein and
journalist George Plimpton, play an integral part in
the self-investigation.
Ben's
career has been devoted to mastering the distinctions between reality and
illusion. Once he separates fiction from fact in his personal life, he finally
understands why he killed Mark Victor. Was it a justifiable homicide? Certainly not, by society's standards. Should he be
punished? The reader must judge...
About the Author
Born to European emigrants, William Kronick grew up in Amsterdam, New York. He won a scholarship to Columbia College where he was active in the Columbia Players’ stage productions. He also helped form The Gilbert and Sullivan Society at Barnard College.
While at Columbia, William Kronick was deeply impressed by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, especially by his major work, "Miss Julie," which had been made into a movie directed by Alf Sjoberg.
After graduation William Kronick was drafted into the U.S. Navy where he became a Photographer’s Mate. During a North Atlantic exercise, his ship anchored at Stockholm. Kronick took this opportunity to contact Alf Sjoberg, who agreed to meet with him.
Kronick asked Sjoberg about an apprenticeship. Sjoberg suggested that his protégé, Ingmar Bergman, might be a more rewarding filmmaker to observe and made the arrangements with Svenskfilmindustri Studios for Kronick, once out of the Navy, to be part of Bergman’s next film "The Magician." He was the first foreigner to be granted such entree.
Upon returning to New York Kronick found a job as Production Assistant with Louis de Rochemont Associates. So began his four-decade career as a writer, director and producer.
Kronick's first film was a twenty-seven minute comedy-satire called "A Bowl of Cherries" (1961). The film, which played in nearly a thousand art theaters in the U.S. and Europe, was seen in L.A. by a producer of TV documentaries, David L. Wolper. He offered Kronick the directing/writing position on a new reality series, "Story of…"
Over a period of decades, Kronick, with total creative control, would write and direct some of Wolper’s highest-rated Network Specials, ranging from "Alaska!" (National Geographic) to "Plimpton!" to "The Five-Hundred Pound Jerk" (A Movie-of-the Week, Director only) to "Mysteries of the Great Pyramid."
His first feature, independently financed, was "A Likely Story" (a.k.a. "The Dublin Murders"). Kronick also did long-term stints as Second Unit Director on features such as "King Kong" (1976) and "Flash Gordon" (1980), on which he was responsible for many action and special effects sequences.
In 2000 he devoted himself to writing novels. The tales are contemporary morality stories, dealing mainly with film and theater.
He has been married and divorced twice and has a son, Max, by his second wife. Kronick resides in Los Angeles.