“We never tired of it, either of us,” Curtis Harnack said of his marriage to Hortense Calisher. “It was just one of those things that went on and on, you know? Fifty years. It went by very quickly.”
“The two were married for fifty years. Calisher died in 2009, followed less than five years later by her husband, who passed away in July 2013.” The impact of this incredible couple endures through their stories—both in their writing and in the personal, inspirational story of their loving relationship.
Calisher is celebrated as a “writer’s writer” for her rich prose and the complexity of her style, which have earned her, among other honors, O. Henry Awards and two Guggenheim Fellowships. Though she once said in a Paris Review interview that “the writer part comes first,” Calisher was also a feminist, a New Yorker, and of Southern Jewish descent. Her body of work covers a range of genres, from science fiction (Mysteries of Motion)to coming-of-age novels (The Bobby-Soxer).
While much of Calisher’s writing is New York centric, Curtis Harnack’s childhood in Iowa resonates through his writing, including the novels The Work of an Ancient Hand, Love and Be Silent, and Limits of the Land, and the memoirs We Have All Gone Away and The Attic: A Memoir.
Often, Calisher’s characters struggle with love and marriage. The same cannot be said of the author’s personal life.
Calisher and Harnack met while both were teaching at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and were married on May 23, 1959. Dance was a common interest for the couple: Harnack became president of the School of American Ballet from 1992 to 1997 and his wife had been a dancer in her youth. And of course they shared a passion for writing, but, as Harnack said in an interview, they never shared their works in progress with one another: “We didn’t get involved in each other’s writing or even see work until it was done and ready to be sent out. That scheme seemed best for us.”
Harnack and Calisher played active roles in the literary community. From 1971 to 1987, Harnack was the executive director of Yaddo, an artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York. Founded in 1900, Yaddo has long provided a community of supportive artists including such impressive writers as John Cheever, Truman Capote, Sylvia Plath, and Nobel laureate Saul Bellow.
For more on Calisher from the perspectives of her husband and friends, watch our exclusive video: http://video.openroadmedia.com/BEnG/hortense-calisher/