At that time, when I went to San Francisco, I thought I needed a... a new name, so I dropped my first name, Oliver, and I became Wolf. And Thom and others at that time always called me Wolf.
When I came to New York in '65, I continued to see Thom fairly frequently because I would go to the West Coast, and he would come to New York, and I somehow have the feeling of an almost continuous dialogue with him which touched all sorts of things, and a dialogue 40 years in length.
The last time I saw him, I... I had no impression of any failing of energy or optimism or intellect. We... we had a dinner, we had lunch together and then a bottle of wine and talked. A lot of the talk was rather nostalgic. We had both been born in London near Hampstead Heath, and Hampstead Heath had been our playground and our favourite places... one of our favourite places, and there were also some people we knew in common. But we also talked about future work. Thom’s previous book, Boss Cupid, I think had been published in 2000. My previous books, Uncle Tungsten and Oaxaca Journal, had been published in 2001 and ‘02. And I was astounded as well as greatly shocked and saddened when I heard of his death three or four months after this... He... and further shocked and saddened to hear that he died of a drug overdose. At least he had a heart attack, and at autopsy high levels both of... of morphine and cocaine were found in his blood, or... or so I... I am told. I... he had much good work and much good living still in him, or this was my belief. Although Wendy Lesser, who knew him very well, Wendy publishes the Threepenny – oops, I’m forgetting the name – magazine.
[Q] Review.
Sorry?
[Q] Review. The Threepenny…
Oh, right. Wendy Lesser founded and publishes the Threepenny Review, which is sort of the West Coast equivalent of The New York Review of Books. And Thom was a founder member and a frequent contributor. Wendy told me that she thought Thom had been depressed and hopeless, did not look forward to anything, and increased drug doses towards a fatal level with... with his eyes open and knowing what he was doing. I... I hope she is wrong. I don’t like that picture, and it was certainly not my own picture.
