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[[Newspaper clipping with handwritten note: this is an incredible story. altho Irvings behavior does not surprise me. I think hes [sic] a major ass-hole! B- ]]

Caption on photographs of two men's faces Lows and highs of TABA Day: From Irving [left], unforgivable boredom; from Houseman, fond memories of cooking oil. at foot of the page Page 2 Section 7 CHICAGO TRIBUNE Book World May 15, 1983

BEHIND THE COVER American Book Awards: Family ritual instead of star-spangled glory By John Blades Editor of Book World

 If there's anything people in publishing love to hate, it's the American Book Awards.  TABA - as it's unaffectionately called - is their baby, but one they're always ready to disown and abandon.  Don't misunderstand:  Publishers are just as  happy as writers to win awards; it's the awards ceremony they have all come to dread so much.   This year's ceremony, held recently in New York, was fairly dreadful.  But, as always, it had its share of comic, even bizarre diversions; chief among them was the sight of novelist John "Garp" Irving changing from a literary lion into a goat before the audience's very eyes, like one of those monsters in a neo-horror-and-gore movie.
  Irving's startling transmogrification was the only extravagant note in a comparatively austere, bare-boned ceremony.  After TABA deposed the venerable and respected National Book 

Awards four seasons ago - largely to give equal time and glory to the increasingly dominant paperback interests-there had been a mighty effort to turn the occasion into a weeklong bacchanal, with cocktail parties, receptions, luncheons, banquets and, as a climax to the revelry, an Oscarized presentation night, featuring such guest stars as Barbara Walters, Lauren Bacall and John Chancellor, the better to lend the ritual some sex and glamor, and, not incidentally, to bring out the TV cameras.

  This year it seemed a lot less festive, with fewer parties and blessedly fewer awards [though the beast could only be tamed by chopping the ceremony into three parts - children's book awards in the morning, graphics in the afternoon and adult literature in the evening].  Whether this was due to the economically depressed state of publishing; the belated realization that literary prizes should be served with dignity and good taste, not glitz; or simply an indifference on the part of everyone but the winning authors, their spouses, publishers and publicists, I would hesitate to speculate.  Whatever the case, this year TABA Weeek was slenderized and streamlined into TABA Day; reluctantly or not, the principal sponsors, the Association of American Publishers, seeemed to have given up attempts to make it a star-spangled affair and settled for a family reunion, a spring gathering of the clan.  Instead of Bacall, Walters & Co., the winning authors were given their proper place in the spotlight; and, as master of ceremonies, a professional writer was enlisted - Brendan Gill of the New Yorker, who also happens to be a shamelessly histrionic speaker, one whose stunt-pilot grandiloquence soars, dives and takes an occasional outside loop.
  That's not to say, however, that the sponsors totally abandoned their quest for air time or overlooked an opportunity to give the occasion the flavor of a TV game show.  To present the children's book awards, during the morning ceremony at Lincoln Center, they managed to corral Christopher "Superman" Reeve, who made a brief speech about the virtues of books and libraries that brought TABA a few precious minutes on the evening newscasts.  And by inviting Liz Smith to present the original paperback award, TABA was assured of a mention or two in her Daily News gossip columns.
  The choice of the Public Library as the site for the awards in adult literature - over the years, TABA has become a traveling circus, moving from a regimental armory one year to Carnegie Hall the next - may have seemed especially fitting, but it came about only by accident; initially, publishers wanted to move the entire production to Dallas, for the annual meeting of American Booksellers, then discovered it was too late; the Public Library was a last-minute compromise because  it was convenient, available and affordable.  It did not prove to be ideal location, however.  A good many of the spectators were plainly ill at ease, seated at library tables in a vast [and un-air-conditioned] reading room, with sweatshop temperatures raising the discomfort index.
   The setting did bring a number of the evening's best one-liners.  At the outset, emcee Gill noted that the warning signs around the room, "Protect your valuables," were expressly placed there for publishers.  John Houseman, handing out awards in biography/autobiography, recalled that he had once filmed a commercial for cooking oil in the room.  But the topper came from poet Richard Howard:   Receiving the prize for translation, he commented, "This is the first time I've been in this room without a stranger putting a hand on my knee."  The steepness of the steps leading to the makeshift stage caused a number of small mishaps; after his glowing introduction as a distinguished historian and journalist, Harrison Salisbury stumbled on the way up to the rostrum, thereby earning the evening's "most distinguished pratfall" award.
   Salisbury kept his dignity and the respect of his audience, however, which was more than could be said for John Irving, publishing's golden boy after his runaway success with "Garp."  Irving was there not to receive but to give two awards in fiction - to Alice Walker for "The Color Purple," the hardcover winner, and to Eudora Welty for the paperback edition of her collected stories.   Tossing away his ghostwritten introduction, loosening his tie, Irving assumed a defiant posture, as if daring anyone to eject him when his alloted [sic] three minutes  were up.   He spoke for 15 minutes [or more],  during which he disagreed with the choice of Walker for the award he was about to give her, saying Craig Nova's "The Good Son" was [italicized: his] candidate for the year's best novel; quoted Rilke, Dickens and Mann, among a multitude of others, as he lectured the audience on the responsibilities of writers; and told a long, self-aggrandizing anecdote about how he had once come gallantly to the aid of Eudora Welty.  The onlookers were clearly irritated and restless, but at least they didn't hiss and jeer, as they did last spring when the winner of a translation award - who had flown thousands of miles to receive it -  allowed his grateful remarks to run overtime.  Later, someone said of Irving:  "We can forgive him for a lot of things.  We can forgive him for writing a lousy book like "The Hotel New Hampshire."  We can forgive him for running out on his wife.  But we can't forgive him for boring us silly with a speech like that."
   Yet the evening was not simply a collection of quips, slapstick and painfully extended monologues; it did have its sobering, graceful, even inspirational moments - notably with the acceptance speeches by Alice Walker [when Irving finally let her speak]; Gloria Naylor, receiving the first novel award for "The Women of Brewster Place";  Galway Kinnell, who was a winner for his "Selected Poems"' and Judith Thurman, who spoke of the eight years she'd devoted to her prize biography, "Isak Dinesen."
   That TABA had entered a new age of austerity seemed all the more evident when we moved from the awards ceremony to the reception, which was not [as in bygone good times] a regal buffet supper in a hotel ballroom but drinks, hors d'oeuvres and chamber music in the library's Astor Hall.  From what fragments of it I was able to pick up, the cocktail conversation touched on such matters as Irving's boorish performance, Truman Capote's health and the bloody dismissal of Vanity Fair editor Richard Locke after only three issues; but it mainly centered on the wobbly future of the American Book Awards.  About its future, only one thing can be said with any certainty [and I wouldn't make any bets on that]:  Next year they're taking the show on the road - to Washington, where the  awards will be dispersed at the booksellers convention.  And the year after that - who knows?  From all the discouraging words I heard about TABA, I wouldn't be surprised if the road leads to oblivion.