Regarding Susan Sontag Page #4

Milk with vanilla flavor in it

and peanut butter crackers.

The egg timer on the

wall in the kitchen.

Betting 25 cents on the

world series with Gramps.

I for the Yanks,

he for The Bums.

From my upper bunk, testing

Judith on the capitals

of all the states.

Daddy died

October 19, 1938.

COHEN:
He fell ill

for the last time

and died in China of

tuberculosis.

SONTAG:
My father died

so far away and without

my knowing it.

I didn't even know

he was dead until about

a year after.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I didn't really believe

my father was dead.

For years and years, I

dreamed he turned up one day

at the door.

When I was 6,

my sister was 3,

we ended up with my

mother, who was very

much a part-time mother

in Tucson, Arizona.

COHEN:
Our mother, Mildred,

didn't focus totally on us.

Let me put it this way. We had

a lot of uncles who were not

our uncles.

And they just kind

of came and went.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I wasn't my mother's child.

I was her subject, companion,

friend, consort.

My habit of "holding back"

is loyalty to my mother.

SONTAG:
My mother met a very

glamorous war veteran,

full of medals and shrapnel.

He had been shot down

6 days after D-Day and was

convalescing in Tucson.

And his name was Sontag.

COHEN:
They just went to Mexico

one day, and they came back

and they said,

"We're married."

Susan and I were extremely

hurt that we weren't invited

to go to Mexico

to the wedding.

We were delighted to have

a change in name.

We were so clearly identified

as being Jewish with a name

like Rosenblatt that my sister

who was older and I guess

an easier target did get hit

in the head and called names.

From Tucson, we moved to

Southern California and ended up

in Sherman Oaks

in the valley.

SONTAG, VOICE-OVER:

I can remember a rather

small house, very modest.

And I was lying on my stomach

in the living room and I

was reading.

And then this large pair of

pants and shoes walked by me,

and it was of course

Mr. Sontag.

He said "Sue, if you read

so much, you'll never

get married."

And I burst out laughing.

I thought this was the most

preposterous thing I ever heard,

because it never

occurred to me that I would

want to marry someone who

didn't like someone who

read a lot of books.

[Sontag speaking French]

[Man speaking French]

[Speaking French]

[Speaking French]

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

The truth is always something

that is told, not something

that is known.

If there were no speaking or

writing, there would be no

truth about anything.

There would only be what is.

She gave me a

copy of the book,

signed to me and the baby.

It's back here somewhere.

"The Benefactor."

That's her first novel.

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