Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 - (Page 92)

The literary avant garde of the 1950s and ‘60s New Orleans’ LouJon Press published works by literary greats of the mid-20th century Called by one critic the “Rolls Royce of little magazines,” Outsider was a nexus of the literary avant garde in the 1960s. Jon Edgar Webb and his wife Louise (“Lou”) brought Outsider to life, typesetting each page by hand, printing, cutting, and binding thousands of issues in their tiny French Quarter apartment. They exemplify what is meant by “making sacrifices for one’s art.” Their Loujon Press, with its magazine and “a handful of fine press books for a time, became a force in American literary publishing.” Although it is often up to the reader for fill in some of the blanks, in Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press, Jeff Weddle has captured the realities of mid-20th century French Quarter life. Those who are intrigued by small presses and the lives behind them will find this an engaging read. In his remarkably clear and detail-rich preface and introduction, Weddle reminds us that the “first golden age” of little magazines came in the 1920s. In New Orleans, the Double Dealer was the best known; published from 1921 to 1926, it introduced readers to William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. The Depression brought small publications to an end, and the 1940s were considered a “gray period,” when “the excitement had dulled,” and only a small number of cutting-edge journals remained. As Malcolm Cowley wrote, “critical inbreeding carried [them] almost to the point of incest.” Not until the late 1950s would come the next surge of the little magazine, powered by the Beat poets, mimeograph machines, and the public’s growing interest in the counterculture. Walter Lowenfels, a contributing editor to the journal Mainstream, invited friends from the small-press world to contribute essays that became a collection: Little Magazines in America: A Symposium. Included in that cadre was to make his way as a writer. His short story, “All Prickles, No Petals,” was published in 1935, soon after his release. He continued to write, worked at various jobs, and moved his family frequently, dogged by rumors about his jail time. Webb’s first real success was getting “The Idiot in Cell 33” published in the March 1937 issue of Esquire, which led to other small writing jobs and yet more moves. While living near Euclid Beach in north Ohio, Webb met Louise Madaio, daughter of a next-door neighbor. In what is either a bit of rushed prose or supreme understatement, Weddle writes: “One day Opal [Jon’s wife] asked Louise if she loved Jon. Louise said that she did love Jon and wanted to marry him. Opal understood that this was how things were going to be. ‘Well, I guess so,’ she told her rival.” And so 22-year-old Louise married 34-year-old Jon Edgar Webb in 1939. The new couple then makes their way, for the first of many times, to New Orleans. They live briefly in New York while Jon works on final edits of his novel, Four Steps to the Wall, a gritty tale of prison life that was his major literary success. Sales were steady, and Jon turned aside editing work for another perceived opportunity. It will sound clichéd, but the couple move to Los Angeles in pursuit of having Four Steps to the Wall turned into a motion picture. They bump up against Hollywood’s bottom feeders, including sleazy producer Monte Proser, whose main talent seems to have been stringing along Webb for months with hopes of a “major deal.” The story gets just a few pages, but could well have been a much longer chapter in the book — there are enough tantalizing details to make one long to read the entire saga. Nevertheless, their California mess brings them back to Louisiana. Jon and Lou spend most of the 1950s in New Orleans. Lou worked at various jobs in the city, for years selling her own paintings Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press by Jeff Weddle University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, Miss. 220 pages with notes, appedices, and photographs Jon Edgar Webb of Outsider, whose life is the focus of Bohemian New Orleans. Webb was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1905. As a young newspaper reporter, short on money and with a family to care for, he committed armed robbery and spent three years in the state reformatory. Yes, it’s told that matter-of-factly. He edited the prison newspaper, The New Day, and determined 92 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Summer 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities George Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Cajuns, Blue Dogs & Beyond Katrina The Historic New Orleans Collection After The Flood Faubourg Marigny: The Creole “Suburb” Preserving New Orleans Jazz, One Generation at a Time: Conversation & Music with Tom Sancton Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Architecture Baton Rouge Photographs, 1863-1910 Jazz Notes The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Louisiana Association of Museums Nature of the “Beast” Louisiana State Museum Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

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