Henry & Friends: The California Years, 1946-1977

by William Webb

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0884963438
• ISBN13: 9780884963431
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Capra Press
• Length: 94 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.6" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

A Cold Eye

William Webb hung around Henry Miller for a long time. Though I consider the subtitle of this book a little misleading. Why call it "1946-1977," when as he admits eventually, he didn't get to meet Henry until 1959, and it wasn't until the final years that he began photographing him obsessively. The book is padded out in two ways, there are photos of the "friends," mostly nobodies from the Big Sur region, and later from the Pacific Palisades which was Miller's final home, and then there are Webb's memories of these people, which are worth the price of the book, if you're in the mood to read scathing criticism of some people you might otherwise never have heard of. Poor Emil White comes in for the most criticism. Indeed Webb hardly lets a fault go by unmarked. Friends for years, Webb turned against White when the latter disowned his sons for harsh reasons--one had a lesion on his forehead--and the other got religion. And these two sons were like male Cordelias to Emil--they loved him and slaved for him even while being treated like servant and non-people. Yes, I too wound up disliking Emil White, yet in real life, in my own real life, I remember him as genuine;y friendly and likeable fellow. In Webb's eyes, he wanted to imitate Henry Miller in the worst ways, like he wanted to inherit Henry's reputation as a "cocksman" and had this obsessive urge to bed women, and when age took over he took himself to Switzerland and got injected with Monkey Glands to increase his virility. The best pictures here are of tragic Barbara Loden, together with blase cold, withholding, former leftist Elia Kazan. The one photo of Barbara Loden gazing off camera while Henry Miller and Robert Kirsch of the LA Times talk animatedly around her, is a great one, especially if you like pathos. It's as good as Peter Hujar's photo of the dying Candy Darling. My copy of this book came with an inscription from Webb to a woman called "Donna." To Donna, he writes... "Hope this enlarges your already great enthusiasm for Henry." I can't wait to give this to my friend to poet Donna de la Perriere, it will be a grand surprise for her so don't let on anybody!