The Inman Diary: A Public and Private Confession

by Arthur Crew Inman, Daniel Aaron (Editor)

Between 1919 and his death by suicide in 1963, Arthur Crew Inman wrote what is surely one of the fullest diaries ever kept by any American. Convinced that his bid for immortality required complete candor, he held nothing back. This abridgment of the original 155 volumes is at once autobiography, social chronicle, and an apologia addressed to unborn readers.

Into this fascinating record Inman poured memories of a privileged Atlanta childhood, disastrous prep-school years, a nervous collapse in college followed by a bizarre life of self-diagnosed invalidism. Confined to a darkened room in his Boston apartment, he lived vicariously: through newspaper advertisements he hired “talkers” to tell him the stories of their lives, and he wove their strange histories into the diary. Young women in particular fascinated him. He studied their moods, bought them clothes, fondled them, and counseled them on their love affairs. His marriage in 1923 to Evelyn Yates, the heroine of the diary, survived a series of melodramatic episodes. While reflecting on national politics, waifs and revolutions, Inman speaks directly about his fears, compulsions, fantasies, and nightmares, coaxing the reader into intimacy with him. Despite his shocking self-disclosures he emerges as an oddly impressive figure.

This compelling work is many things: a case history of a deeply troubled man; the story of a transplanted and self-conscious southerner; a historical overview of Boston illuminated with striking cityscapes; an odd sort of American social history. But chiefly it is, as Inman himself came to see, a gigantic nonfiction novel, a new literary form. As it moves inexorably toward a powerful denouement, The Inman Diary is an addictive narrative.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

1600 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1985

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, Inman was a "smug, narcissistic... selfish prick," and he is unbearable at times. Nonetheless, this is a unique document. Professor Aaron's time was well-spent, and the month I took to plow through these two volumes was likewise profitable. The time you spend with "the Great Armchair Monster of Boston," pervert, tyrant, helpless psychosomatic, also affords a window into mid-20th century America unlike any other and has rightly been called a "back-alley view of Boston" and, I'd posit, the world at large.

Arthur's world is a strange, claustrophobic one, mitigated by the broad variety of life that comes before him. The characters - there must be more than two hundred of them - who pass through the book are worthy of any Broadway ensemble extravaganza, and lend the book so much warmth, intensity, humor, lunacy and sheer human vitality that the Diary becomes a panoramic view of a lost world. If history is as much the man on the street as the generals, political leaders, and magnificoes of the day, this is history on an epic scale, utterly honest, and (Arthur's prolix flights notwithstanding) utterly unpretentious. It is history that farts, flirts, fights, and fucks, with the Diarist as ringleader.

So much for the external realm of the book. The inner world of Arthur is a strange one, though he for all his faults does become a more loveable man as he mellows with age. While he certainly possesses many flaws, there is not a trace of hypocrisy -- quite the opposite, it may be the most honest diary ever produced by a man. He aims at "honesty, honesty, honesty," and as much as he can, he succeeds. I'd caution against being too quick to judge him, as he does the agonizing work of unearthing the darkest elements of his character. This hard work, a sort of psychological self-surgery, leaves him with an acute understanding of the many who come before him; he dissects and diagnoses people with remarkable acuteness and insight. (I shrink from the thought of what his opinion of me might be.)

Needless to say, Arthur is a formidable character. This is a unique book. I'm a great lover of diaries and have read dozens of them, and I doubt strongly I will run across another Arthur Inman any time soon.

[Mauberley]

Supported by his family's money, Inman tried to be a poet and playwright before deciding to become a diarist. He was a Jew hater, racist, 'Nordic' supremacist of no discernible talent as a poet. He was a miserable hypochondriac who fancied himself to be something of an intellectual Superman - early in the book, he states his ambition to be 'Emperor of America'. He was also an excellent chronicler of the American scene and his bizarre menagerie at the Garrison Hotel. Had he been compelled to work, I think that he would have fashioned a career for himself as a journalist or newspaper columnist. The editor, Daniel Aaron, appears to have done an excellent job in abridging the seventeen million words of the original work. Still, the editor's excellence notwithstanding, no reader will have wished this to be longer.

Exam question: Compare and contrast the method, media, and stylistic tendencies of Karl Ove Knausgard and Arthur Inman. Which format doe you find more appealing - the diary or the autobiographical novel? Which writer had the more profound issues with his father?

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Inman--- bitter recluse, moneyed perv, doomed gentleman, misanthrope and racist and self-styled political philosopher, agoraphobe, architectural fantasist, hypergraphic author of thousands and thousands of diary pages (reduced here to a couple of volumes)... His diaries are as darkly compelling as anything you'll find. It's an image that needs to be a Lynch film: Inman in his dressing gown and dark glasses, never leaving his Old Boston townhouse, paying co-eds to sit and read to him (and tell him their sexual secrets), filling up his diaries, waiting for the day when Modernist office buildings would blot out his view of an older city and he could take his revolver with him to the bathroom and blast himself out of a century he hated...

[Steve Majerus-Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arthur was a sickly pervert from Atlanta who lived his adult life in a darkened bedroom in Boston, using his family's money to hire reams of servants, doctors and paid friends. He wrote about all of them. Arthur is a weird character, brilliant but totally unable to make his way in the world. At times, he is funny and at times insightful. At all times, however, he is a tragic figure, a parasite living vicariously through the oddly appealing crowd that passes through his door. It's entertaining.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm calling it. Time of death of my interest in continuing to read this thing: 2 a.m. a couple of days ago, when I was preening myself on hitting page 325 and realized there were 450 more to go. Followed by Vol. 2. I originally thought I'd ordered the one-volume edition, and now laugh ruefully at my error.

It's not like I demand that main characters, in fiction or nonfiction, be admirable or even likeable. A talented writer can do great things with whatever material's at hand. Inman is not that writer. Why a Harvard professor would spend six years of his life editing the diary of an ego-ridden bore who spent most of his adult life in bed in a darkened room is a mystery, though his reference to it as a "nonfiction novel" shows a certain knack for academic drivel. Not a total loss, as Inman is coherent and, on rare occasions, clever, but it will soon be adorning the donation shed at the Pequot Library.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A two-volume abridgement of the 155 longhand volumes of the enormous diary of Arthur Inman (1895-1963). The diary covers the years 1919 until December 1963, when Inman took his own life. A professional inheritor living in a Boston apartment building, he was able to indulge his three greatest talents--agoraphobia, hypochondria, and his diary. (He tried to establish himself as a poet, but failed miserably.) He hired "talkers" from the newspaper to come and tell their life stories, and recorded all their biographies, and often conducted "hands-on" research of the women who answered his ads.

[Rob Branigin · Rating 4 out of 5]

i won't disagree that arthur inman was nasty, self-indulgent, and neurotic. he was. i won't disagree that he requires high tolerance. he does.

he was also a fatuous, smug, affected, deceitful, narcissistic fascist prick.

that's the point.

[Avis Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

Arthur Inman requires a very high tolerance level.
He was nasty, self-indulgent, and neurotic in a way that is supremely annoying.