If Sonia’s record of employment during this period was chequered, Lovecraft’s was completely hopeless. There are, in the 160,000 words of correspondence to Lillian for 1925–26, only three references to looking through the Sunday Times want ads for work; none of these came to anything. It is evident that, with Sonia out of the way, Lovecraft simply stopped looking very hard for work. I am not sure there is anything to criticize in this: many individuals who suffer prolonged unemployment become discouraged, and, in spite of the clumsiness and inexperience with which Lovecraft attempted to find work in 1924, he did make the attempt with determination and zeal.
Lovecraft’s job attempts in 1925 were largely a product of various tips he received from his friends. The one that seemed most promising was freelance work on a trade journal in which Arthur Leeds was involved with another man named Yesley. This does not exactly sound like work for which Lovecraft would be suited, but all it really took is facility at writing, which he certainly had. Difficult as it may be to imagine Lovecraft writing advertising copy, we have the evidence in front of us in the form of five such pieces found among his effects (evidently unpublished). R. H. Barlow bestowed upon them the generic title of ‘Commercial Blurbs’. Sadly, the venture did not pan out, and through no fault of Lovecraft’s. In February Morton secured his position with the Paterson Museum; it would last the rest of his life. By mid-July Lovecraft was talking about the possibility that Morton might hire him as an assistant, and this rather dim prospect continued to be bruited about sporadically all the way up to Lovecraft’s departure from New York in April 1926.
There was, of course, money trickling in from Weird Tales. Lovecraft had five stories published in the magazine in 1925. We know the amounts received for three of these: $35 for ‘The Festival’ (January), $25 for ‘The Unnamable’ (July), and $50 for ‘The Temple’ (September); we do not know the amounts for the other two (‘The Statement of Randolph Carter’ (February) and ‘The Music of Erich Zann’ (May)), but they each probably averaged in the $30 range. These five sales make a rough total of $170 for the year—barely equivalent to four months’ rent.
Where was the other money—for food, laundry, modest travel, clothing, household items, and of course the other eight months’ rent—coming from? Clearly Sonia was largely supporting him, and his aunts were contributing as best they could. Sonia, however, speaks very bitterly on this subject in a letter to Samuel Loveman: ‘When we lived at 259 Parkside, his aunts sent him five dollars ($5) a week. They expected me to support him. When he moved to Clinton St., they sent him $15 a week. His rent was $40 a month. Food, carfare, and laundry and writing materials cost more than $5 a week. It was this “more” that I supplied.’1 And yet, Sonia has perhaps exaggerated a little. Lovecraft frequently acknowledges receipt of (mostly unspecified) sums from Lillian, and Annie was paying for his daily subscription to the Providence Evening Bulletin. In other words, there is every reason to believe that the aunts were contributing as best they could, although no doubt Sonia was still bearing the lion’s share of Lovecraft’s expenses.
The absence of remunerative work, of course, simply left Lovecraft that much more time to hang around with his friends. The year 1925 is the real pinnacle of the Kalem Club. Lovecraft and Kirk continued to be close; although Kirk was nominally employed as the owner of a bookstore, he could essentially set his own hours, and so made very congenial company for Lovecraft the night owl.
There is scarcely a day in the entire year when Lovecraft did not meet with one or the other of his friends—either as they came over to his place or as they met at various cafeterias in Manhattan or Brooklyn or at the formal Wednesday meetings. So busy was he with these social obligations—as well as apparently voluminous correspondence relating to the UAPA—that he wrote almost nothing during the first seven months of the year save a handful of poems, and many of these were written to order for meetings of the Blue Pencil Club.
Kirk writes to his fiancée on 6 February about the actual naming of the club: ‘Because all of the last names of the permanent members of our club begin with K, L or M, we plan to call it the KALEM KLYBB. Half a dozen friends are to be here tonight. Mostly they’re bores. All but me and HPL …’2 I wonder whether the exact form of the name had anything to do with an old film company of 1905 called Kalem, formed on exactly the same principle by George Kleine, Samuel Long, and Frank Marion. It is possible that one or more of the members subconsciously recollected this name in forming the name of their club. Lovecraft, however, never refers to the group as the Kalems in the correspondence of this period, citing it merely as ‘the gang’ or ‘The Boys’.
Lovecraft at first did make the attempt to spend time with Sonia on her infrequent visits into town: he notes that he skipped a meeting of the Boys on 4 February because she was not feeling well. But as time went on—and especially during Sonia’s long stay in June and July—he became less conscientious. Even during her stay in February–March Lovecraft would stay out so late that he would come home well after Sonia was asleep and wake up late in the morning (or even early in the afternoon) to find that she had already gone out.
The one thing Lovecraft could do during Sonia’s absence is control his eating habits. He told Moe that after passing 193 pounds he refused to mount a pair of scales; but in January his reducing plan began in earnest. The upshot is that in a few months Lovecraft went from close to 200 pounds to 146; from a 16 collar to 141⁄2. All his suits had to be retailored, and each week he bought smaller and smaller collars. What was the reaction by his friends, family, and wife to this radical reduction?
As you may imagine, my wife protested fearfully at what seemed an alarming decline. I received long scolding letters from my aunts, and was lectured severely by Mrs. Long every time I went up to see Little Belknap. But I knew what I was doing, and kept on like grim death … I now publickly avow my personal mastery of my diet, and do not permit my wife to feed me in excess of it.3 Lovecraft’s letters to his aunts elaborate considerably upon this account. He writes in Apriclass="underline"
Diet & walking are the stuff—which reminds me that tonight I’ve begun my home dining programme, having spent 30 cents for a lot of food which ought to last about 3 meals: 1 loaf bread ....................................................... 0.064 1 medium can beans ......................................... 0.144 1⁄4 lb cheese ........................................................ 0.104 Total ................................................................... 0.304
Lovecraft seems to have written the above in an effort to prove his skill at economizing during lean times, and he no doubt expected to be praised for his frugality; but his next letter suggests that the response was very different:
As to my dietary programme—bosh! I am eating enough! Just you take a medium-sized loaf of bread, cut it in four equal parts, & add to each of these 1⁄4 can (medium) Heinz beans & a goodly chunk of cheese. If the result isn’t a fullsized, healthy day’s quota of fodder for an Old Gentleman, I’ll resign from the League of Nations’ dietary committee!! It only costs 8 cents—but don’t let that prejudice you! It’s good sound food, & many vigorous Chinamen live on vastly less. Of course, from time to time I’ll vary the ‘meat course’ by getting something instead of beans—canned spaghetti, beef stew, corned beef, &c. &c. &c.—& once in a while I’ll add a dessert of cookies or some such thing. Fruit, also, is conceivable.5