Willard Manus Remembered

When the announcement came of his memorial, I thought I would come only to listen. How is it possible to count a man as a friend for over thirty years but regrettably not know him well at all? Will was the empty chair at lunches with Mavis. He was the order-to-go which she took home for dinner and the no-show at our sunday salons.

While we were eating or chatting, he was busy creating. He started writing as a young man and never let up, putting yellow number two pencil to yellow notepad and then transcribing it to his worn-out keyboard.

Whether it was spear-fishing or paddle ball he found his target and nailed it. Will was a virtuoso pounding the keys on his ancient typewriter in his garage turned atelier, the room where it happened.

What happened was dozens of novels, essays, reviews, travel pieces and theater-works. I knew Will from his words on the page brought to life on the stage. I felt his passions for social justice, and for historical truth through the nuance of his cast of distinct voices. He ventriloquized those voices into the mouths of his imagined characters. He wrote dialog for the Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio in his head as well as Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, S.J. Perelman, Charlie Parker and dozens of others. Will’s imaginative field was a bumper crop; an orchard of forbidden fruit along with excavated tubers buried deep. 

He heard America struggle and yearn, love and celebrate. He heard the treachery and redemption and he heard America’s song, our hymns, anthems and psalms. From dry history he found the drama. We left the theater with his stirrings and carried his dirge and his odes of joy in our hearts.

There was much more to Will than this, I’m sure, but that is how I shall remember him. The gift he gave us will endure.