William Faulkner, Screenwriter

by Stephen J. Gertz

A cache of screenplays by novelist William Faulkner is being offered by Bonham's - Los Angeles in its Fine Books and Manuscripts including Historical Photographs sale October 16, 2013. The trove comes from the Richard Manney collection via the late, great Serendipity Books of Berkeley.

You haven't lived until you've read Faulkner's hilariously contemptuous screenplay notes, i.e. "Lana tells Mary whatever sappy stuff we need here about love conquers all things, etc...."

Mimeographed Manuscript, dialogue cutting continuity script
of Today We Live, 121 pp, 4to, n.p., April 8, 1933,
in tan wrappers, the Dublin censor's copy, annotations
throughout in green, red and graphite pencil.

Today We Live is based on the Faulkner short story "Turn About," and is one of only two films based on an original story by the author, and the only screenplay based on his own work for which Faulkner received credit. Director Howard Hawks saw the piece in the Saturday Evening Post in March of 1932, bought the rights, and hired Faulkner to write the script. Soon after Faulkner turned in his first draft, Irving Thalberg asked that a part for Joan Crawford be created, since the star was available. Faulkner dutifully complied, and the film, now a love triangle between two WWI pilots and Crawford, went into production in late 1932.

The Dublin censor removed some seemingly inoffensive dialogue and imagery: a reference to sipping communion wine, a shot of a cockroach in a box, Crawford's character putting her head on her brother's shoulder.

Mimeographed Manuscript, final draft of Zero Hour,
140 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], January 27, 1936
(with blue revision pages bound in as late as
February 2, 1936), in plain blue wrappers stamped
"Twentieth Century-Fox ... Stenographic Department"
and copy #32 to title page.

Faulkner and Joel Sayer developed the present script, originally titled Wooden Crosses, then Zero Hour, and finally released as The Road to Glory, between December of 1935 and early January of 1936. The film, set in France during World War I, details trench life during that conflict. During the same period, Faulkner finalized the manscript of his most complex novel, Absalom, Absalom!

The University of Virginia's Faulkner collection has a copy of the January 27 "final" screenplay, though theirs is apparently four pages longer than this one.

Mimeographed Manuscript, screenplay of The Last Slaver,
144 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], December 3, 1936, in
blue Twentieth Century-Fox wraps stamped #1, with
initials to upper cover and annotations throughout
of studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck.

This is Darryl F. Zanuck's copy of The Last Slaver, with his initials to the upper cover and with his many annotations in ink throughout.

In July of 1936 Faulkner, his wife Estelle, and daughter Jill traveled from Mississippi to California for another swipe at the lucrative work of screenwriting, this time for Twentieth Century-Fox Studios. He was assigned to adapt The Last Slaver, based on a novel set on board a slave ship in 1845. The film would be released in 1937 as Slave Ship, starring Warner Baxter, Wallace Beery and Mickey Rooney; Faulkner received story credit for the film.

This copy is dated December 3, 1936, and though stamped "Final," a pencil notation indicates that it is not in fact the final draft. A penciled note at the lower right corner of the title page indicates this copy as the "Faulkner draft." The text is annotated throughout in pencil by Zanuck, editing dialogue and making important character suggestions ("Swifty should watch all this from a distance, taking no part").

The copy of The Last Slaver in the Carl Petersen Collection is identified as the revised final draft and bears the date of December 15, 1936 (with revisions as late as December 20). That copy is identified as the text of Faulkner's September 1936 draft minimally revised by Nunnally Johnson. The University of Virginia has Zanuck's copy of the September 24 and October 10 drafts of The Last Slaver. No other copies of a December 3 draft have been located.

Mimeographed Manuscript, first draft continuity
screenplay of Splinter Fleet, 130 pp, 4to,
[Los Angeles], December 22, 1936, in orange
Twentieth Century-Fox wrappers. WITH: Mimeographed
manuscript, shooting final screenplay of Splinter Fleet
(crossed out and re-titled in pen Submarine Patrol),
160 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], June 23, 1938,
in tan Twentieth Century-Fox wraps stamped.

This is a rare draft of an early Faulkner screenplay, along with a copy of the shooting script.

In September of 1936, Darryl Zanuck assigned Faulkner to work on the dialogue Splinter Fleet, while Kathryn Scola was tasked with keeping an eye on the story line. Faulkner told Scola that producer Gene Markey had told him to "follow the story line, but I can't find the story line" (Blotner 373). Scola told Faulkner's biographer that the dialogue was "Good Faulknerian dialogue," but that it had little to do with the story at hand, as it seemed to relate more to aerial than naval warfare.

The presence of the later shooting final script here offers a rare chance to assess how much of Faulkner's work made it into the final script (Blotner claims nothing did).

The University of Virginia has a copy dated December 7, 1936 which is one page longer than this copy; no other copies of the December 22 version have been located.

Typed Carbon on yellow foolscap, treatment of
Drums Along the Mohawk, 26 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
March 14, 1937, housed in blue wraps bound with brads,
with typed title and date, marked "only copy" twice
at upper margin and with ownership signature of
assistant producer Ben Silvey to upper right corner.

On March 12, 1937, Faulkner began an extended assignment for Twentieth Century-Fox Studios (Blotner p 954). Three days later he turned in this 26-page breakdown of Walter D. Edmonds' best-selling novel, Drums Along the Mohawk. Never a fan of studio work, Faulkner injects a fair amount of contempt into this treatment. From page 21: "McKlennar's house. Two Indians enter the house, set fire to it, kill Mrs. McKlennar, find Lana in bed with her child which is about three years old. They tell her the house is on fire. They are drunk. Lana forces the Indians to carry the wedding bed outside of the house. Lana gets into it again with the child. The two drunken Indians are finally driven away by the child. This will be comedy. Lana lies in bed and watches the house burn." If that's not clear enough, in his final paragraph, as the next generation is taking up the challenge of settling the new frontier, he writes, "Lana tells Mary whatever sappy stuff we need here about love conquers all things, etc...."

The University of Virginia has a mimeographed version of this treatment bearing the same date, but no typescript or other typed carbons have been located.

Mimeographed Manuscript, dialogued treatment titled
Drums Along the Mohawk, 248 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
July 3, 1937, housed in blue Twentieth Century-Fox
wraps bound with brads, upper cover marked "only copy."

Faulkner's full-length adaptation of Edmond's novel: From March until mid-June of 1937 Faulkner worked on this "dialogued treatment," which includes a detailed list of characters with description, a sequence-by-sequence breakdown of location, and a 238 pp screenplay. After he turned this treatment in, Faulkner was taken off the project and Lamar Trotti and Sonia Levien took over (and earned final screen credit).

Walter Edmonds' novel of the hardships endured by settlers of the Mohawk Valley in the 1700s was a runaway bestseller in 1936. Faulkner was something of a logical choice to adapt the book, given his experience writing about rural life and tensions between cultures. The contempt evident in the short treatment (See lot 2301) is no longer present here. He apparently takes the assignment seriously, crafting the long novel into a workable three act structure. Among other things, he boils down Edmonds' long subplot of servant girl Nancy Schuyler's loss of innocence and later marriage to an Indian into a single scene: after a brave surprises Nancy at a stream, the two engage in a silent dance: "CLOSE SHOT OF BOTH -- Nancy shrinks slowly back, as the Indian lifts her shawl away and touches her hair. He takes it up and examines it with interest and admiration. He gestures and speaks to Nancy in Indian. Nancy stares at him. The Indian gestures to her to get up. She doesn't move. He takes her arm and helps her up, stands facing her, takes her hair into his hands again, speaks to her in Indian. Nancy's terror goes away. He takes a small pouch from his shoulder and hands it to her, still speaking. She takes the pouch, staring at him stupidly. He taps his chest, then he taps Nancy's speaking Indian. He hangs the pouch over Nancy's shoulder, points toward the forest, advances, stops, looks back, beckons. Nancy follows him. He looks down at her feet, speaks again, approaches, takes from the pouch a pair of mocasins, drops them at Nancy's feet. She sits down and puts them on, the Indian watching. he beckons again. She rises. He turns into the forest, Nancy following."

No copies of this treatment appear in WorldCat, though the Morgan library has later treatments by Trotti and Levien that are purportedly based on this one. This script provides the unique opportunity once and for all for scholars to determine the extent of Faulkner's contribution to the final film.

Mimeographed Manuscript, final screenplay of
The Bouncer and the Lady, 134 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
April 7, 1941 (blue revision pages dated as late as
April 19, 1941 bound in), in blue Twentieth Century-Fox
steno department wraps, stamped #21 to title page.

In March of 1939 Faulkner worked for two days on a project titled Dance Hall, before being once more listed by the studio as "unassigned." The film was released four years later under the original title of Dance Hall and starred Carole Landis and Cesar Romero.

Typed Carbon titled "Battle Cry—Hawks,"
144 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], April 21, 1943,
treatment in prose and screenplay format,
moderate thumbing to leaves, housed in
plain blue wraps with typed title, story
department stamp, and penciled annotations
to upper right corner ("rec'd Geller9/16/43".

Faulkner's original story treatment of Battle Cry. Following Howard Hawks to Warner Bros., Faulkner was assigned to Battle Cry in early 1943. The film was to celebrate the U.S. and its allies in the world war. Hawks and Faulkner roughed out an outline, and Faulkner completed this 144 pp treatment on his own by late April. This draft was scrapped, however, and so Faulkner began again, completing a 231 pp script by June, at which point screenwriter Steve Fisher was brought in to collaborate.

Faulkner was excited about the prospect of an epic like Battle Cry making it to the screen, not the least because it would help restore the four-figure screenwriting salary he so desperately needed. The project, however, was canceled by Jack Warner, either because director Howard Hawks clashed with the studio exec, it was too sympathetic to the Soviets, or just too expensive to mount.

The 231 page expanded story treatment and the second temporary screenplay of Battle Cry were published in volume IV of Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky Collection (Oxford, MS: 1985), but this, the first treatment, remains unpublished.

Mimeographed Manuscript, revised final screenplay
of The Left Hand of God, 140 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles],
July 18, 1952, in plain blue wrappers stamped
"Please return to RKO Story Files" and "20" at
lower right, minor toning to leaves, light staining
to upper and lower wraps. WITH: HAYES, ALFRED.
Mimeographed manuscript, final draft of The Left
Hand of God, 135 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], February 22,
1955 (blue revision pages dated as late as
June 7, 1955 bound in), in blue Twentieth Century-Fox
wraps stamped copy #8 to lower right.

In early 1951 Howard Hawks reached out to Faulkner once more, asking him to come to Los Angeles and work on The Left Hand of God, a script about a former army pilot in China who escapes a warlord by masquerading as a priest (Blotner 537). Faulkner turned in a draft early, earning a bonus, and later that year the trades announced that RKO would make the film and Kirk Douglas would star. Faulkner revised the draft again in 1952 (the original typescript of the present draft appears to be with the Howard Hawks Collection at Brigham Young University), but again the project was delayed. In early 1954, Paramount and Hawks sold the property to Twentieth Century-Fox, which eventually produced the film starring Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney. The screenwriting credit went to Alfred Hayes.

• • •

There are many stories about Faulkner in Hollywood. My favorite: While under contract to Warner Brothers and unhappy and weary showing up for work to the Writer's Building on the Warner's lot in Burbank, he asked studio head Jack Warner if he could go home to write. "Sure, go ahead," Warner replied, presuming that Faulkner preferred to work alone in his house.

He did.

Days later, Warner was looking for Faulkner and couldn't find him. The writer had indeed gone home to write.

To Oxford, Mississippi.

___________

All images courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.

A tip o' the hat to Bonham's cataloger.
___________
___________

You Can Smoke William Faulkner's Pipe For Only $3,000-$5,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

One of Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner's tobacco pipes is being offered at auction house PBA Galleries Fine Literature - Cooking & Gastronomy sale, today, August 30, 2012.

It is estimated to sell for between $3000 - $5000.

Residue is still present in the bowl. Faulkner was a well-known pipe smoker photographed many times with one in his hand or mouth but matching this pipe to those appearing in his photos has yet, and will likely never, succeed; there is not enough detail in the photos to make an accurate comparison. We can only  imagine what he was doing or writing while burning shag in this smokeshaft.

This pipe was one of several that were rescued from Faulkner's home after his death by his stepson Malcolm Franklin. The pipe wound up in the possession of William Boozer, the noted Faulkner collector and editor of The Faulkner Newsletter.  Professor James B. Meriwether, editor of several volumes of Faulkner's letters and interviews, was, apparently, the liaison between Franklin and Boozer.

A note in Meriwether's hand and signed twice by Franklin attesting to the pipe's provenance, along with two typed notes, signed, from William Boozer (one on the same sheet as the signed statement), accompany the pipe.

Will you be inspired to write if you snag this pipe? Will some aspiring scribe in Vermont win the bidding, smoke the pipe, and subsequently pen a Northern Gothic novel about a county with a  name impossible to pronounce populated by New Englanders who speak with a  drawl?

__________

Tobacco pipe, approximately 14.5x5 cm (5¾x2"), manufactured by Digby of London. Accompanied by a pouch and box from a Dunhill pipe. Stamped on bottom with maker's name, city and number 135.
__________

Pipe images courtesy of PBA Galleries, with our thanks.
__________
__________

More Highlights From the Upcoming Library of an English Bibliophile Sale

by Stephen J. Gertz

Estimated $70,000-$90,000.

Our pre-sale coverage of Sotheby's-NY Library of an English Bibliophile Sale Part II, October 20, 2011 concludes with a look at four great books with great big estimates.

The Campbell-White copy of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises has returned to Sotheby's auction block where it last sold on June 7, 2007, lot 106, for $99.000. It's a beautiful first edition, first issue ("stopped" on p. 181, line 26, misspelled as "stoppped) in the rare and un-restored first issue dust jacket ("In Our Time" misprinted as "In Our Times). The estimate for this go-round is $70,000 - $90,000.

Estimated $60,000 - $80,000.

It's no mystery why a copy of the first separate edition (originally appearing in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887) of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1888), which introduced Sherlock Holmes, is estimated to sell for $60,000 - $80,000. Though a second impression (with "younger" misspelled as "youger" in paragraph two, line three of the Preface), it's in the original flimsy wrappers and possesses the called-for ads at rear. Scarce thus, it is usually seen rebound or the wrappers an unmitigated wreck. The last time this copy came to auction was in 1981, when it sold for $15,000.

Estimated $50,000 - $70,000.

The last time the Jordan copy, fine in fine dust jacket, of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury was seen at auction was at Sotheby's-NY, June 18, 2004 as lot 295, where it sold for $55,000. It is now estimated to sell for $50,000 - $70,000.

Estimated $15,000 - $25,000.

If you're Stephen Crane and you self-publish your novel, Maggie A Girl of the Streets (A Story of New York), in 1893 under a pseudonym in a first edition of 1,100 and sell only two - two! - copies through Brentano's, it will give you great posthumous nakhes to learn that it is estimated to sell for $15,000 - $25,000, not that it will do your bank account any good. Rejected by all publishers he submitted it to and poison to retailers because of its frank subject matter, this, the fine, unopened Estelle Doheny copy, is one of only approximately thirty-five known to have  survived. It last sold at Christie's-NY, October 17, 1988, as lot 1220, for $9,500.

__________

Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.

__________

__________

__________

The Apocryphal Cookbooks of Famous Novelists

LAWRENCE, Cynthia [pseud. of Lillian Hellman?]. Barbie's Easy-As-Pie Cookbook.
New York: Random House, 1964.
Though she preferred anonymity, we're pleased that the Unfinished Woman
had time to finish this book, attributed to her based upon its Stalinist sympathies.

Recently, Kelvin Johnson, an adult-bookstore clerk in Baltimore, MD, bought the contents of a self-storage unit at auction. Within was box of books that upon close examination inspired Johnson to contact lawyers, accountants, and rare book dealers.

“I’m not much of a vanilla-book person,” Johnson said, “but I do know that none of these authors were known for their work in the kitchen. They’re all cookbooks.”

The news has rocked the literary establishment.

“We all feel like we’ve been kneaded, and flattened with a rolling pin,” Marilyn Bagley, Professor of English Literature at West Covina Community College in Southern California and author of Heavy Metal and Hip-Hop Motifs in Victorian Novels 1840-1860: The Foreshadow of Ozzie Osborne, Original 50 Cent, and the Quest For Bling Within the Works of William Thackeray and George Eliot, reported. “All our bubbles have been squooshed.”

Basil Pine-Coffin, a literary forensics specialist and rare book dealer that Johnson has hired to appraise the books, said, “stylistically, they’re spot on; there’s no question in my mind that they are genuine. They appear to be vanity editions, and one-offs – unique. They have certainly never been heard of or seen before. This is an amazing discovery that will provide scholars with plenty to chew on for many years to come. The books are priceless - but we’re working on it.”

A few highlights from the trove:

Mark Twain married his interest in gastronomy with his affection for the vernacular and erotic, and thus brought A Tramp, A Broad, and Huckleberry Pie out of the oven and onto the dessert tray.

Who knew that Charles Dickens was a closet chocolatier? Barnaby Fudge melts in your mouth.

Was Edgar Allen Poe a secret Jew? No one has ever imagined it. But The Tell-Tale Calves Liver, a tract on trayfe (non-kosher), strongly suggests that the idea ain’t just chopped liver.

William Styron suffered from depression for much of his adult life yet he, apparently, found joy in the simple pleasures and so bequeathed Sophie’s Choice Brisket to us.

Portrait of a Lady Finger is surely Henry James’ lightest confection.

We now know what drove F. Scott Fitzgerald to drink. The Beautiful and the Damned Angel Cake is a bittersweet tragedy.

True, she didn’t write fiction. Yet environmentalists and litterateurs will be seared when they learn that when not spraying the truth on pesticides Rachel Carson tacitly wrote The Silent Spring Chicken. No comment on this understated gustatory salute to Cornish game hens and the many ways to prepare them, sotto voce, and hormone-free.

It is likely that no one will ever tackle James Joyce’s contribution to the dinner table. No kitchen consultants have been able to make head or tail out of Finnegan’s Cake, much less bake it. But that shouldn’t stop it from winning the Pillsbury Bake-Off; it’s a modern classic that will be much admired though rarely eaten.

William Faulkner, it turns out, spent as much time with a baking sheet as a sheet of paper. One afternoon, he asked his Hollywood employer, studio-chief Jack Warner, if he could finish writing at home. Warner looked at his watch and said, sure, go ahead. A week later, Warner was pissed-off. “Where the fuck is Faulkner?” Turns out, Faulkner had something in the oven – at home in Oxford, Mississippi, where he apparently fled to compose the following soufflés: The Sound and the Fricassee; As I Lay Frying; Intruder in the Crust; Requiem For a Bun; and Albacore, Albacore!

Johnson is very excited. And the stakes are high. At a press conference this morning his team announced their appraisal of the collection, a staggering $200,000,000.

Yet all is not well in the world of literary dishes - instant riches.

James Salt, the respected rare book dealer that Johnson originally brought in to help with the project, excused himself early on. He believes the collection may only be worth $200, at best.

“I smell fish,” Salt sniffed, “and I’m not talking about Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea Bass: 20 Lite N’ Easy Meals.

“While it’s true that Tolstoy hated Italian food I seriously doubt that he would devote his time and labor to a 1,000 page book about his struggle with it. I don’t care how many so-called experts assert otherwise, I will never be convinced that he wrote War On Pizza.”

__________

__________

My Journey Back To Faulkner's Mississippi

The Lincoln Statue At Bascom Hall,
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
(Image Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison)

One of the most important tools of a great teacher can't be learned, doesn't come with practice, and won't ever be found on a resume or a list of publications. It is a passionate love for the subject matter he or she teaches. I was lucky enough to have a teacher like that, and it happened purely by chance.

Long before the advent of online registration, students (at least at the Midwestern university I attended) had to walk all over campus, and sign up for classes in the main building of each and every department. This was no mean feat on a huge campus (933 acres!) in the bone-chilling cold of a Wisconsin winter, especially for undergrads who usually took classes in four or five different departments.

A Student Enjoys
Wisconsin's Winter Wonderland.

(Image Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Registration times were decided based on a random drawing of the first letter of the student's last name. Coming in last, as I did one unlucky year, meant it was almost certain my first-choice classes would already be full before I even began that bone-chilling journey. That all-important fact was something I couldn't find out until I walked several miles on frozen feet. When I learned I had to figure out a whole new class list, I bravely buttoned my coat, pulled on my hat and mittens, wrapped a scarf over my cheeks, chin and nose, and started my refrigerated trek all over again. I backtracked and signed up for my second choice science class, and another in history. Then it was on to the English Department, to choose classes in my major.

Madison's Winter Only Lasts
From Late October until Late April.
(Image Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Finding out every English class I wanted to take was closed was just too much for me. My disappointment, despair, and frozen fingers and toes collaborated to produce a meltdown. I was overcome by an uncontrollable crying jag. As I collapsed in a heap in the hallway of the department, a miracle happened. A Teaching Assistant--a grad student given the lowly task of assigning students to classes--stopped and asked if I needed help. Boy did I ever! Within five minutes my knight in shining armor had chosen three classes for me and signed me up. I didn't know or care what they were--my registration was done. I could go home and thaw out.

Professor Betsy Draine and her husband,
Professor Michael Hinden.

(Image Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison)

One of the classes my savior chose for me was "American Novelists 1914 to 1945," taught by Professor Betsy Draine. Her unabashed passion for Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Djuna Barnes was topped only by her out-and-out romance with William Faulkner. Faulkner may be greatest novelist of that era, and he is certainly the most difficult. But Professor Draine magically made The Sound And The Fury and Light In August as accessible as oxygen. She somehow transported her Wisconsin classroom directly to Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi. It may have been below zero outside, but during those three hours a week, a professor and twenty students were languid from the steamy heat of a Southern summer. I never again felt so entirely within a fictional world as I did then. Faulkner's Mississippi is a place I've never been, but I know every inch of it like a native.

William Faulkner at
the University of Virginia, 1957.
(Image Courtesy of University of Virginia)

All of these memories came rushing back to me when I read about a man I'm willing to bet takes his Virginia classroom to Yoknapatawpha, too. University of Virginia (UVA) professor Stephen Railton has just completed a new website Faulkner at Virginia: An Audio Archive. He has created digitized, streaming audio files of the lectures and speeches given by the Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning author when he served as the first Writer-in-Residence at the university in 1957 and 1958.

Faulkner in the
Classroom at UVA.
(Image Courtesy of University of Virginia)

Over the course of those two years, Faulkner spoke at 36 different public events and answered over 1,400 questions from audience members, according to the UVA collection. His speeches were recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, carried most often by two members of the English department, Frederick Gwynn and Joseph Blotner. Thanks to these two teachers and Professor Railton, anyone with an Internet connection has access to over 28 hours of Faulkner’s softly lilting Southern drawl. In the collection, Faulkner reads excerpts form his novels, and the complete text of several of his short stories, as well as discussing the creation of his body of work.

A Caricature of Faulkner From The Cover
of the University's Literary Magazine.
(Image Courtesy of University of Virginia)

Professor Railton has also painstakingly transcribed every audio file, so that nearly every word can be understood by the listener, despite the sometimes poor quality of the decades old reel-to-reel tapes. Also on the website are several revealing essays written by teachers and students who vividly recount their time in and out of the classroom with Faulkner. Dozens of photographs and newspaper articles from Faulkner's two year tenure at the university round out the archive.

William Faulkner Enjoying His
Favorite Pastime (Besides Drinking) In Virginia.
(Image Courtesy of University of Virginia)

Listening to the tapes, reading the essays and articles, and gazing upon the photos will take any online visitor deep into the unique world of William Faulkner. For me this was a true remembrance of things past. For I have already walked down the dusty roads and through the tall grass of Yoknapatawpha County. I visited Mississippi from a desk in a Wisconsin classroom. Professor Betsy Draine took me there in the palm of her hand.