Blue Genes Read online

  For I am a perennial survivor. I don’t mean that I have some fated victim’s life, but I have managed to live in the shadow of my legacy of suicide through connectivity and family and psychotherapy, among other blessings.

  Beyond those, beyond rational structures and supports, and whatever skills of life I possess, my survival has had an element of luck. Good luck in finding the right way to talk about the past; luck in finding the right therapist to listen; luck in finding the wife who would help me fight my depressive episodes and suffer through them with me; luck in having two extraordinary daughters with whom to share the good times; luck in being born with a disposition different from others in my family; and luck in finding ways to use the experiences in my life to help myself—and others.

  If our genes are more good than bad, if our DNA or traumas don’t cripple our ability to learn as we get older, if nothing sticks us to the past despairs, we can survive; we can thrive.

  So, despite the despair, luck and inborn temperament enable me to get out of bed in the morning and into life. I know that my morning mantra subsides once I get on with my day. I know that there are still things to do that make my life meaningful, and that I can protect and comfort myself.

  I have learned how to throw the shoe at the wall, how to grieve, how to talk about the events in my life so that I shift the burden a little more each time there is a sudden death. I have learned not to fall prey to my own implosive, self-destructive impulses.

  IN LOOKING AT THE YEARS SINCE TONY’S SUICIDE, I can see that the two whys? collide: why Tony succumbed to despair and died, and why I have not.

  They collide, and then, like wavy lines on an oscilloscope, part again.

  My mother, my father, my uncle, my aunts, my grandmothers, and my brother are all dead.

  But I am alive.

  Envoi

  As this book was going to press I faced another sudden, unexpected loss: Susan—friend, wife, mother, aunt, and grandmother, novelist, playwright, painter, psychotherapist—exemplary in all arenas—died; too young, too vigorous, far too precious to all of us to disappear so precipitously from our lives. We don’t know exactly what caused her death—some aberration of the heart—but it’s not important: her evaporation from our lives is what matters. The loss is profound.

  I truly meant what I said with the words that form the dedication to this book (written before her death): Susan saved my life in more ways than one. She supported my writing and filmmaking because she knew being creative was my road to psychological salvation, as her works and good works were hers. She knew that our love, our travels, and our children were our emotional salvation. And she knew that empathy and generosity were the greatest gifts to bestow: she felt deeply, and gave generously to all. Her ability to forgive—except when someone hurt a child—was astonishing and wonderful to behold. Our own children, Megan and Gabriela, found her an invaluable companion, filled with an unsmotherable sense of humor. Whenever tension threatened to dismantle us, or events got too heavy, Susan would crack a joke and then—even as outsiders looked askance—say, “This is too important to be serious.” Susan did not get to read this book—wanting to wait until it was published. I grieve not so much because I won’t receive her measured and accurate response to it, but because she will not see how important her role was: as gentle critic, supporter, lover, partner. We buried Susan where and how she would have wanted it. An eclectic funeral, with a Scottish bagpiper high on the hill and stupid jokes mixing with impassioned, grief-filled speeches at the graveside. To say she will be missed is a paltry statement of gratitude for our lives together. Her demise makes the other deaths and crises in my life seem wan and unimportant.

  Acknowledgments

  First off, thanks to Linda Healey for permission to publish excerpts from Tony’s letters. Also, to the Schamberg family for permission to use a crucial letter from Ira.

  Also high up on this list is Christine Tomasino, my agent, who had faith in me many years ago, continued to encourage, uphold, and support my work, and saw possibilities in this book when others did not. For mentorship, perseverance, good humor, and knowing the field of publishing, she deserves a medal of honor—if I can ever devise one.

  In the family-and-friend category, aside from Susan, there are our daughters, Megan and Gabriela, who kept me sane. And Rafael Abramovitz—old friend, who told me to keep writing and let no one stop me.

  Finally, Charlie Conrad, my editor, whose immediate excitement for Blue Genes energized me and led me to keep working on it after I believed I had finished. As a young editor in the old tradition, he has shepherded this book through the publishing world with verve and great support.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHRISTOPHER LUKAS has worked as a writer, producer, and director in public and commercial television, and has won Emmy Awards for his programs. He is the author and coauthor of five books. Lukas lives near New York City, where he is continuing to make films, write books, and work as a film and stage actor.

  PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY

  Copyright © 2008 by Christopher Lukas

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Doubleday, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY is a registered trademark and the DD colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Frontispiece photograph from a family photo album: White Plains, 1939. All photographs are courtesy of the author.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Lukas, Christopher.

  Blue genes: a memoir of loss and survival / Christopher

  Lukas. —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Depressed persons—Biography. 2. Depression, Mental. 3. Manic-depressive illness—Anecdotes. I. Title.

  RC537.L784 2008

  616.85'270092—dc22

  [B]

  2008006648

  eISBN: 978-0-385-52843-6

  v3.0