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Lars Eeighner, who vividly describes his experiences of being homeless in his book “Travels With Lizbeth”, which is considered one of the best memoirs of recent years, died on December 23 in Austin, Texas. He was 73 years old.
Publishing “Travels With Lizbeth” in 1993, St. Dori Weintraub, vice president of promotion at Martin’s Press, told St. She said she recently learned of Martin’s death. No other details were given. Mr. Eeighner has been somewhat reclusive in recent years.
Mr. Eeighner (pronounced EYE-ner) was a clerk at what he called the “government mental institution” in Austin and, as he wrote in his book, occasionally sold erotic stories to gay magazines when he resigned from his job. threatened with expulsion” and had a hard time. “Travels With Lizbeth” – Lizbeth was her dog – chronicles roughly three years of Mr. Eeighner’s spending, beginning in the late 1980s, homeless, hitchhiking, and finding food wherever he can find it, including other people’s trash.
An article he wrote while still homeless, “On the Dumpster Dive” He reached the literary magazine The Threepenny Review, which was published in 1991.
“Many people, not all of the bohemian type, are willing to brag about finding this or that piece in the trash,” Mr. Eeighner wrote. “But eating from the trash is what separates amateurs from professionals. Eating safely from dumpsters involves three principles: using the senses and common sense to assess the condition of found materials, knowing and regularly checking the Bins of a particular area, and always asking ‘Why was this thrown out?’ seek an answer to the question. ”
The frequently anthologized article received widespread attention and led to the publication of “Travels with Lizbeth.” Mr. Eeighner wrote the book occasionally and often worked on a portable typewriter in a gay bar. Later, with the help of an editor, he shredded the original cumbersome manuscript.
The book received widespread attention, including on the cover of The New York Times Book Review.
“This book takes us deep into that other country that lies in the streets all around us.” Written by Jonathan Raban in this review. “With generous, patient details, he recreates the grammar, perspective, and home economics of homeless life, and if there is any justice in the world, its author must guarantee a roof over his head for the rest of his days.”
When the book was published, Mr. Eeighner did indeed have a roof over his head, but in 1996 he returned to homelessness for a time. At the time of her death, she and her husband, Cliff Hexamer, were living on money, sometimes seeking help on GoFundMe.
And even though it’s a comic that Mr. Eeighner wrote in the 1980s, “Pawn to Queen Four” and a collection of essays called “Gay Cosmos” was published in 1995, its literary output dried up.
“I knew from the beginning that the book was sui generis,” Mr. Eeighner wrote in the epilogue to the 2013 edition of “Travels With Lizbeth,” and “I have no quarrel with those who prefer to call it a coincidence. In any case, I knew this book couldn’t lead to a sequel or a series, unlike someone who’s caught up in the alien flavor of the moon.”
Laurence Vail Eeighner was born on November 25, 1948, in Corpus Christi, Texas, to Lawrence and Alice Elizabeth (Vail) Eeighner. He grew up in Houston, graduating from high school there, and then attended Rice University and the University of Texas. In 1993, he told The Houston Chronicle that a combination of migraine headaches and being at odds with his family over his sexual orientation prevented him from finishing his degree.
In the 1970s she worked in a crisis center for people with drug or emotional problems. While working at Austin State Hospital in 1987, a disagreement with a supervisor caused him to quit and drove him into homelessness.
He sought both public and private help, he wrote in his book, but was turned down for one reason or another, including by the Roman Catholic Church.
“I was told there that I was openly disqualified for any benefit for neglecting to give birth to children I could not care for,” she wrote in a line symbolizing the cynical touch that permeates the book.
When he began writing about his experiences, editor and novelist Steven Saylor, who had worked for a gay magazine that had published Mr. Eeighner’s work, served as the conduit for the release of “Dumpster Diving” and other trailers.
“When I started writing this book, I had a 750-page manuscript covering this time period,” Mr. Eighner told The Austin American-Statesman in 1993. “There was more than one book in there. When I found out what they wanted was a homeless book, all I had to do was pick the good parts.”
Despite the success of this book, in 1998 Mr. Eeighner on the verge of homelessness still. Some writers in the Austin area intervened and kept him off the streets.
“Life is still not stable enough for me to feel comfortable for a big undertaking like writing a novel,” he told The Times at the time. “It’s still a penny thing for macaroni and cheese.”
In “Travels with Lizbeth,” he wrote about an important figure in his life whom he called Clint. This was Cliff Hexamer, whom Mr. Eeighner married in 2015, taking Hexamer as his legal name. Mr. Hexamer gets rid of him.
A panel of critics called “Travels With Lizbeth” for The Times in 2019 one of the top 50 memories of the last 50 years.
The Times spoke to Mr. Eeighner in 1999 about the differences between being homeless and owning a home, and his mood.
“I have an almost constant fear of going back to the streets,” he said. “It’s like being on a glass staircase. No matter how high I go, when I look down I see the bottom.”
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