Background

Gil Brewer was born November 20, 1922 in Cauandaigua, NY where he grew up. He was drafted into the Army in World War II. He served three years, the last in Marseilles, France. During that time, his family, (mother, father, two sisters and a brother) made a permanent move to St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1947, he joined them there.

Gil and his father were close. Not so, Gil and his mother. Mrs. Brewer had no understanding of writers, even though Gil’s father was also a writer. The home life was not happy-especially since the father, like son, was addicted to alcohol. His father later had a mental breakdown, was committed to a VA hospital, where he finally died. A tragic waste of a wonderful man.

Note: Gil worshipped his father: and worried through life that he’d end the same way.

Beginning of narrative:

Gil Brewer decided to become a writer at the age of nine, while watching his father type stories for the early pulp magazines. That drive never left him.

I met Gil later in 1947 through a mutual friend. He was intense, sensitive, warm-a very real person. I was married, with two teenage children. Writing drew us together. We met often to discuss it-his place, or mine, since we lived on opposite ends of the same block. He hadn’t sold yet.

At that time he was working on serious books-three under way at once, turning out literature. The ideas and plots were tremendous-unforgettable. I was amazed at his talent, recognizing what he read to me as “best seller” material.

Money in his family was scarce. There was hardly enough for mailing in a short story. At first, there had been checks from the Army and when they stopped; his mother was at him to get a job. But his writing meant more. It was vital to him. He tried to reassure her. She couldn’t believe that what he was doing was to any purpose. She ordered him to leave.

There was nothing else to do. Gil found a small porch in a boarding house for $5.00 a week. He moved in with his typewriter and a can of sweet potatoes. The tenants were four, kindly, old ladies, each with a room and kitchen privileges. He soon became their pet. The called him “the nice young man who drinks”; and gave him chicken wings from their dinners.

Money being imperative, and he decided to give up the fine writing he believed in, which would take far too much time. He turned from the early books with their stunning titles to what he called “pot boilers”, saying, maybe that’s what they want.

Our affair rapidly grew serious. Gil convinced me we should be together. He was young, handsome, and dynamic. It seemed an impossible step, but I was under his spell. My husband agreed to give me a divorce and take over the children. The divorce was painfully dragged out, but when it became final, we went to South Carolina and got married, telling no one.

Back in St. Petersburg, we took a small apartment. Very soon after, there came a first sale-a short story for $64.00. Gil was elated. He left with the check, almost hating to cash it. He arrived back with several bottles of liquor, assorted wines and beer.

Since the bedroom was small, he worked behind a screen in the kitchen, while I fried eggs on the other side. Peeking through, I could watch his changes of expression as he wrote. He finished “Satan is a Woman”, with a second, “So Rich, So Dead” on the way. He wrote easily, 1st draft, with the words flowing out faster than he could get them down.

A week later, he received a telegram from an important NY agent, Joe Shaw. He’d seen Gil’s work and wanted him as a client. Gil mailed in the two finished manuscripts. Joe offered them to Gold Medal, Fawcett Publications, who bought them on the spot and wished to see more.

Joe Shaw, better known as Captain Joe Shaw, considered Gil a genius. He felt that with proper handling and guidance, he could steer him to the top-one of the country’s best. He began to prepare a program of certain publications, he wished Gil to slant for. Three months later, Joe dropped dead in an elevator, while reading one of Gil’s scripts. Gil took it hard. Joe was not only an agent, he was a friend. Other agents followed. Gil was most happy when he got with Scott Meredith. He used to say, “When you have a good agent, it’s almost like a marriage”.

We moved to a larger apartment with a workroom. As the books piled up, the money flowed in. Gil spent, almost recklessly, for everything he’d never had, including cars. If he wasn’t pleased with one, he traded it in for another. Taking a loss was no problem for him.

Gil’s friends were a group of St. Pete authors, with whom we got together. The topic was invariably writing and there was much to be learned just listening, as they helped each other with plot, endings, beginnings-ideas. There was Day Keene, Talmage Powell, Harry Whittington, Jonathan Craig, Robert Turner and others. Gil was always dynamic. Writing lit him up. He became eloquent in discussions, his eyes black with excitement. He loved writing; he lived writing. If he discovered an aptitude in anyone, he encouraged and helped him get started. The result was two people sold; one became full time.

As his reputation grew, Gil shunned publicity, turning down interviews, TV appearances and such. He was a loner, who preferred to live quietly. Between books, he wrote short stories for the Mystery Magazines, many of which were anthologized. There were other stories of a different type for the better men’s magazines-400 in all.

Gil was a fitful writer. After a sale, he’d sometimes coast, until money was again a necessity. He couldn’t seem to save it. One morning, we discovered a can of beams on the shelf and a handful of change to be our total wealth. Two days later, very unexpectedly, there was a check in the mailbox for $3,000, as an over-printing on a book.

Sometimes, he drove himself mercilessly, once writing a book in three days - later another in five. The books were excellent, but after each, he fell into bed in nervous exhaustion. Only alcohol and pills helped him to sleep. For years he’d had to take medications. It was not new to combine the two.

We traveled a lot, visiting historical places, or a locality where he might place the next book. We drove without plan, staying in towns or villages we liked; often finding it necessary to visit the hospital before moving on. There’d always been drinking. It was a part of Gil’s life. In early years, he could handle it. Now, when it got too much, he had to have help.

Getting back to work was always pleasant for him; yet, he worked hard. Every finished book had sold, when a call came from his agent in NY. He said there were five Brewer books on the stands at once, that editors were clamoring for more and for God’s sake to send in anything laying around, even if it was written on toilet paper. Gil stood troubled. There were some finished manuscripts that he’d thought needed a re-write. I begged him to send them. His face told me the answer-no.

I think now that he couldn’t take the success. His alternative was to turn to the bottle and let the whole thing die down.

Gil had many talents and hobbies. He collected rare books. He played a cornet, listened to old jazz records, liking nothing better than to play along with them. He painted with ability; made beautiful music on the organ; read omnivorously – “filling up the tank”, as he called it; studied people. He could’ve been an actor. He had the voice. He could’ve been a comedian. He had the wit.

In the 1960s, he suffered a mental breakdown. There was no writing for almost four years; hardly any drinking, but other frightening developments. He seemed unaware of his condition, or actions. As time piled up, things worsened. It was finally imperative for my son, Ted, and I to drive him to Arcadia, Florida and have him committed to a branch of the State Hospital. The diagnosis was extremely bad.

Once there, he realized that something was very wrong. He, like his father, had the ability to immediately appear sober after weeks of drinking; or normal after weeks of insanity. With the help of wonder drugs, good doctors and a fine psychiatrist – plus that power of his – he pulled out of it and was released after a minimum stay, appearing to be in a much, improved state. Ted and I picked him up and brought him back to St. Petersburg. The recuperation at home took very much longer. He gradually returned to normalcy; picking up his life where he’d left off; and very thankful to be back at home. We made a few periodic visits to the hospital after that. He was to continue with the medications.

A few months later, he was writing well again, but sliding into his old ways. As assignments from Scott, Gil ghosted several books for known authors who were unable to meet their deadlines. The most backbreaking assignment concerned five enormous manuscripts of an Israeli soldier, with no talent for writing. They’d been bought for their timely and vital material. Gil’s job was to make them readable. A secretary was needed. With two stenorette machines, he dictated the books while she transcribed and typed them. They were snowed under for weeks with the enormity of the work. No matter how irksome a job, Gil was always dependable.

Later, he bought something he’d always wanted – a Porsche automobile. It was a gunmetal beauty; and rode like a baby buggy. After carefully breaking it in, he loved driving his Porsche down country roads with lots of turns, seeing how fast he could take them. In 1970, he cracked it up. His injuries were severe. The car was totaled. Because of the high content of alcohol in his system, the doctors could not give him the usual medication to prevent the DTs; nor could they medicate him against pain, since it might cause the punctured lung to collapse. He was left in a closed room to yell and curse in his agony-his powerful voice heard throughout the hospital. The yelling, they said, was good for the lung. At home, it was a long, slow recovery. Alcohol and pills killed the pain, if he took enough of them.

The last seven years of his life were miserable. He’d been warned many times of the effect of alcohol on the brain cells. He’d invariably shrugged it off, thinking himself invulnerable. Despite his strong constitution, his body was changing in various ways, showing the results of drinking. He’d tried AA several times; and though he tried hard, was unable to really get with the program. One Hospital, entirely devoted to alcoholism, termed him as their worse case in twenty years.

Most of his time was spent, painfully, in bed. Sometimes he sat at the typewriter, waiting for the words to come, but they didn’t make sense. Nothing he wrote was salable. The bottle was his only solace.

In a sober period, Gil became elated with the idea of writing his life story. The agency, equally enthusiastic, okayed it. Knowing something of his life, they realized what a book it would be. Gil worked hard, got 50 pages in the mail, then waited. He felt he’d done well. The pages were rejected. Anxiety and depression set in. He was a broken man, calling himself a failure.

There were binges, falls, broken bones and hospitals. They told him he couldn’t keep it up. The complications from his drinking were difficult to deal with-periodic nightmares.

Gil had always been kind and affectionate. When mean words were flung at him, he held no resentment, but even comforted in return, having a great awareness of the other person’s unhappiness. Everyone loved him.

After his death on January 9, 1983, Wyoming University wanted all his books, manuscripts, stories-everything to do with his career. The Gil brewer Collection is on file at the American Heritage Center at Laramie. Their program is a study of the Arts of the Nineteenth Century. A great honor.

An added note; Scott, having seen 50 pages of one of Gil’s early books, pronounced it “the finest writing he’d seen of Gil's”. Another of these books rewritten by Gil and sold in a shortened version as a “potboiler” was “13 French Stree”, reprinted 15 times. I mention these to show the worth of his early writing.

Verlaine Brewer