| In his essay "Sifting the Ashes," the writer | | | | - he went from Yale to the Marines to the |
| Jonathan Franzen has the following to say | | | | CIA, wrote for the Japan Times (it was part |
| about the smoking habit he struggles to quit: | | | | of his cover), lived in Crete, and wrote the |
| "[W]hen you're smoking, you're acutely | | | | massive, tripped-out series of literary |
| present to yourself: you step outside the | | | | espionage novels known as the Jerusalem |
| unconscious forward rush of life." | | | | Quartet, a work lauded by Tom Robbins as - |
| | | | like a bowl of hashish pudding - and by |
| Beautiful words, with which many cigar | | | | Jonathon Carroll as a book that |
| smokers would agree. Perhaps that's why so | | | | |
| many of history's most famous and best-loved | | | | "makes your soul grow." (To give you an idea: |
| writers are hard to mentally picture without | | | | one of the books is about a 12-year-long game |
| a cigar: Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, | | | | of poker in which the winner becomes owner of |
| Gertrude Stein, Collette, George Sand, Karl | | | | the Holy Land. That's just the plot of one of |
| Marx. Not terrible company, and they're not | | | | them.) Yet the Quartet went out of print |
| alone. Some major contemporary writers are | | | | after only a few years, and Whittemore ended |
| cigar smokers as well. | | | | his days in dire poverty and obscurity, |
| | | | working as a photocopier for a law firm. |
| Paul Auster | | | | |
| | | | In 2003, eight years after his death, the |
| Born in Newark, New Jersey, Paul Auster | | | | Quartet was republished to all-but-universal |
| graduated from Columbia, then moved to Paris, | | | | acclaim; Jim Hougan, writing in Harper's, |
| France to eke out a living as a | | | | called it "one of the last, best arguments |
| French-literature translator. He's been | | | | against television" and Whittemore - an |
| married to two highly-regarded American | | | | author of extraordinary talents. His friend |
| writers "Siri Hustvedt (currently) and, | | | | Thomas C. Wallace remembers his love of |
| before that, Lydia Davis, who is also known | | | | cigars: "We walked the woods and fields of |
| for her translation work - and his novels The | | | | southern Vermont by day, sat in front of the |
| New York Trilogy and Moon Palace are modern | | | | house after dinner on solid green Adirondack |
| classics. He's known for using the shape of | | | | chairs, drinks in hand and smoking cigars." |
| the detective story to entertain larger | | | | In a similar spirit, lovers of fine cigars |
| questions about the meaning of identity, of | | | | should search out his one-of-a-kind novels - |
| language, and of existence. But his biggest | | | | after all, premium cigar smokers already know |
| fame - and his importance to smokers - came | | | | that the most immediately accessible |
| when he wrote and co-directed the movie | | | | pleasures aren't always the deepest. |
| Smoke, a landmark of American indie cinema | | | | |
| set in a Brooklyn cigar shop. | | | | John Grisham |
| | | | |
| Centered on Auggie Wren, owner of the | | | | You probably know that John Grisham is an |
| Brooklyn Cigar Company - a sort of | | | | ex-lawyer and the biggest-selling novelist of |
| existential Dew Drop Inn where large | | | | the 1990s, but you probably don't know about |
| cross-sections of humanity gather - it | | | | his charity work, his advocacy on behalf of |
| ponders the random yet seemingly meaningful | | | | the wrongly imprisoned, his tireless support |
| connections among various people, a major | | | | of less-commercially-successful writers - or |
| theme in Auster's writing (as well as of | | | | the fact that it's been said he smokes four |
| several other major American art films from | | | | cigars a week. In addition to writing the |
| the same period - consider Short Cuts and | | | | well-loved legal thrillers The Firm and A |
| Magnolia). Auster's selection of a smoke shop | | | | Time To Kill, among others (as well as such |
| as his setting renders the film, which is | | | | departures as A Painted House), he has done |
| based on one of his own short stories, | | | | missionary and relief work in Brazil and |
| especially meaningful for diehard cigar | | | | service on the board of the Innocence |
| smokers. | | | | Project, which uses DNA testing to exonerate |
| | | | the wrongfully convicted. Perhaps all of this |
| Edward Whittemore | | | | is why he ended up on one of Cigar |
| | | | Aficionado's lists of the top hundred |
| Here's an artist with a colorful life indeed | | | | smokers. |