Dan's Papers - May 23, 2008 - Dan's Book Review: In The Hamptons

Dan Rattiner, the founder of this publication, has been filling the paper for over 45 years with his stories of the East End that have amused, informed and outraged readers. If "colorful" describes pleasant, slice of life writing, then Dan's tales are of kaleidoscopic proportion, multifaceted with shards of color bursting from rich undercoatings. And now, Dan has published some of his favorite stories in his first book of memoirs, In The Hamptons, My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities.

A digression for full disclosure: I've been Managing Editor of this paper since February. In the first few months, Dan and I would have breakfast at Poxabogue and over fruit salad and cottage cheese, he'd give me insight to his decades-long success strategy. "The paper is like a handshake," he said. "It should welcome the reader."

In In The Hamptons, Dan follows the same strategy, welcoming readers and letting them in on East End's lore, legends, secrets and skeletons. As a memoir, it's based on personal experiences. But the book is more than that. It's a view of Hamptons modern history as perceived largely by an intrepid young publisher and recounted by a master veteran storyteller. Unlike Philistines at the Hedgerow, a dense Hamptons history book based largely on historic research, In The Hamptons is a quick, light and often very funny read. Dan wrote and still writes most of his essays on the beach - and that easy feeling and tone is conveyed in his stories, meant to be read at leisure, for leisure.

Yet at the same time, readers will come away from this book with a treasure trove of information that will enrich their experience in the Hamptons and provide great anecdotes to impress and astound on the party circuit. Dan parses out bits of history in a most palatable manner - they're woven into the fabric of a good story.

The chapter "Babette Tweed" is a good example. At 21, Dan was smitten by the beautiful young woman, the daughter of a wealthy New Yorker who owned a grand home in Montauk. His attempt at a clandestine midnight meeting with Babette was thwarted by sand, surf and mad dogs. As you read the unrequited love story of a young man risking life and limb, you learn about the elite Montauk Association of the 1880s, Dick Cavett's purchase of the Tweed house, and a tidbit about Andy Warhol's Montauk estate.

All of the chapter titles in the book, in fact, are simply names - some famous, like John Steinbeck, Jackson Pollack, George Plimpton, Billy Joel - others arcane, like Nonie Self, Merton Tyndall, Howie Caroll Jr. Sometimes the ensuing essay is focused on that person. Other times, the title may be a bit of a bait and switch - the personality is actually anecdotal in the story. This is the case for example, in the chapter "Jackson Pollack." It provides little new information on Pollack, who had been dead five years at the time of this anecdote, but it shines a light on the culture of bonackers (if you don't know that word, please read the book as soon as possible).

For me, the most successful chapters are those that achieve both - provide new information on the personality and weave in history. The Steinbeck chapter achieves this. It's a first hand, unusual account of the moody writer who became the poster child for Sag Harbor, leading the town's first Old Whaler's Festival in 1963; and it provides a cultural and economic snapshot of the struggling village of Sag Harbor at the time.

Similarly, the chapter on Balcomb Greene, the abstract expressionist painter who lived and worked in Montauk, gets you right into his house, and includes an account of the WWII Navy destroyer that was shipwrecked on his property in 1961.

In some chapters, Dan simply celebrates his own achievements of building and running a publication. Others recount his early hoaxes - the Flight to Portugal from Montauk by car; the sea serpent in Long Pond; the Howard Hughes sighting in Montauk. They outraged the likes of newsman Jim Jensen and pianist/restaurateur Bobby Van, and they outrage people today - I have friends who stopped reading the paper because they believed there was a Hampton Subway.

Through it all, Dan sticks to his strategy of welcoming us to the Hamptons - a place not necessarily known for its hospitality and warmth - making us, too, feel comfortable among the farmers, fishermen, artists, billionaires and celebrities as we learn about this unique place.

Recently, I was at the Maritime Museum in Amagansett, a place I've visited many times. But I'd never noticed a display with a model of a ship and a large banner that read "Pelican." Did you know that New Yorkers used to come out on a red eye train called the "Fisherman's Special" that pulled into Montauk at 4 a.m., to go out commercial fishing boats? Did you know that one of those boats, the Pelican, headed out overloaded and with only one engine working, capsized in a storm, and resulted in 45 people lost at sea? Dan Rattiner knows that. And now, so do you.