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