As Father’s Day approaches, many of us reflect on the influence our dads have had on who we’ve become. For Rue Matthiessen, that influence was profound—and literary.
Rue is the daughter of the late Peter Matthiessen, the three-time National Book Award winner and co-founder of the Paris Review. His work spanned six decades and shaped modern American literature.
Though Rue once resisted the writer’s life, she eventually found herself pulled into the world her father lived so fully. And when she did, he was still there, in spirit, guiding her.
In her moving new essay, “My Dad Was a Literary Icon. After His Death, He Helped Me Create a Character That Keeps His Best Side Alive,” Rue reflects on how her father, even in death, helped her shape the character of George Clayton, an abstract expressionist painter in her novel Woman With Eyes Closed. George is fictional, but deeply inspired by the lovable side of the man Rue knew best: her father in his corduroys, with his rumpled linen suit, sly humor, and relentless discipline at the writing desk.
Rue’s essay is a literary love letter and a rare personal glimpse into the private side of a public figure. It’s also a compelling piece about late blooming, creative inheritance, and how art can be a vessel for memory.
My Dad was a Literary Icon. After His Death, He Helped Me Create a Character That Keeps His Best Side Alive. This Father’s Day, I Honor That Legacy
By Rue Matthiessen
Everyone in my family was a writer—my uncle Kenny Love, my mother Deborah Love, and most successfully, my father, Peter Matthiessen. His career lasted sixty years, and produced thirty-six books. Nonetheless, I did announce many times that I would never “be a writer.” No, no —not me—not ever. What a life. So static, so stuffy, so invisible. I wanted to be a singer. I’d think of my father’s worn corduroys, his hole-y sweater, his dogged routine of granola, giant mug of coffee in the kitchen, then going out to his studio in the orchard by about 7:30 every morning and staying there all day except for about one half hour for lunch. Then working into the night on correspondence, sometimes in front of the teeny TV in the living room, sometimes in a small study he had upstairs. I saw it as a sort of self determined plod, not having yet grasped the reasons. Having not yet understood. Why would anyone do this to themselves?
It took a lot of years to figure out why. But I have observed that for late bloomers, as they transition to full fledged adulthood, parents must be rejected or encountered and given a grade of some kind, and sometimes all three. I did this, to begin with, by reading.
I read his work, over and over again, and I found shifting meanings. Not shifting in what he intended the narrative to be, but shifting in terms of how I responded to it. This is a hallmark of good writing—you read the same book at different periods of your life and find new gems. This was absolute magic to me. Could I pull off anything like it? After all, I had always kept a journal. And I read copiously. And so, because I was the one who read a lot, we talked words, my father and I.
When we were kids he’d bring us little puzzles. For example he’d ask what is the difference between “complicated” and “complex,” or between “elucidate” and “explain.” I’d give my answers, which he seemed to find interesting. Later on, we’d talk about books. I went through a Dickens phase, a James phase, a Muriel Spark phase, and many, many others. I liked Don DeLillo, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edith Wharton. I went to a Paris Review Revel with him and met Zadie Smith. Her book White Teeth changed my life, in terms of what was possible on the page. All of these books and writers sparked something in him and in me. He was never a faker about things that mattered. Without me realizing it, and in the sneakiest way, he was engendering and nurturing my love of words, the joy I had in the ability to precisely articulate something.
By my mid to late twenties the rejection phase was finally fizzling out, (late bloomer). The singing hadn’t panned out, so I tried investment banking, which was a complete bust. I then worked for a trade press in Manhattan. After three months I realized I was unhappy being in a corporate environment. From fifty-two stories up it was not possible to open a window, though Central Park in springtime spread out far below like a moving tapestry. I felt like a trapped bird fluttering against the glass. I dyed my hair black and quit. I got a job in a bakery, which was at least an experience that was tangible.
Eventually, I did exactly what I said I’d never do—I began to write. I did all kinds of jobs, cater-waitressing, baking, cooking, retail, and bookstores to support myself and leave my time flexible enough for a daily writing practice. Once I began, I got the “writing bug,” as my father called it, with a bemused expression on his face. From there we went on “talking shop.” It was a struggle for me, and I’d labor long at a paragraph. He gave me all kinds of insights. One of them I will never forget. He said, “Most writers have to write, there isn’t an alternative.” Another one was, “The writing life is like a bowl of honey, you just have to lick it off a thorn.”
Well, he was right. It was tough. After he died I missed these talks very much. It was strengthening to know that even someone as successful as he was still struggled at times. I cherish those memories of being understood and supported by him.
In 2012 I heard about the heist in Rotterdam, where the painting by Lucian Freud called Woman with Eyes Closed was stolen along with several other old masters works. I was captivated with the story; I followed every development on the news. I thought I might have a novel in it, there were so many possibilities. I expounded on the facts, and had the stolen paintings migrate to the town I grew up in. I created the character of abstract expressionist painter George Clayton based on my father. George sees talent in his daughter Perrin, who will, later in the narrative, attempt to find the missing works. George is not particularly materialistic, and gives her and her husband Jack a multi-million dollar piece of oceanfront land as a wedding present. He doesn’t want to be pushy or meddlesome, but he finds ways to encourage his daughter, while worrying about her. Though—like most artists, he is primarily interested in whatever he’s working on. He’s charming in an old world way. He has a rumpled linen suit, blue, that he breaks out for special occasions. He almost always has fishing lures in his pocket. He rarely swears. He has an excellent, if dark, sense of humor. When the weather allows, he rides to the ocean every day at about five o’clock for a dip. He works constantly, and is happiest at work on a project that’s going well. He hardly ever takes a day off. He wears a sweater with holes in it and worn out corduroys, and doesn’t notice at all.
As I wrote George Clayton into being in my novel Woman With Eyes Closed, I realized I was capturing the best of my father—not just the details, but the essence. His integrity. His humor. His steadfast belief in the value of doing the work, day after day. I may have spent years resisting the path he walked, but now, with every page I write, I feel closer to him.
This Father’s Day, I celebrate the unexpected gift he gave me—not just the love of words, but the example of a life built around them. Through this character, I get to keep that part of him alive for myself, and for others.
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Rue Matthiessen is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose essays and short fiction have appeared in numerous literary journals. She is the author of three books: the novel Woman With Eyes Closed (2025), the memoir Castles & Ruins (2024) about growing up in Sagaponack, NY, among writers driven by fierce literary ambition, and Buttonwood Cottage, chronicling the renovation of a Caribbean house, scuba diving, and the natural beauty of Bonaire. Recently she was featured in the Bridgehampton Museum’s Distinguished Lecturer Series and the Longhouse Talks series in East Hampton. She lives on the East End of Long Island.
