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“A moving, humorous and gripping dialogue that offers a faithful
and fascinating view of Walt Whitman in his last days.”
Since its publication in 2003, Goodbye My Fancy has had several acclaimed theatrical productions.
Now we are excited to announce the release of a new audiobook
version of Goodbye My Fancy,
with Academy Award-nominated actor Paul Raci as the voice of Walt Whitman.
To mark this milestone, we are also issuing a special
newly revised companion edition of the book.
Paul Raci says, "I first discovered Walt Whitman as a young actor, and to this day, his poetry continues to bring me meaning. His words, celebrating the individual and singing the praise of all things, seems to have more resonance now than ever. It’s a privilege to give voice to this great man’s remarkable conversations during his last days, which have been faithfully recreated by Judith Grace in her wonderful play Goodbye My Fancy."
THE STORY
Recreating three evenings late in Whitman's life, Goodbye My Fancy offers a truthful, intimate and touching look at our greatest American poet and his friendship with his secretary Horace Traubel.
Every day, for the last four years of Whitman’s life, Traubel rode the ferry over from Philadelphia and visited his friend and mentor in his small home on 328 Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey. There, in his seventies, the great poet sat in his rocking chair, partially paralyzed, surrounded by a sea of papers, looking back over his life and accepting his quickly approaching death.
Within hours of each visit (unbeknownst to Whitman), Traubel faithfully jotted down his every word and action as his garrulous friend ranged over a myriad of subjects. The result was a complete and accurate record of the groundbreaking poet in all of his many moods—playful, passionate, questioning, tender, lyrical—which was later published in the 9-volume series
With Walt Whitman in Camden, called "the most truthful biography in our language."
WALT
I suppose there will be all sorts of stories set afloat by all sorts of liars when I am gone. And that’s where you’ll come in, Horace – to set the crooked straight. That’ll be your time. And be sure you answer honest, so help you God. Whatever you do, do not prettify me. Include all the hells and damns.
HORACE
I promise not to help send you down into history wearing another man’s clothes.
WALT
That’s all I could ask, Horace.
Goodbye My Fancy was drawn almost entirely from these volumes. It loosely reconstructs the visits on three days in 1890, 1891, and 1892 (March 26, the day of Whitman's death). Through the witty and affectionate repartee of the two unlikely friends, we are in the room with them experiencing these moments just as they happened. It is not like being there; it is being there.
It has their heartbeat; their sense of immediacy.
Over the course of the play, Whitman reminisces to Horace about the horrors of the Civil War (in which he served as a nurse), the death of Lincoln, the reception of his book Leaves of Grass—which was banned for being obscene. He alludes to his “great secret”—“the cat has a long tail,
a very long tail.”
He celebrates his 72nd birthday, puts the finishing touches on his final edition, sends loving messages and donuts to his friends, recalls long-lost moments of his childhood on Paumanok (Long Island), expresses his loathing for sermons and priests, all the while meeting his own suffering and impending death with astonishing equanimity.
Also woven in is a recitation by Whitman of his beautiful poem of old age "Song at Sunset," Horace's reading of "Goodbye My Fancy," the titular poem, as well as a poignant reading of one of Whitman's letters to the parents of a deceased Civil War soldier he had lovingly tended.
"This is my birthday gift to the world – my last – my parting gift. The world has made many birthday gifts to me. A fair exchange is no robbery."
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Horace Traubel
Horace Traubel
Horace Traubel
Horace Traubel
Horace Traubel
About the Author
A fun fact about Judith Grace: She spent her childhood in Huntington, Long Island, near Walt Whitman's birthplace, and passed his house every day on the way to Walt Whitman High School (where she was editor-in-chief of the "Walt Whitman Window"!) Not surprisingly, her favorite childhood book was Leaves of Grass, which inspired her career as a poet, author and playwright.
Paul Raci
Paul Raci, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his moving role in Sound of Metal, plays the role of Whitman.
Our Audiobook Team
From left to right: Jessica Koplos, Producer; Paul Raci, Walt Whitman; Michael Golding,
Horace Traubel; Judith Grace, Author; Conrad Cecil, Director
Here’s what reviewers have said about Goodbye My Fancy:
Robert MacIsaac Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Robert MacIsaac Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Robert MacIsaac Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
"A distillation in three simple, sometimes humorous, and always poignant scenes of the many, many nights that Horace and Walt passed together. Read this dialogue and enter into the world that was 328 Mickle Street in those years ... It gives us what no formal biography could ever give us."
Ed Folsom, Mickle Street Review
Robert MacIsaac Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Robert MacIsaac Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
"Playwright and poet Judith Grace offers an engaging new dramatic recreation of three evenings late in Whitman’s life, the final one the evening of his death. ... It’s a play that at once fascinates and frustrates, one that will at any rate get the audience talking, carrying on the conversation that Good-bye My Fancy initiates by staging those still-vital conversations Horace Traubel had with Walt Whitman well over a century ago."
Gary Shmidgall, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
Robert MacIsaac Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Jeanne Chapman, Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
"A tour de force role of the voluble valetudinarian and the role of his wry, rather laconic young 'background man.'"
Jeanne Chapman, Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Jeanne Chapman, Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Jeanne Chapman, Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
“A moving, humorous, and ultimately gripping dialogue that offers a faithful and fascinating view of Walt Whitman in his last days.”
Gary Shmidgall, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
Jeanne Chapman, Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Gary Shmidgall, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
"Walt predicted that Horace's busy note-taking would capture 'the pulse and throb of the critter' he was better than any biographer could, and Grace has succeeded in preserving that pulse and throb while quilting together many choice patches of Mickle Street chat."
Erick Bledsoe, Review of Indie Books
Jeanne Chapman, Co-editor, With Walt Whitman in Camden
Gary Shmidgall, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
"The strength of Good-bye My Fancy is its language, not surprising since much of it was first uttered by America’s greatest poet."
Hugh James, The Story of Man
Robert MacIsaac, Co-editor With Walt Whitman in Camden
Robert MacIsaac, Co-editor With Walt Whitman in Camden
"Goodbye My Fancy can take its place beside Leaves of Grass as a second great statement of the man himself."
Robert MacIsaac, Co-editor With Walt Whitman in Camden
Robert MacIsaac, Co-editor With Walt Whitman in Camden
Robert MacIsaac, Co-editor With Walt Whitman in Camden
“The dialogue in these pages is a dialogue of truth. The conversations were real conversations, the situations and emotions, real situations and emotions, even many of the physical actions described actually took place.”
Gary Shmidgall, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
Robert MacIsaac, Co-editor With Walt Whitman in Camden
Gary Shmidgall, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
"Good-bye My Fancy's chief pleasure and value are that it retires (at least temporarily) that benign eminence, the Famous Good Gray Poet, and introduces a mercurially witty, angry, quizzical, clear-eyed, weary-bodied, or passionate Walt – a Walt far more candid than he ever would have been in the formal public utterances of his last decade."
Ed Folsom, Mickle Street Review
Ray Olson, American Library Association
Gary Shmidgall, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
"Staging this play will certainly require two actors who can mesmerize the audience with their voices and stage presence, since there is little else to hold the audience. It’s a play, after all, about physical stasis, about the body unable to move even while the mind can’t sit still: Whitman’s open road is at a dead end now, and all he can do is take backward glances, be grateful for his industrious friend Horace, and accept his quickly approaching death."
Ray Olson, American Library Association
Ray Olson, American Library Association
Ray Olson, American Library Association
"Some 25 years ago, Minneapolis actor-playwright Paul Boesing adapted Whitman's personal epic "Song of Myself" into an extraordinarily effective one-man play; it helped that Boesing shared flowing hair and beard with the poet. Grace, too, uses Whitman's own words, in her two-person drama reconstructing the visits on three days in 1890, 1891, and 1892 (March 26, the day he died), respectively, of Horace Traubel (1858-1919) to the bed- and wheelchair-bound bard. Her source is With Walt Whitman in Camden, Traubel's nine-volume cache of Whitmania, which includes his transcriptions of their conversations, written up from his notes as soon as possible afterward. Since what Traubel recorded is of a piece, stylistically, with Whitman's writing, Grace doesn't have to strain for the universalizing tone of his poetry. She includes swatches of his antinomianism, be-your-own-God sentimentality, Lincoln worship, and caginess about his sexuality--all fairly objectionable; however, they are, ultimately, blemishes that point up the beauty of Whitman's essential benignity and the sweetness of his and Traubel's friendship."
Michael Golding, from the Introduction
Ray Olson, American Library Association
Ray Olson, American Library Association
"The deep affinity between Whitman and Traubel – so lovingly preserved in With Walt Whitman in Camden – is beautifully portrayed in Judith Grace's touching play Goodbye My Fancy."
From Goodbye My Fancy
WALT
Mighty changes are coming, Horace – are soon to come – when the whole affair of sex will be treated with the respect to which it is entitled. Instead of meaning shame and being apologized for, it will mean purity and will be glorified. Sex – sex – sex! Whether you sing or make a machine, or go to the North Pole, or love your mother, or build a house, black shoes – or anything – anything at all – it’s sex – sex – sex! Sex is the root of all – sex – the coming together of men and women – sex – sex –
HORACE
(Breaking in)
And marriage? What of marriage?
WALT
I don’t know about marriage. But about love – well love will always take care of itself.
HORACE
And free love?
WALT
Why, are you catechizing me? Free love? Is there any other kind of love?
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