When Larry met Diane

"The guests departed and Diane went to change, as I watched night settle over Central Park. Then something tilted, and it tilted downward. She changed clothes four or five times, but then lots of ladies change clothes several times, as they decide who they are for the evening. Diane is a beautiful woman, known for her acute fashion sense. She looks good in anything.

Or so I had thought, until, finally, she emerged in a bowler hat and a brown suit that made her look square, and not square as in uncool, but square as in "not a rectangle but a square." It was if she had searched not only her own closets but all of Central Park West and found the one outfit that did not become her. Why?

As we waited in sudden misery for the elevator she turned to me and said in a tone to pierce the heart: "I look like a clown."

It was scary, not silly, and it wasn't about the clothes. What she couldn't find was anyone to be: and, forced to a choice, she chose the Clown. In so doing she humbled herself, and would scarcely look at me. With that moment in mind, when I scan the photographs she has located and sponsored, whether about clowns or salesmen or actors, I can see that a high percentage of them are of people life has humbled—even if they don't yet quite realize it. What happened that evening was that the Clown Inside tried to call her home."

NewYorkReviewOfBooks: Diane Keaton on Photography by Larry McMurtry, November 8, 2007

Art: Clown With Big Pants, not dated, Everett Shinn