Connections: Down Memory Lane
Tony Prohaska’s memoir, “The White Fence,” which he introduced at the East Hampton Library in October, is a mother lode of local history, anecdote, and opinion. Imagine a coming-of-age story set here in the second half of the 20th century, as a boy grows up amid expatriates and Bonackers, artists and writers, and the families of fishermen.
Much of the material in the 350-page book has been gleaned from 176 oral histories, which Tony and his partner, Martha Kalser, collected here between 1997 and 2004, but much is also mined from Tony’s exhaustive memory about people from diverse walks of life — who their forebears were, who married whom, what people’s proud accomplishments and pitfalls were. The oral histories are now archived at the library, along with more than 1,000 photographs.
Imagine what it was like to be Tony at 12. He describes himself as a “young voyeur being dragged around to parties from Water Mill to Montauk dressed like a midget cowboy. . . .” You begin to get the unique flavor.
Tony (Anton) and Martha are retired now, living in Delray, Fla. As the son of artists who came to live in Amagansett at about the time the first Abstract Expressionists found a haven here, Tony knew, and judged, the lifestyles of many of them. He says they were heavy drinkers and tormented. His father, Ray Prohaska, an illustrator, was also a semi-abstract painter and miffed that his successful magazine work was held in less regard than the “serious” art of his peers. He was a big man, whose word was law, and Tony doesn’t make him sound particularly nice. He was a surf fisherman, which informed some of his best-known artwork.
Through his “old man” and their Amagansett neighbors, Tony came to know the prominent fishing families of Amagansett, many of whom also lived in the now-disappeared Montauk Fishing Village, which he describes in detail. He learned to love horses from the late Fanny Gardiner, a colorful member of the local aristocracy, and had what he calls a “five-year career as a teenaged cowboy.” He also writes about his childhood friends, who were, like he was, beaten, and about being invited to a dance at the Maidstone Club as a teenager.
Reading this book is a bit like panning for nuggets: If you are willing to mine the text, you will find some deep and intriguing bits of gold. You will learn that Jackson Pollock had a pet crow and that Bud King was the best bootlegger. If you trace your heritage to locals whose last names were Erickson, Lester, or Dickinson, you might want to give mining a try.
Artists and hangers-on, writers, men who made their names in early television production, a 20th century breed of year-round summer people . . . Tony knew them all. He describes an appointment with Wayne Barker, a psychiatrist who lived in Amagansett, and a renowned graphic designer named Alexey Brodovitch, who, according to a “Guestwords” Tony wrote for The Star, “rode around drunk.” And he quotes extensively from an interview with Jeffrey Potter, who took an unusual path from Groton to Amagansett, and wound up writing an oral history of Jackson Pollock.
Tony’s mother, Carolyn, was a descendant of Henry Pierson, a founder of Southampton. She also was a Miss America contestant and a model before settling as a wife, mother, and overlooked artist. Tony followed her interest in reading and psychology.
I found the book fascinating, even though I think I would recommend it less as a record of history and more as a rich and colorful memory piece. Tony is a writer to be sure, and I wanted to spread the word.