FRESNO — I came late to William Saroyan. I was 21 years old and had left Fresno for San Francisco, convinced that my place in literature was guaranteed--if only I could find something to write about.
So I turned to Saroyan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who also came from Fresno. Racing through his sweet, simple stories, I was driven by a single question: How had Saroyan found so much to write about in Fresno, a town that to me seemed devoid of literary potential?
The answer evaded me. Saroyan's Fresno of crazy Armenian immigrants seemed a world apart from my suburban hometown. But the search did produce one more Saroyan fan, and when he died in 1981 I volunteered to write his obit for the San Francisco Examiner.
Saroyan had a great exit line. "Everybody has got to die," he wrote on his deathbed, "but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"
In Fresno, at least, the answer would be messier than Saroyan could have imagined.
The single-story stucco houses sit side by side in a northwest Fresno neighborhood. For 17 years, Saroyan lived and wrote in one of the houses and stored his papers in another. The yards were planted with fruit trees and overrun with weeds, and he lovingly tended to both.
He lived a complicated life, full of divorce and debt, but in his last months, 72 years old and facing cancer, Saroyan worked hard to arrange an orderly departure. He rewrote his will three times, leaving instructions on how to dispose of his corpse, his future royalties, his rock collection, everything.
The houses were important. He wanted them preserved as residences for immigrant scholars and writers, places to inspire writing, thinking, art. Details were left to the William Saroyan Foundation, which was to oversee his $1.3-million estate, but everyone understood that Saroyan didn't want the houses sold off.
Which is precisely what happened. Shortly after he died, Saroyan's plan was embellished to include a museum, and neighbors objected. Too many cars. Too many strangers. As the museum was debated, the houses were allowed to go to seed. The foundation, claiming it had no other options, simply sold them. And that was the end of that.
A few weeks ago, a friend took me to the houses. A small garage door plaque and a pomegranate tree were the only visible tributes to the former occupant. Next door, Helen Baca sat on her front porch. She had seen Saroyan come and go. She said a "nice young couple" now live in Saroyan's house, and sightseers are rare.
