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Robert Harlow (1923-) is one of
Canada’s best writers* but
he was
also a sexual predator. He had been a WWII fighter pilot for two years,
a
graduate of the University
of Iowa (1951)
and then
director with the Canadian Broadcasting Company (1954-65). From
1965-1977 he was
the second head of UBC's Creative Writing Department after poet Earle
Birney
had established it earlier. Harlow
was removed
as head and remained a professor until 1988. Adultery is the
centerpiece of
many of his novels, including the marvelous Scann
(1972) because his first wife left him for his best friend. He seemed
to have never recovered, and adopted her adulterous behavior. Years
later when I visited the campus, his office had become home for sexual
harassment complaints. As Head of the
Creative Writing Department, he sexually harassed female graduate and
undergraduate students.
In September 1974, he continually
sexually harassed me. It
seemed that he felt it was his natural right since my writing’s
centerpiece was
men and women making love. Stranger in a new country, struggling with
finances,
legal work, Canadian immigration and Harlow bothering me, as a 24 year
old
Chicagoan I put my cards on the table and finally succumbed, ‘Ok,’ I
said. His shocked expression was baffling,
but we
launched our taudy six week affair with him visiting my basement room
and its
double mattress upon pink carpeting.
He was a man like any other man, twice my age (with a
daughter just two years younger than I) and in a position of power, as
had been
poet Laurence Lieberman at the University of Illinois-Urbana, and
psychiatrist-in-training, but an MD already, Dr. John Durburg in Chicago (my other
adulterous lovers).
In bed, Harlow confessed
his present wife had cancer, and was unable to make love, which he
passionately
needed. Later, he confided his private
hell: his first wife had left him for his best friend. This explained
his
obsessive use of adultery in many of his novels. Six
weeks later, having met a man in my age
range, we discontinued our affair. In November 1975, the second year of
the writing
program, our friendship deteriorated. While discussing my short stories
for my
thesis in his UBC office, Harlow
punched a
fist into his other palm. <>
‘Do you really want to hit me?’ I asked.
Nervously, he held his hands in
his lap and then transported
them onto his desk. We both looked out the ivy framed bay window, then
back at
each other. ‘You probably can’t get a
thesis with your short stories. They simply aren’t strong enough.’
I abandoned my stories and in December expanded a long
two-part sexual short story into the first draft of a highly erotic sex
novella, The Chicagoans. I had heard other students’
complaints of Harlow’s sexual
harassment. I
wondered if the sole woman grad student before me had actually shown me
‘before
and after pictures’ – not of her arrival and later wild hair in Vancouver - but her
before and after photos once Harlow
had sexually
harassed her. By January 1976, Harlow’s attempt to run me out of town
miraculously abated.
At home upstairs in a rented room, while
downstairs lived a father and his two daughters, I was approached by a
woman
using my full birth name, which I had not used in years. I was handed
court
papers – named as one of two correspondents in adultery.
The other woman? Not a student, but someone I
knew. She, like Harlow and I, was a member of a co-counseling group
(peer
psychological support group).
With the divorce papers in hand, Harlow’s
overt attacks retreated. He was still on my thesis committee. He made
it
abundantly clear my thesis was not up to his standards. Just as he had
asked me
why I had continually misspelled ‘jewelry’ and other words. (He knew
and I
didn’t: it was simply American and
Canadian spelling variations.) Just as he had said my portrayal of
five-hour
lovemaking sessions in The Chicagoans
was impossible. (I informed him I wrote from experience - not his, but
mine.) Just
as he said correct grammar was absent in the novella. (He, with his
vast
writing knowledge, should have advised the grammar problems were merely
a
symptom of taking the torch of language where it had not been before,
and could
be corrected with rewrites, something I finally understood years later.
I
obsessively edited and rewrote the
thesis even after I had been awarded my MFA.)
Then, right before leaving Vancouver
in 1976, he
informed me he did not nominate my novella for a UBC prize.
I was enraged. He denied me the
opportunity to have my
thesis-novella judged by others. I had tolerated Harlow’s
sexual harassment and overt and covert attempts to run me out of town.
Now I
was leaving, with my Masters in had. Angered he still could corruptly
wield
power over me, I met with the Dean of the College. I was willing to
show him Harlow’s divorce papers. He
said, ‘It is unnecessary.’
When the Dean asked if more money should be given to the Department, I
hissed,
‘Not until that sexual quagmire is cleaned up! God knows how many
students he’s
bothered!’
<>
Nor did I defend The
Chicagoans before a thesis committee. This puzzled me but I figured
Canadians played by different spelling and college rules and was
grateful to
have completed the program and return to the United States
with my MFA in 1976. <>
Did Harlow stop sleeping
with students? No. When he retreated from UBC for a sabbatical to work
on a
novel, he took along another Creative Writing student my age.
A man like Harlow,
a sexual
predator, allowed to roam freely on a university campus…. Was he also
protected
at CBC because of his position as a Director? At 55, with the sexual
revolution, and once a saxophone player, was he envious of the 70s Rock
&
Roll sexual freedom and a world he didn’t belong to?
Did he ever stop being a sexual predator?
<>
Yes, writers like rock and roll stars and many artists, are
people who wrestle with their demons and personal pain which often is
embedded
within their sexuality. Yet artists as teachers should not abuse their
positions
of power to sexually harass students into seduction. With his greasy
black hair
often unwashed, outside of his hunting grounds, exactly how successful
would Harlow have been bedding young
women?* * <>
Nowadays, many young people, especially young males teaching
English overseas, argue against today’s professional ethics that
teachers not
engage in sexual relations with students. Such
men insist language students over 18 and 21 are adults. They refuse
to accept the idea/fact that the abuse of a teacher’s position of trust
is
sexual abuse. Overseas, they are not held accountable. In the United States,
they
are - nowadays. <>
I am grateful such abuse now has rules, committees,
consequences and the law to halt such abuse in higher education.
Lawsuits
against any institution which allows people in power, such as the
Catholic
Church, to commit such crimes, are integral in stopping such rapacious
behavior
by which adults sicken young souls.
Harlow definitely knew his prey –
not only students, but
vulnerable women in a self-help group. Now if that is not a predator,
who is?
<>
PS – Harlow once who told me,
‘Good writing is simply good
gossip.’
--------------------------------
*Books by
Harlow: Royal Murdoch (1962), A Gift of Echoes
(1965) and
his best-known and finest work, Scann (1972), which make up the
Linden
trilogy, named
after the imaginary northern BC town that figures in the settings of
all three
books. Later works are Making Arrangements (1978), Paul
Nolan
(1983) and Felice: A Travelogue (1985). His most recent
publication is
the novel The Saxophone Winter (1988).
**Catty remark yes, influenced by
reading Ben Elton’s Chart Throb, a satire of American Idol.
*** Websites used for background information on Harlow:
http://robertharlow.com
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com
http://www.writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=1058&L=H
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