Another year spent fighting Emile-the-Rat, the disbarred lawyer who has stolen about $400,000 from me and is trying to steal a further $200.000. It has been almost ten years since the day Will Reed recommended his services to me. Will Reed, alone, has cost me $200,000. Plus I saved his life from a prison in Bangkok! He has not repaid one penny of what he owes me. With friends like him, etc etc. The Civil action against the Rat is scheduled for sometime in the Spring of 1999. (I arrived in Paris in the autumn of 1969 completely broke, became a property millionaire without really trying in the late 80s and now I am broke again.)

Two Associations have been created. One (Association Jim Haynes) was the result of Dorota Chrisp and John Flattau demanding that I do something to raise some money in case Emile-the-Rat wins the Civil suit and I am forced to pay him almost one million francs. Letters have gone out to many friends and checks continue to arrive. To date almost $30,000 is put away. (If everyone who ever stayed or dined in my atelier were to send me $10, it would produce $700,000. Yes, about 70,000 individuals have accepted my hospitality.) The second Association is called Victims and Friends of Victims of Emile Gouiran. This Association has been created to act as a pressure group to urge the media and the Ministry of Justice to act.

1998 looked something like this:
January: Quiet month in Paris with the usual Sunday dinners and visitors.
February: A trip to Istanbul with J.F. I stay in Muge and Sernih's publishing house.
March: University classes every Monday and Tuesday. Six-day weekends.
April: Suggest to John Calder that Handshake Editions publish a volume of his poetry.
May: Classes, Sunday night dinners, visitors.
June: Summer holidays begin and still I stay in Paris.
July: With Howard Aster and David Applefield, we solicit contributions to a Festschrift to celebrate John Calder's first fifty years of independent publishing.
August: Edinburgh Festival again! Mark Butler visits; he and Jack re-paint kitchen.
September: Almost three weeks in Manhattan, stay with my son, Jesper, and with John Flattau. Visit friends. Spend two hours with the N.Y. District Attorney (who has a Criminal Action against Emile Gouiran in the French courts that moves at snail pace).
October: Frankfurt Book Fair. Host another party in the Kunstlerkeller and where I learn that Howard Aster (Mosaic Press) would like to publish the second volume of my autobiography.
November: Jack cooks a Thanksgiving feast! Go to Amsterdam with Katya, stay with Xaviera Hollander, lunch with Jaco Groot, tea with Bill & Susan Levy.
December: Muge and Semih visit (and we discuss a John Flattau exhibition in Istanbul for next Spring). Mark Butler visits. Howard Aster will fly to Paris and we will discuss many projects. Jack begins to launch my homepage.

The most important event in 1999 will be the civil trial against Emile Gouiran. If I win. maybe this ten-year nightmare will end. If I lose, I will appeal and it will continue. Other timings include: a possible trip to Cuba in February for a John Flattau exhibition, the London Book Fair in March (for the launch of John Calder's Festschrift and his book of poetry), maybe Istanbul in April for a J.F. exhibition, a Lahti Writers Reunion in June and a trip to Russia, more traveling in the East in July, an Edinburgh Festival in August, a Frankfurt Book Fair in October and I hope another university year. The Sunday dinner salon will continue. (There is talk that Cathy Monnet will collaborate with Jack Moore and yours truly to edit a book about the dinners.) I hope there will be three books of mine published in 1999: Thanks for Coming., Senice Compns (vol 2 of my autobiography), and my Round the World in 33 Days

OK, I end this. Let me have your news. Come and visit. Stay well. Be happy' Remember we only have one time around, so let's make it meaningful and let's make it fun... Jim