Serendipity surrounds rescued book about Auntie Mame author Patrick Dennis

The real-life story behind “At Sea with Patrick Dennis: My Madcap Mexican Adventure with the Author of Auntie Mame,” would be a wonderful pageturner if it ever made its way into book form. How is it that this new, thoroughly engaging memoir from Rattling Good Yarns Press has a triple Coachella Valley connection?  Relish the serendipity here, dear reader. Let’s begin with the author.

Meet Robert Karr, the late Rancho Mirage resident, who, along with his pal, Walter Healy, found themselves on a madcap shipboard adventure in the 1960s where the duo became chums with Patrick Dennis, the acclaimed author of “Auntie Mame.” The trio’s outlandish tales would later pepper Karr’s vibrant memoir, but his manuscript sat untouched for many years.

Dennis, of course, holds some intrigue. Born Edward Everett Tanner III in Evanston, Illinois, his pen name and novel, “Auntie Mame,” captured worldwide attention. The book became a glorious bestseller and even though Dennis claimed it was a work of fiction, it was commonly known that the gregarious character he created was based on his own aunt, Marion Tanner, an unconventional Greenwich Village wit.

Rosalind Russell did wonders bringing the character to the stage before garnering an Oscar nom after the film’s release in 1958. Many scoff at Lucille Ball’s take in the film musica l — and rightly so. The original had punch. Meanwhile, Dennis went on to pen many books, including “Around the World with Auntie Mame,” “Genius,” “The Joyous Season,” “Guestward Ho!” and others.

“I was about 12 pages into “At Sea with Patrick Dennis,” and I just couldn't put it down,” says Rancho Mirage resident Bernie Ardia, Karr’s longtime neighbor. “After Robert’s death in 2018, I called my dear friend Lori McCormack, who had known Robert and his partner, Walter Petersen, and who had, oddly, sent me the manuscript. I asked her what was going to happen to it.”

About that. Long before Karr’s death, McCormack had wanted Ardia, a professional theater hair designer, to connect with Karr and Peterson. They were neighbors, after all, but Karr was in full caretaker mode due to his partner’s precarious health. After Karr’s death, the book was headed to the dumpster before Ardia found himself in possession of something that captured a rare historic snapshot.

“I don't enjoy many books,” Ardia shares. “But this was so witty, and I saw heart in it. It read like a movie. It took me there and I wanted to make sure it was going to get out.”

Ardia realized that he had become the rescuer of a precious memoir and went about acquiring the rights to it. Enter: Ian Henzel, the managing publisher of Rattling Good Yarns Press, a local independent publishing house that specializes in LGBTQ fiction, history, and, as its website notes, “whimsey.”

Well, there was plenty of that in “At Sea with Patrick Dennis.” Dennis was just as lavish, outspoken, and eccentric as the famed Auntie Mame. Karr’s book captures the author’s verve to winning ends, chronicling how, among other things, Dennis jumped ship in Mexico with Karr’s friend, Walter, and the outlandish events that followed.

“Our mission with Rattling Yarns Press is LGBTQ voices. Well, it’s not explicit in ‘At Sea with Patrick Dennis,’ but it has a very gay sensibility,” says Henzel. “And Patrick Dennis was an inductee in the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame because he was born in Evanston, so it was a perfect fit for us. We knew it needed to get out there.”

The “stars aligned,” as the old saying goes. But these serendipitous twists also mirrored the joie de vivre Dennis captured in “Auntie Mame”— that grab life by the bullhorns gusto the character of Mame became so famous for. Lest we forget her famous catchline: “Live… life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”  Happily, there’s plenty to feast upon in “Aunt Sea with Patrick Dennis.” The madcap tale reads like a bona fide Mame adventure. Karr’s wit, and, in turn, Ardia’s careful eye for preservation, give readers plenty to savor. There’s a wickedly fun cruise ship interaction with a wealthy widow and her ornery teenage grandson. The spitfire dialogue leaps off the page. Karr, Healy, and Dennis’s romp in Mexico seems ripe for the big screen. Midget wrestlers? There’s even that.

“Only real life can produce characters this theatrical,” Ardia quips. “I mean, we all know people whose actions others wouldn’t believe to be real. These characters are those people.”

The book also sheds new light on a previously vague part of Dennis’s history, when he disappeared into Mexico.

“It’s so rich, just from a publishing perspective,” Henzel explains. “You go back to the period of Patrick Dennis’s writing, and he's still the only author to have had three books on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously. There was a class of writing that was considered ‘light fiction,’ but it was entertainment. It was about these sorts of characters. and you don't see that anymore.

“That kind of fell by the wayside,” he adds. “Publishing is very focused on genre, you know, romance, speculative fiction, that sort of thing. It's kind of moved away from that light fiction category. One of the things we loved about this book was that it was bringing back that spirited, light, but very entertaining read.”

For Ardia, Karr’s book fed into his lifelong love of Hollywood, especially the classics.

“Even though there’s some grit in [classic Hollywood] films, they've all been exposed to the good life,” he says. “And the people Robert, Walter, and Patrick encounter are some of those people, so they fit right in. I love that because show business is BS, right? It's a business. I just love the flare of that past era and Robert’s book captured that.

“And Ian got it right away,” he’s quick to add of the publisher. “He understood what we had, and I love that he has an LGBTQ-focused company.”

When asked why he felt Patrick Dennis and Auntie Mame — the character, the original play, and the movie — captured the hearts of millions, Ardia replies: “I think what we love about it is the reckless abandon of it all. Sometimes we're timid and we sip life from a teaspoon, rather than imbibing it fully. That’s what Mame does, and that’s what Patrick Dennis does throughout his writing. He doesn't sip life from a teaspoon, and his characters don't either. They seize life to the fullest. It’s authentic.”

By the looks of it, “At Sea with Patrick Dennis” seems destined to find a devoted audience. But beyond Dennis’s wit, style, and New York Times bestselling acclaim, it’s fitting to note that he remained adventurous well into his final days — he died in 1976. Curiously, Dennis went on to live in chosen obscurity, working under an assumed name as a butler to McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc. The man who had no idea his butler was a world-famous author.

“I think Robert Karr, like Patrick Dennis, was a dreamer,” Ardia muses. “I only spoke to him on the phone twice, but even though we were a block apart and he had his hands full, I feel he was like Patrick, that's why I dedicated the book to him and all dreamers.

“And I truly believe Auntie Maine and Patrick Dennis's writing offers us a view into what life might be like.”

Greg Archer’s features on the entertainment industry have appeared in the USA Today Network, MovieWeb, The Advocate, Palm Springs Life, and other media outlets. His memoir, "Grace Revealed," chronicles his Polish family's odyssey during World War II. gregarcher.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Serendipity surrounds rescued book about Auntie Mame author Patrick Dennis