Preface to My Autobiography

by Steve Martin

The New Yorker
November 15, 1999

Twelve years ago, I was given complete access to myself in order to write an autobiography, and after those dozen years of research, interviews, and personal introspection, I realized that no one was there. I thus decided to invent a character who would be my friend, whose eyes I would be seen through, and who would relate my personality through fictional encounters with myself. I have given this fictionalized narrator the name of Strove Mortman, whom I shall refer to as a he/she. I found it beneficial to have a male narrator when discussing my muscles, my business perspicacity, and my toughness, and a female narrator when discussing my physical appearance, my seductive glances, and my tenderness. I gave him/her the name Strove because it is both masculine and feminine - Strove McCarthy, Irish tenor (1912063), and Strove Bandolini, Italian lesbian poet (1612-1725) - and the name Mortman because of what it spells backward.

I naturally would like to come off as interesting as possible, so several events in this book have also been made up. My high-school football record as reported is not actually mine but a combination of random numbers over one hundred, separated by the words "touchdown" and "per." The admiring comments made in the stands by adoring fans during a fabricated game are a pastiche of the compliments paid to Pope Clement VIII by Galileo, in 1605. The descriptions of my sexual prowess are measurements taken from Michelangelo's David, and multiplied by 1.25.

Other fictionalized accounts, related not to fool the reader but to illustrate various aspects of my character, include the single-handed asphalting of a two-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard, the shunning of the Nobel Prize for my work in gene therapy, and the impregnation of infertile housewives with the tacit approval of their grateful husbands.

Although I am positive that I have had children, I have been unable to find them, or any evidence that they ever existed. This may be a mind game someone is playing on me, but I have a distinct memory of being the father of a bride. I will address this issue in further volumes.

For the sake of dramatic action, certain discrete events have been compressed into one event, particularly in the area of retorts and bons mots. It will often - in fact, always - appear that my comeback was uttered at the moment of insult. In some cases, however, up to three years had passed before I uttered my riposte, which originated not with me but was the brainchild of a team of highly paid writers.

I have exaggerated, for purposes of narrative flow, my involvement in certain charities. This shows my deep concern for those less fortunate than I, although this concern has never translated into any overt action. I have, however, assisted many individuals who fall outside the scope of major benevolent organizations, by offering advice such as "Get a job" and "Your illness is all in your head."

It is interesting to note that my eight years spent at Yale were not entered into the records, or, worse, were mysteriously deleted from them by a sinister hand. Somehow, these records were transferred to Santa Ana Junior College, in California, with a lowered grade-point average. Also, it was worrisome to discover that my high-school yearbook photo had been tampered with, causing me to look like a nerd who could not have lost his virginity until the sad age of twenty-two.

I was given free access to my psychiatrist's notes, or at least the notes he left on his desk when he excused himself for a brief moment "to get some caffeine." These notes offered interesting insights into me from an objective third party, whom I pay. I quote a few of them here:

"...a dream so dull it actually could have happened."

"Pick up cream rinse."

[various doodles]

I have several people to acknowledge for their contributions to this autobiography. I wish to thank my editor, whose comment "I read it" washed away all self-doubt and motivated me to keep writing. I thank my ex-wife, Delores, whose wise counsel - "There better not be one negative word about me in there or I'll let the world know about your freebasing with Liberace" - prompted a reexamination of our marriage that made me recognize that those were idyllic years. And, finally, I wish to thank the Greek poet Homer, for without his Iliad I would have been at a loss to put into words certain of my exploits during Desert Storm.