Death and Taxes Blog

I'm rereading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is great fun. In Chapter 25, Huck and Jim's traveling companions, the scam artists known as the Duke and the Dauphin, impersonate the brothers (Harvey and William) of a recently deceased rich man named Peter Wilks. But before that, in Chapter 24, we learn a little about Peter Wilks' estate plan:

"[Peter Wilks] most desperately wanted to see Harvey -- and William too, for that matter -- because he was one of them kind that can't bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he'd told in it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the property divided up.... And that letter was all they could get him to put a pen to."

As I've said before, hand-written Wills are perfectly fine in Illinois, but all Wills have to be witnessed by at least two witnesses. If a hand-written letter like this was found in the case of an Illinois decedent, it would not be considered a valid Will, even if it clearly indicated the decedent's wishes. Why? Because the stakes are so high (involving the distribution of all of the decedent's property), the proof required for a valid Will is equally high.

I've talked before -- most recently, here -- about executors who don't obey the wishes of decedents, and refuse to burn their works. Vladimir Nabokov's case (which involves this scenario) has been in the news lately, in a two-part series in Slate entitled The Fate of Nabokov's Laura:

Part 1

Part 2

I recently finished reading Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer, which is the first book in his Zuckerman trilogy (or trilogy and epilogue, as I guess it's now known, since it contains four books and Roth evidently doesn't like the word "quartet"). It's a short but engaging work about a young novelist (Nathan Zuckerman) who pays a visit to a very well-respected older novelist (E.I. Lonoff).

Interestingly enough, one of the central conflicts of the book involves a fight between Zuckerman and his father over one of Zuckerman's short stories, which focuses on a will contest. According to Zuckerman, the story was based on the following facts:

A great-aunt of mine, Meema Chaya, had left for the education of two fatherless grandsons the pot of money she had diligently hoarded away as a seamstress to Newark's upper crust. When Essie, the widowed mother of the twin boys, attempted to invade the trust to send them from college to medical school, her younger brother, Sidney, who was to inherit the money remaining in Meema Chaya's estate upon conclusion of the boys' higher education, had sued to stop her.

Zuckerman's father objects to the story, on the grounds that it airs the family's dirty laundry and (more importantly) portrays Jews in an unfavorable light.

Not to take the fun out of the novel, but the whole fight over Meema Chaya's estate could have been avoided if she had clearly defined "education" to include (or exclude) graduate and/or professional school.

I'm working my way through Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind right now -- it's so long, this may well be the last book I read this year. It's surprisingly good, though -- I was expecting a bit of a bodice ripper, but the writing is very solid, and quite evocative.

One thing we learn: trusts were around even in the Old South. This is from page 107 in the edition I'm reading (my mother's MacMillan second edition). It describes the strained relationship between Sarah Jane Hamilton (aka Aunt Pittypat) and her brother Henry, and the aunt and uncle of Scarlett O'Hara's deceased husband Charles, and Charles's sister, Melanie:

The insult had occurred on a day when Pitty wished to draw five hundred dollars from her estate, of which [Henry] was trustee, to invest in a nonexistent gold mine. He had refused to permit it and stated heatedly that she had no more sense than a June bug and furthermore it gave him the fidgets to be around her longer than five minutes.

We also learn the following:

Uncle Henry like Scarlett immediately because, he said, he could see that for all her silly affectations she had a few grains of sense. He was trustee, not only of Pitty's and Melanie's estates, but also of that left Scarlett by Charles. It came to Scarlett as a pleasant surprise that she was now a well-to-do young woman, for Charles had not only left her half of Aunt Pitty's house but farm lands and town property as well.

I'm becoming a pretty big Edith Wharton fan. I loved The Age of Innocence (the movie is pretty good too), and am now working my way through The House of Mirth.

The House of Mirth (which was published in 1905) focuses on Lily Bart, who is beautiful but relatively poor and 29-years-old, which means that she's running out of time to make an advantageous marriage. Ms. Bart is ambivalent about marrying, and about the social circle in which she travels -- part of her wants to find a wealthy husband, but another part of her wishes to simply be herself (perhaps with the not-so-rich but intelligent Lawrence Selden?). Ms. Bart's situation becomes precarious when she befriends Gus Trenor, the husband of her good friend. Mr. Trenor agrees to invest some of Ms. Bart's money, but it soon becomes clear that Mr. Trenor expects to be "paid" in some way for this favor. It also becomes clear that Mr. Trenor didn't invest Ms. Bart's money at all (instead he is making gifts to her, which is clearly inappropriate). Ms. Bart doesn't have the ability to return Mr. Trenor's gifts -- she's already spent the money. Even worse, Ms. Bart's cousin, Grace Stepney, has been talking to their wealthy aunt (Mrs. Peniston) about Ms. Bart's behavior. This talk comes in Chapter XI of Book One, and borders on undue influence (although Ms. Stepney is driven not by hope of inheritance, but by hatred of Ms. Bart).

Later in the book, Mrs. Peniston dies, and Ms. Bart hopes that a long-promised inheritance will alleviate some of her financial concerns. But at the reading of Mrs. Peniston's Will (in chapter IV of Book Two), Ms. Bart learns that -- except for one small gift -- "she has been disinherited" in favor of Grace Stepney. Ms. Stepney is to receive the residue of Mrs. Peniston's estate (the property remaining after specific gifts are made and debts and expenses are paid).

I'd be curious to find out when the practice of holding a formal "reading of the Will" died out. (I've never been asked to give such a reading, although I'd welcome the opportunity).

This was a Harry Potter weekend for my family -- taking our daughter to the festivities in and around Oak Park's Magic Tree Bookstore on Friday evening, and reading all 759 pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

When I last wrote about Harry Potter and probate, almost exactly two years ago (here), I disguised the identity of the decedent. I think by now everyone at all interested in the books knows that Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore died in Book 6, so I don't feel like I'm revealing too much by sharing that Chapter 7 of the Deathly Hallows is entitled "The Will of Albus Dumbledore." I won't disclose who the beneficiaries of Dumbledore's Will are, or what they inherit, but I do note the existence of the "Decree for Justifiable Confiscation," which gives "the Ministry [of Magic] the power to confiscate the contents of a [wizard's] will" in order to determine whether the wizard was attempting to pass on so-called "Dark artifacts." Apparently, the confiscation may only be done if there is "powerful" evidence that the deceased's possessions are illegal, and if the Ministry cannot produce such evidence within 30 days of the decedent's death, then the possessions must be turned over to the beneficiaries.

I've loved Donna Tartt's writing ever since I read this passage early in her 2002 novel The Little Friend. It introduces us to two sisters named Allison and Harriet Cleve (Harriet is the novel's main character):

Allison spent a lot of time with her great-aunts, on the weekends and after school.... What a good little cook, the aunts all sang. How pretty you are. You're an angel to come see us. What a good girl. How pretty. How sweet.

-----

Harriet, the baby, was neither pretty nor sweet. Harriet was smart.

From the time she was old enough to talk, Harriet had been a slightly distressing presence in the Cleve household. Fierce on the playground, rude to company, she argued with Edie [her grandmother] and checked out library books about Genghis Khan and gave her mother headaches. She was twelve years old and in the seventh grade....

This past week, laid up with sinus problems, I finally made my way through Ms. Tartt's first novel, The Secret History. I liked it almost as much as I liked The Little Friend. Both books are "thrillers," of a sort, although they take place in different worlds. The Little Friend takes place in Alexandria, Mississippi, while The Secret History is set at a fictional private college in Vermont. The Secret History is the story of six friends and classics scholars. Here, one of the six (Henry) is telling our narrator (Richard) about another of the six (Francis). And, interestingly enough (to me, at least), trusts play a part in the story:

[Francis] and his mother live off the income of a trust, as I expect you know, but they also have the right to withdraw as much as three percent of the principal per year, which would amount to a sum of about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Generally this isn't touched when it turns up, but in theory either of them can take it out whenever they like. A law firm in Boston serves as the trustees.... Francis had assured me that getting the money was a simple matter of going downtown and signing some papers....

But he wasn't back when he said he would be, and three hours passed, then four.... [Then] Francis burst in, half-hysterical. The money for that year was all gone, you see. His mother had checked out every cent of the principal at the first of the year and hadn't told him about it. It was a nasty surprise, but even nastier given the circumstances. [And, indeed, the circumstances are very nasty. -Joel] He'd tried everything he could think of -- to borrow money on the trust itself, even to assign his interests, which is, if you know anything about trusts, about the most desperate thing one can do....

While trusts that allow the beneficiary to withdraw principal are fairly common, I've never seen a trust with multiple beneficiaries that allowed any one of the beneficiaries to withdraw the entire principal. You can see the reason for that, as you get a race to the trustee to request the money (and what happens if both beneficiaries ask at the same time -- who wins?).

My almost-six-year-old daughter has developed a taste for mysteries, so I've decided to start reading Nancy Drew to her. We're beginning at the beginning, with book #1 (The Secret of the Old Clock); surprisingly, the book has a probate-related aspect. From the School Library Journal write-up:

After aiding an injured child, Nancy accidentally stumbles upon the mystery of Josiah Crowley's missing will. While several of Crowley's impoverished relatives claim that he had included them in his will, his arrogant relatives, seem to possess the only copy, which leaves them in total possession of the deceased man's fortune. Nancy is intrigued by the situation and begins searching for Crowley's missing antique clock, an object that reportedly contains a clue to the will's location.

A new film version of Nancy Drew also opens today (here), starring Emma Roberts (Julia's niece).

I'm currently reading The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, written by Susanna Clarke. Ms. Clarke is the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, one of my favorite books of the past few years. Ms. Clarke's work is like an alternative history of England, where magic and fairies are real. The Ladies of Grace Adieu is a collection of short stories in the same vein as Jonathan Strange (who, along with his partner, appears in one of the stories).

Surprisingly, one of the stories -- "Mr Simonelli or The Fairy Widower" -- contains a passage where the (seemingly half-fairy) narrator, Mr. Simonelli, and the fairy John Hollyshoes discuss a fairy estate dispute involving Mr. Simonelli's father:

Then [John Hollyshoes] began to speak of how my father's affairs had been left in great confusion at his death and how, since that time, the various rival claimants to his estate had been constantly fighting and quarrelling among themselves.

"Two duels have been fought to my certain knowledge," he said, "and as a natural consequence of this two claimants are dead. Another -- whose passion to possess your father's estate was exceeded only by his passion for string quartets -- was found three years ago hanging from a tree by his long silver hair, his body pierced through and through with the bows of violins, violoncellos, and violas like a musical Saint Sebastian. And only last winter an entire houseful of people was poisoned. The claimant had already run out of the house into the blizzard in her nightgown and it was only her servants that died.,,,

As you can tell, Ms. Clarke's writing is a bit of an acquired taste, but if you enjoy historical fiction and tales of the fantastic, you might want to give her a try.

I try to read one Charles Dickens novel per year. Last year I chose Bleak House, mostly because I knew it centered on a probate matter. (I posted a review here.) This year I chose David Copperfield, mostly because our bookcase contained a copy of it. Imagine my surprise when I found that it also contains references to probate matters. In the middle of the book, Copperfield becomes a law clerk in the Doctor's Commons. It becomes clear (in Chapter XXVI) that Copperfield's work involves probate when Copperfield speaks with his boss, Mr. Spenlow:

I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional business? He replied that a good case of a disputed will, where there was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all. In such a case, he said,... the costs being pretty sure to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited manner, and expence was no consideration.

Later (in Chapter XXXI), Copperfield helps his old nurse Pegotty after the death of her husband, Mr. Barkis:

But I am afraid I had a supreme satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in taking charge of Mr. Barkis's will, and expounding its contents.

I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will should be looked for in [Mr. Barkis's] box....

[Mr. Barkis's] property in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed the interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life, on his decease, the principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, little Emily, and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share alike. All the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty, whom he left residuary legatee, and sole executrix of that, his last will and testament.

I felt myself quite a proctor, when I read this document aloud with all possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions.... I examined the will with the deepest attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary that I knew so much.

I previously posted here about the Will of William Shakespeare (aka "Will's Will").  Yesterday, my pocket guide to the 2007 Stratford Festival of Canada arrived, and I noticed this listing:

Shakespeare's Will
by Vern Thiessen
Opens July 7
June 23 to September 20

On the eve of William Shakespeare's funeral, a solitary woman considers the poet's last will and testament.  What emerges in this one-woman Canadian play is a fascinating story of Anne Hathaway, wife to the world's greatest  playwright - and a woman hiding dark sorrows of her own.

More details are here.  I hope I can attend; if you do, let me know how you liked it!

I finally finished reading James Joyce's Ulysses yesterday, and boy, is my brain tired!  It's not always fun to read, but I think it's a great book, and a book that really rewards in-depth study.  Let me give an example relating to (appropriately) probate and Wills.  (Page numbers below are to The Gabler Edition of the text.)

The story centers on two characters, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus.  Throughout the book similarities between the two characters often become apparent (such as: each has rejected the religious beliefs of a parent; each is in some sense homeless because he is without his key and has been rejected by his "roommate"). 

Bloom and Dedalus finally meet near the end of the book, and in the Ithaca chapter, written in a style Joyce referred to as a "mathematical catechism", we (and they) learn of another link between the two (page 556):

Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a third connecting link between them?

Mrs. Riordan (Dante), a widow of independent means, had resided in the house of Stephen's parents from 1 September 1888 to 29 December 1891 and had also resided... in the City Arms Hotel... where, during parts of the years 1893 and 1894, she had been a constant informant of Bloom who resided also in the same hotel....

Apparently Bloom performed "special corporal work of mercy" for Mrs. Riordan: "[h]e had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings... in her convalescent bathchair with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low's place of business...."  (pages 556-557) We also find out that one of Bloom's memories of Mrs. Riordan is of her "suppositious wealth."  (page 557)

Was Bloom attempting to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Riordan so that he might be named as one of her beneficiaries?  It certainly seem so.  Here's Molly Bloom, Leopold's unfaithful wife, talking about Mrs. Riordan in her famous soliloquy in Penelope, the book's last chapter (page 608 -- I've added forward slashes to make it easier to read):

Yes/because he never did a thing like that before/as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs/since the City Arms Hotel/when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice/doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of/and she never left us a farthing/all for masses for herself and her sould/greatest miser ever was...

A couple of notes here:

1. "Faggot" is being used here as a term of abuse or contempt applied to a woman.

2. "Had a great leg of" apparently means something like "had the favor of."

The book is more explicit about Bloom and Mrs. Riordan in the Circe chapter.  This chapter is written like a play and, according to Vladimir Nabokov (pretention alert!), represents not the dreaming of any one character but instead shows that the book is dreaming.  In the chapter Bloom is put on trial for his various "crimes" (mostly perversions), and Mrs. Riordan makes a brief appearance:

MRS RIORDAN

(tears up her will) I'm disappointed in you! You bad man!

I'm working my way through James Joyce's sometimes impenetrable Ulysses with the help of a class at the Newberry Library and Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated.  It's a struggle, but my pace is fairly light (10 pages a day), and the novel really does have a lot to offer.  Besides the portrait of Dublin on June 16, 1904 and the rather obvious references to The Odyssey and other classical works, there is a surprising number of references to Shakespeare.  In Chapter 9 ("Scylla and Charybdis"), one of the novel's main characters, Stephen Dedalus, talks about his theories on The Bard, Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife), and Hamlet.  He even works in a mention of some probate issues starting at line 686:

You mean [Shakespeare's] will.
But that has been explained, I believe, by jurists.
[Hathaway] was entitled to her widow's dower

At common law.  His legal knowledge was great
Our judges tell us.
Him Satan fleers,
Mocker:
And therefore he left out her name
From the first draft but he did not leave out
The presents for his granddaughter, for his daughters,
For his sister, for his old cronies in Stratford
And in London.  And therefore when he was urged,
As I believe, to name her

He left her his
Secondbest
Bed.

Of course, not much in Ulysses is straight-forward.  Here Dedalus is talking about Shakespeare's relationship with his wife (which Dedalus felt was poor), and about the reasons why the only gift Shakespeare made to her in his Will was of "my second best bed."

This site gives a nice, short overview of what such a gift might mean.

I've already blogged once about a Will-related aspect of John Steinbeck's East of Eden, but it turns out that the book is full of references to Wills and inheritance.  I guess that makes sense, given that one of the book's main themes is the extent to which our actions and personalities are inherited from our parents.

SPOILER ALERT!

At one point, a prostitute (unduly?) influences her boss to make her the sole beneficiary under the boss's Will, and then poisons the boss to death.  Later on in the book, this same character executes her own holographic Will (that is, a hand-written Will with no witnesses), leaving all of her property to one of the sons she previously abandoned.  This character's husband also faces a dilemma when he learns that he and his wife are each 1/2 beneficiaries under his brother's Will.  Does he inform his brother's lawyers that his wife is still alive, even if this means his wife's identity -- as the owner of a brothel -- is revealed?

Whether or not you are interested in Wills and inheritance, I highly recommend East of Eden.

Last week I blogged about The Wire, and called it "the best show currently on TV, maybe one of the best TV shows ever."  Jacob Weisberg goes a step further in this Slate article, describing The Wire as "the best TV show ever broadcast in America."  He continues:

...[n]o other program has ever done anything remotely like what this one does, namely to portray the social, political, and economic life of an American city with the scope, observational precision, and moral vision of great literature.

Slate is also running a TV Club discussion of the show each Monday (see this), with Oak Park's own Alex Kotlowitz among the participants.

Maybe all of the positive press the show has received is finally starting to translate into viewers -- the show was (according to this article) just renewed for a fifth season.

I've spoken on occasion (here and here) about whether you should accept an appointment as executor of another's estate.  I have suggested that there are situations in which you may not want to act in this capacity.  In Persuasion, Jane Austen talks about a situation where a person (Mr. Elliot) declines to act as executor of the estate of a friend (Mr. Smith).  Ms. Austen takes a notably dim view of this declination to act (See Chapter 21 -- it's page 215 of my Penguin edition):

[Mr Smith] had died just in time to be spared the full knowledge of [his debts].... With a confidence in Mr Elliot's regard, more creditable to his feelings than his judgment, Mr Smith had appointed him the executor of his will; but Mr Elliot would not act, and the difficulties and distresses which this refusal had heaped on [Mrs. Smith], in addition to the inevitable sufferings of her situation, had been such as could not be related without anguish of spirit, or listened to without corresponding indignation.

I think it's worth noting that Ms. Austen's dim view of Mr. Elliot's actions (or inactions) is based on two factors:

1. Mr. Elliot was wealthier than Mr. Smith, and had led Mr. Smith "into expenses much beyond his fortune."  Sound like any credit card companies you know?

2. Certain property owned by Mr. Smith in the West Indies "might be recoverable by proper measures; and this property, though not large, would be enough to make [Mrs. Smith] comparatively rich.  But there was nobody to stir in it.  Mr. Elliot would do nothing, and she could do nothing herself," because of health and financial issues.  I'm sure there's an element of chivalry that comes into play here, of not assisting a woman in her time of distress.

I'm reading John Steinbeck's East of Eden right now, and stumbled across the following passage, in Chapter 7 (page 60 in my Viking Press edition).  The passage discusses the aftermath of the death of Cyrus Trask:

The attorneys... were sorry -- offered their condolences.  And they were pretty excited too.  When they had made Trask's will they thought he might have a few hundred dollars to leave his sons.  That is what he looked to be worth.  When they inspected his bankbooks they found that he had over ninety three thousand dollars in the bank and ten thousand dollars in good securities.  They felt very different about Mr. Trask then.... It was enough to start a dynasty. The lawyers congratulated [Cyrus' sons] Charles and his brother Adam. Under the will, they said, it was to be shared equally.

The only problem with this windfall is that, to Charles at least, it seems like a bit too much of a windfall.  Did their father -- who had lied about his stint in the military -- steal the money, or otherwise come by it dishonestly?  And, if so, how should the brothers rectify the situation?  Those are the questions Charles and Adam try to resolve later in the chapter.

This month's New Yorker has a fascinating article by D. T. Max (available online here) devoted to the subject of James Joyce's grandson, Stephen Joyce.  Stephen Joyce controls his grandfather's literary estate, and has angered many academics with his aggressiveness on copyright issues.  The article is rather lengthy, but it's extremely interesting, and does a pretty good job of presenting both sides of the issue.  It also talks a good deal about the present state of copyright law, and about other "difficult" literary executors.  Of course, as the article points out,...

Most prickly literary estates are interested in suppressing unflattering or intrusive information, but no one combines tolltaker, brand enforcer, and arbiter of taste as relentlessly as Stephen [Joyce] does, and certainly not in such a personal way.