Throughout his autobiography Isaac Asimov frequently mentions his younger brother Stanley. How he would assume baby sitting duties shortly after Stanley was born, reading a book while pushing Stanley’s baby carriage, etc.
Later on, of course, there are many anecdotes involving Stanley, but one of the best is the following.
I sometimes consent to take part in a book-and-author luncheon. I generally don’t enjoy them because I’m usually only one of three or more authors and invariably (it seems to me) the least well-known to the general audience.
There was one coming up on April 22, 1971, however, that I couldn’t refuse because it was being sponsored by Newsday and because Stanley himself asked me to do it. I agreed, but I said he would have to send a limousine to Long Beach to pick up my mother for the occasion. Stanley said, “Why not? She’s my mother, too.”
I was there on April 22, but without Janet, who had to remain with her patients. My mother was there and sat in state at a table with Stanley, Ruth, and Larry Ashmead. Speaking ahead of me were Barbara Tuchman, who had written a series of popular histories, and Stephen Birmingham, who had written Our Crowd, about the rich German Jews of New York.
I was definitely low man in that combination. Birmingham, in particular, wowed the crowd, which consisted, I should say, very largely (perhaps 80 per cent) of middle-aged Jewish women. As usual, I thought glumly that I would be unable to follow the Birmingham talk with any degree of success unless I worked up a smash opening.
I rose at last (the final speaker) and said, “I don’t have the advantages of Stephen Birmingham in addressing this audience, because I have never written anything that had any connection with Jewish tradition, Jewish history, or Jewish life. However, I have an advantage over Stephen that makes up for everything else. I have a Jewish mother, who is sitting in the audience now. Mamma, stand up and take a bow.”
My mother promptly did this and accepted the round of applause very graciously—and I knew that I had my audience where I wanted them.
I then said, “My brother is also here, at the table with my mother. He’s Stan Asimov and he’s assistant publisher of Newsday.
“Of course, I wouldn’t say that my mother plays favorites, for how can a Jewish mother play favorites?” (Knowing laughter from the audience.) “Still, I am the first-born, and you know what that means. For instance, when this shindig was being prepared, my mother said to me, ‘Isaac, will it be possible for me to sit with you?’
“I said, ‘No, Mamma, I’ll be on the dais. You’ll sit with Stanley.’
“And my mother said, ‘Stanley who?’”
That, as you can imagine, got me home safe, for it got right in among the ribs of the women in the audience. It helped that my mother rose to her feet, completely outraged (need I say the story was a complete fiction?), and shook her fist at me.
Afterward, I signed a satisfactory number of books. Someone even went over to my mother and asked for her signature on the book, also, and she signed with no trace of embarrassment.
When Stanley got back to his office that afternoon, he found his name covered over with a sign reading, “Stanley who.”
— In Joy Still Felt by Isaac Asimov