When Jamie Gillis, my long-time companion met Barney Rosset it was as if he had met God and he would always sit at his hero’s feet. As founder and editor of Grove Press, Barney almost single-highhandedly did away with censorship in the United States by publishing books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, Naked Lunch by Burroughs. When they became friends, it was to him like going to heaven and now they are both gone to heaven or wherever people like these two special characters go for eternity.

I am embarrassed to say that I knew nothing about Barney and never wondered why one of our servers was named Beckett. It was Kathleen, Jamie’s first girlfriend, who asked him the origin of his name while dining at my restaurant Zarela. Kathleen and her husband Jon immediately realized that he was Barney’s son. They were so excited that they could not wait until they finished dinner to rush downstairs to our table to tell Jamie!

The next day, Beckett reported that Barney and Astrid would love to meet us. We invited them to dinner, and the friendship was hatched. Barney had spent much time in Mexico and loved to tell the story of his first trip there when he drove all the way down to the Yucatán Peninsula at age 16. He enjoyed authentic Mexican food and loved the food at Zarela and loved it when I asked him what he felt like eating. His son Peter lives in Chiapas and is an advocate for the rights of indigenous people so there were lots of points of common interest, including our love for the folk art of Oaxaca (he collected elaborate alebrijes) and the magnificent textiles of Chiapas that I too collect. (I inherited several gorgeous pieces.)

Besides he once published Octavio Paz and Elena Poniatowska, two famous Mexican writers whom I admire. There was always so much to talk about.

Jamie and I tried to spend as much time as possible with Barney and his delightful and beautiful wife Astrid who I have become very close to. At 88, Barney had a perfect memory and loved to tell fascinating stories about the characters he published and his ex-wives. (Astrid remarked that he always somehow managed to do this and we’d look at each other and smile.) One main topic of conversation was his soon-to-be published autobiography The Subject is Left-Handed that would have been on the stands by now if Barney hadn’t insisted that they include the chapters dealing with his childhood that formed him. He gave the chapters for Jamie to read and comment and he took his suggestions into serious consideration.

One of the greatest editors ever read Jamie’s manuscript and gave him advice, which Jamie applied religiously. Barney took the time to go through my autobiography, Taking Orders, that I have decided not to try to get published at this time because agents don’t agree with Barney and me about the direction it should take.

He published funny little poems in the legendary Evergreen Review, which he founded in 1957, such as:

One day I will find myself on the six o’clock news
having stabbed you over some small thing that happened once too often
And to which I may have over reacted.

He was always making something or working on some art project. He painted the tree of life on the picture above, was forever working on a brightly colored mural, or bought remnants of carpet and had put together a most interesting and comfy rug before he left us.

There was no one like Barney — a visionary willing to give up a family fortune to get us the right to read whatever we wanted, interesting and interested in everything, loving and lovable. The last time I saw him he became fascinated by my iPhone and wanted to see Dolores del Rio again and every beauty he had known. Oh! What fun he had and me too seeing him enjoy a new toy with his boyish charm and the twinkle in his eye. Even at 89, Barney was still sexy!

I loved him so and will miss him terribly.

I’m missing a photograph of that last time but I will find it and post it but, in the meantime, meet Astrid.

Astrid and me in front of Barney’s Wall, the subject of the documentary of the same name. After years of anticipation, the film will be screened on May 7.