George Gutekunst, 83; ‘Found’ Markham Book

George Gutekunst, a former Sausalito restaurateur whose rediscovery of African bush pilot Beryl Markham’s memoir, “West With the Night,” gave new life to a little-known 1940s literary gem and propelled it to the top of the bestseller lists, has died. He was 83.

Gutekunst died March 6 at his home in Sonoma of complications from a heart attack.

A former merchant seaman, Gutekunst was the garrulous co-owner of Ondine, a landmark French restaurant across the bay from San Francisco. The waterfront restaurant, with its spectacular view of the city skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge, attracted everyone from plumbers, cowboys and college professors to politicians, sports figures and Hollywood celebrities.

“Whenever someone interesting came in, whether famous or not, he’d invite himself to their table, bringing drinks or a souffle, and chat with them,” said Gutekunst’s son, Eduardo.

One of his longtime friends was Ernest Hemingway’s son, Jack, who would invite him on fly-fishing trips near Hemingway’s home in Ketchum, Idaho.

Gutekunst had always avoided asking Hemingway questions about his famous father. But on one fishing trip in the early 1980s, he couldn’t resist.

Before he could finish his question, however, Hemingway abruptly cut him off with, “Why don’t you take a look at my father’s letters.”

Gutekunst did just that, and it was while reading “Ernest Hemingway’s Selected Letters, 1917-1961,” that something caught his eye: A 1942 letter Hemingway had written to his editor, Maxwell Perkins.

“Did you read Beryl Markham’s book, ‘West With the Night’? Hemingway wrote. “I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer’s logbook.... She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer.... This girl can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers.... I wish you would get it and read it because it really is a bloody wonderful book.”

Gutekunst couldn’t believe what he was reading.

“I love Hemingway, don’t get me wrong,” he told writer James Hamilton for a 1987 California magazine profile, “but [he] had been savaging every writer from Stendahl to James Jones in the worst kind of macho way, and all of a sudden he praises this unknown book by a woman. I had to find out why.”

Gutekunst tracked down Markham’s book in the local library.

“West With the Night,” which takes its title from Markham’s most memorable accomplishment--she was the first to fly solo east-to-west across the Atlantic--poetically chronicles her unconventional life in Africa up through the historic 1936 flight that made her an international figure.

Markham’s book was critically acclaimed when it was first published by Houghton Mifflin, but an American reading public preoccupied by war virtually ignored it and the book went quickly out of print.

Gutekunst, who read the book in a single sitting, said he was “astonished at its beauty and richness.”

Convinced the book should be reprinted, he passed it on to a writer friend, Evan S. Connell. Equally impressed, Connell turned it over to William Turnbull, publisher of North Point Press, then a small Bay Area publishing house, which agreed to gamble on reprinting the book.

“West With the Night” was republished in 1983, with an initial 5,000 copies. By mid-1988, 500,000 copies of the book had been sold and it had spent 79 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Markham’s unconventional life struck a chord with modern readers.

Born in England, she moved to Africa at age 4 with her divorced father, who bought a farm in Kenya. She learned to hunt boar--barefoot and with a spear--with the Nandi Murani tribe. At 17, she began training thoroughbred racehorses and, after learning to fly, she pioneered scouting elephants for hunters from the air.

After her transatlantic flight, she moved to California to work as an advisor on flying films for Paramount Pictures and, out of boredom when her third husband went to war, she wrote her book.

After returning to Africa, she trained eight winners of the Kenya Derby horserace.

“She represented some kind of magical past, something that a woman did but that can’t ever be done again because the world in which that took place is gone,” Gutekunst said in a 1988 interview.

Born in Moberly, Mo., Gutekunst was raised in Salem, Ore., where he developed his love of reading as a child.

After studying history at Willamette University and graduating with honors, Gutekunst joined the merchant marine. He sailed for 11 years as a ship’s steward and was active in union activities with the Marine Cooks’ and Stewards’ Union in San Francisco.

After leaving the merchant marine, he worked as a waiter at various San Francisco restaurants. But the Cold War was raging and Gutekunst’s involvement in radical politics in the 1940s caused him to lose jobs.

In 1957, using his somewhat meager life savings and money he raised from friends, Gutekunst opened Ondine.

“I don’t know if he was a card-carrying [Communist] Party member, but he certainly would have designated himself as a communist for social reasons,” said Eduardo Gutekunst. “He just wanted social equality.”

Gutekunst never made a dime off the Markham renaissance he set in motion.

But his rediscovery of “West With the Night”--and the ensuing book royalties--had a dramatic effect on Markham’s life.

She had been living in obscurity and near poverty in Kenya, relying on the generosity of friends to live in a small cottage on the grounds of the Nairobi Jockey Club.

Sales of her republished memoir soared after the airing of a 1986 PBS documentary on Markham that Gutekunst arranged, raising more than $100,000 and putting up $20,000 of his own money.

During filming in Nairobi, he finally met the woman whose prose had impressed him.

When he arrived at Markham’s cottage, he found her surrounded by a few friends and the camera crew.

“She was still quite beautiful, and rather imperious,” he said in 1987. “She thanked me for ‘finding’ her book--that was the word she used--and she never brought up the matter again, which I thought showed a lot of class. Instead, she asked me if I drank. I said, ‘Of course!’ ‘Oh, splendid!’ she cried. ‘None of these chaps ‘round me here seem to drink. Do let’s have some of the chilled vodka.’”

In 1986, Markham tripped over one of her dogs and broke a leg. She died of complications in a Nairobi hospital at age 83.

The man who rediscovered Markham suffered a heart attack three days after hosting his annual Super Bowl party at his home.

“The thing that made his parties special was that he had a unique ability to assemble people that wouldn’t normally find themselves in the same room,” said his son, George.

“He knew people from everywhere.”

In addition to his sons, he is survived by four grandchildren.