I don’t suppose it’s important, but I am always talking like a fool and then finding out that I have started something. So I thought I had better let you know about it. At least, I know enough to keep my mouth shut in New York, but wouldn’t you think I’d be safe drinking tea on the Old Farm Road in Vermont?
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
March 2 [1956]
Dear Bernice,
Enclosed is another story. I am gradually taking all my notes and putting them together to use for the book and in several cases, like this, end up with a finished story, so I figure the most sensible thing to do is send it along to you.
I have finished the second section of the book, but I don’t like parts of it and intend to change it all over again. Shall I write Roger about not having the book until, say, the end of March? I have just about enough material for the third and fourth sections, but it will take some time to type and put them together sensibly.
One more thing. A good friend of mine up here*24 edits the Bennington Alumni Quarterly, a staid and altogether dull magazine which runs articles called “Suppose You Send Us Money,” and “Support Your College” and she is most anxious to improve the general tone by having a story by me, to be called, perhaps, “The Life of a Faculty Wife,” and of a character to lower the general stuffy tone of the magazine. The story is to be short, and she will illustrate it; I wanted some such material for my book, so I told her I’d do it. I did not think you would have any objections and I am more anxious to do it because Helen sews beautifully, and has guaranteed instead of payment to do all my fancy sewing (like the braid to go down the sides of Laurie’s band uniform pants, and the wings on Sally’s fairy dress, and so on) in exchange. I suggest that for your ten percent, by the way, you send up a basket of mending. Will there be any difficulty about using the article in the book?
Helen and I made rough plans for the story one evening, and it turned out there is a certain amount of bitterness in the heart of the faculty wife. Her husband and Stanley feel that this story must be very carefully censored, and that I must not use the—probably apocryphal—incident of the freshman who sneaked into their house one dawn and left a basket of fresh strawberries beside Paul’s pillow.
I have been playing Authors with my girls every evening, to keep Sally and me in a literary mood. I want to compile a modern deck; Truman Capote couldn’t be any funnier looking than John Greenleaf Whittier.
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
March 22 [1956]
Dear Bernice,
The poor man got off the train right into the arms of Tommy Foster, who had—by the time they traveled from Albany to Bennington—initiated him thoroughly into the mysteries of banding birds. Tommy then abandoned him, without warning, on our doorstep, inadequately shod. I gave him half a dozen cups of nice hot tea and got the roses back into his cheeks, but I do not believe he will ever come to Vermont again. That was yesterday; today he spent the afternoon taking cocktails with the Literature Department of Bennington College and Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Tommy’s other literary fad. Mrs. Fisher patted me on the arm, the way she always does, asked me what I was studying at the college this year, and left me with the admonition that Hard Work Accomplishes Many Things. Martinis, they had, but Tommy is of the put-enough-ice-in-and-it-will-go-around-twice school.
By a rare supernatural timing, I was on the next-to-the-last page of Demons, sitting here typing like a writer, when Mr. Giroux arrived. I finished it last night, and have only now to correct and change a few items; I have promised to have it in the mail next week. We spent most of our time trying to decide whether Roger has a yacht of his own or just belongs to a yacht-pool.
We both thought he was delightful, and are looking forward to seeing him again. He must be a very diplomatic man; he made me feel very set up at the notion of having an Editor, something I have never had before. Is he the one who changes all my “likes” to “As”? He talks of publishing the book in January, in hopes that the Christmas story will sell; but will no doubt discuss that with you. We spent quite a while praising you to each other, and I told him how you would not let me run away to Italy with Franchot Tone.
Best,
S.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
April 2 [1956]
Dear Bernice,
Here is the baby, all fixed up and put together again. It is late by three days because my mother and father, whom we have not seen for two years, spent a week with us, and Pop helped with the corrections and Mother kept asking if it wasn’t bad for my eyes, all this careful reading, and did the publishers really care if there were mistakes? Didn’t they have people who did that kind of thing? And why did I let Stanley make all those changes? It is my book, isn’t it? And are they paying you lots of money for it, dear?
I have two new plots. First, I want to do some stories not about kids; would anybody want them, do you think? The kind I used to write before I hit this lode, which I think is pretty well worked out now. Or has my name gotten itself so identified with this family stuff that a new kind of story would flop? I am all excited about doing a new book, a nasty little novel full of mean people who hate each other, although that may just be a reaction to the sweetness and light of Demons, and the new book might just have a silver lining; I could even let someone get married at the end, if that counts as a silver lining.
Anyway, I’m full of notes and ideas, and want to start right away. And Mr. Giroux seemed so pleasant and nice that I suppose I would be foolish to look for another publisher, as I believe you always predicted, unless Roger is skimpy again on Demons. What is the biggest advance that yacht-owning pirate ever gave to any writer in his life? Because I want to top it by fifty cents.
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
April 12 [1956]
Dear Bernice,
The first section of the new novel is finished, about forty pages. It looks very odd. Stanley likes it, but he is calling me Ivy Compton Jackson, which is I suppose as good a name as any. (Sample: “…I used to meet Miss Ogilvie coming out of his room.” “Good heavens,” said Miss Ogilvie, pale, “that could not be what she means by scandal.”) I wrote a story which I fondly believed was some different from the family pieces, but it turns out to be in the same style, except that I have largely left out the children. I will keep trying.
I have been asked to read to the Creative Writing class at the college. They asked if I would bring something unfinished so the discussion could center around “putting a story into shape for publication.” I went through my desk and found such a wealth of unfinished material I am embarrassed. So after the Creative Writing class gets some of them into shape for publication you can expect a great mass of stories. Stanley wants me to take them my novel and see if they can figure out an ending for it. I have been reading the Bible trying to find an inscription for a sundial; the book is tentatively called “The Sundial” and I think when I find a suitable inscription I will know what the book is about.
Best,
Shirley
Skip Notes
*1 Erich Fromm (1900–1980), a German Jew who escaped the Nazis and moved to the United States, was a practicing psychoanalyst, social theorist, and philosopher, and the author of many books, including The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom.
*2 The Bird’s Nest.
*3 Random House’s Landmark series of juvenile books was launched in 1950. They were published until 1970, producing a total of 180 books, all written by well-known writers rather than historians. Shirley was invited to wri
te one on the witchcraft trials of Salem Village.
*4 Bennett Cerf was a publisher and cofounder of Random House, as well as a lecturer and TV game show personality.
*5 The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1873.
*6 Shirley playfully refers to The Bird’s Nest by the name of its heroine.
*7 Barry had pneumonia, and was hospitalized and confined to an oxygen tent for days.
*8 Mabel Hill Souvaine was editor of Woman’s Day, where “Clothespin Dolls” was published, from 1943 to 1947.
*9 Publication of Life Among the Savages.
*10 Mary Margaret McBride was a popular national radio host in the 1940s and 1950s. Carolyn Wolfe was presumably her agent.
*11 Polly Adler was a famous madam and author, best known for her work A House Is Not a Home.
*12 Fantasy and Science Fiction will soon buy it.
*13 The Dodgers lose the 1953 World Series to the Yankees in Game 6 (4–3).
*14 The payment for “Bulletin” was a lifetime subscription.
*15 Oliver Durand, MD, was the family’s physician in North Bennington and a close family friend for decades.
*16 June Mirken attended grade school with Stanley in Brooklyn then also went to Syracuse, where she met and became close friends with Shirley. Shirley and Stanley appointed her godmother of their first child, Laurie. June has recently married Sid Mintz.
*17 Reference to Childbirth Without Fear (1942) by Grantly Dick-Read.
*18 The Revere reel-to-reel tape recorder given by Shirley and the children to Stanley for Christmas. Shirley had secretly called Ralph and asked for his help in choosing and buying it.
*19 Michael Joseph was the English publisher of several of Jackson’s books in the UK, including a 1954 edition of Life Among the Savages.
*20 Stanley’s aunt.
*21 Carol Mackey’s family lived nearby and she was one of Jannie’s best friends.
*22 Mel Dinelli was a screenwriter and writer, specializing in the suspense genre.
*23 Fred and Peg Wohnus were dear family friends, and their son Willie was one of Laurie’s best friends. Fred taught chemistry at the college and Peg was a pathologist at the local hospital. Mr. and Mrs. Haynes were town residents.
*24 Helen Feeley.
FIVE
• • •
Writing Is Therapy: 1956–1959
The novel is getting sadder. I suppose it’s because of a general melancholy, but a general air of disaster is slowly settling over Hill House. It’s always such a strange feeling—I know something’s going to happen, and those poor people in the book don’t; they just go blithely on their ways.
—To Bernice Baumgarten, September 9, 1958
[To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]
may 21 [1956]
dearest mother and pop,
i figure you must be coming home along about now, and would like to have this letter waiting for you. we thought of you on mothers day, but it seemed pointless, somehow, to try to send flowers to south america.
we took the whole family to new york for nearly a week, and had a wonderful time. i drove down, and we went slowly, going down the west side highway twenty miles an hour so the kids could see the queen elizabeth, which was docked there, and taxi drivers yelling at me from all directions. we stayed in the st. george hotel, across the street from stanley’s parents. laurie and jannie went to the theatre twice, and jannie, who had not been to the theatre before, was as enthusiastic as laurie. now we have two theatre lunatics in the family.
stanley and i decided that laurie ought to hear some real jazz, so we took him to four night clubs. we went to the metropole, which he loved, because it was loud and noisy and had two alternating bands, and then to jimmy ryan’s which is small and very fancy, and where laurie went up and talked to the trumpet player, and would have been perfectly happy to stay there all night, but we went on to nick’s where laurie asked if we could please sit near the band, so the manager put us at the front table right under the band. stanley had one elbow on the stage and kept having to duck his head because he was right under the trombone and laurie was delighted, because he was about two feet away from the trumpet player and presumably able to watch his fingering. when they stopped playing stanley and i were both limp, but laurie was applauding wildly. we finished off at eddie condon’s where at one in the morning we looked at laurie and he was sound asleep sitting up at the table, but we nearly had to drag him out to get him home. he kept asking to stay for just one more number.
those poor fellows are still trying to sell birdsnest to the movies. bridey murphy*1 has somehow merged in the movie producers’ minds with multiple personality, so there are several movies cooking named things like “I led a secret life in 1712!” and “my multiple girl” and stark thinks he can somehow get birdsnest in under the line. he has renewed his option again. i cannot understand that man’s optimism, but am not going to argue.
must stop. no more paper, no more time. lots of love from everyone, and write soon.
s.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
June 12 [1956]
Dear Bernice,
My inability to communicate by telephone has clearly cost us several days; is there any way we can get an advance—in some haste—of five hundred or a thousand dollars? The State of Vermont without warning picked up the federal tax bill we owed and paid and announced that we consequently owed a whopping state tax, too.
The General Stark would be ideal for Lizzie’s premiere; there is a nest of bats in the outer lobby and these warm summer nights when they leave the doors open the bats going back and forth across the screen give an odd three-dimensional effect. I will personally see to it that they put towels in the ladies’ room for the occasion.
Best,
Shirley
“The Dissociation of a Personality,” by Morton Prince (credited in a footnote somewhere in Bird’s Nest) is a real book by a real doctor about a real case. I used it as a foundation, although I strayed pretty far. There is a theory that Joyce wrote a good deal about it in Finnegans Wake, although of course how could you tell.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
June 27 [1956]
Dear Bernice,
This is the last week of college and we have, since last Friday, been to fourteen parties. From five every afternoon until five every morning we are in the clutches of students and bourbon. They drop in at three in the morning, tearful and sentimental. It is very difficult to come home from a party and find six students sitting in the living room playing the piano and singing. This happens every year and every year we are prepared for it and every year it gets worse. At four o’clock every morning they start talking about the meaning of life and was education worth it. Last night we ran out of food on about the fourth visitation and I made everyone grate potatoes so I could make potato latkes and all of a sudden I was standing there by the stove making potato latkes and I thought what am I doing at twenty minutes after three in the morning standing here making potato latkes.
This is also the time of year when a certain type student asks me very confidentially if Stanley and I are really happily married. With a light in her eye. I usually pat them on the hand when I answer them. Gently, of course.
Tomorrow the parents start coming which means instead of bourbon we will drink a kind of gin punch most of the time and bourbon later after the parents have gone to bed. The fathers will ask Stanley if he has been taking good care of their little girls and the mothers will ask me if what they suspect about their little girls is true. In confidence. Stanley always says yes and I always say no.
Saturday they all go away. Sunday I
sleep. Monday I go back to work.
Best,
S.
• • •
“You say that’s a real snapping turtle, dear?”
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
July 17 [1956]
Dear Bernice,
First of all, many many thanks for the check. I am terribly grateful for your trouble in getting it, and feel like the world’s prime nuisance.
Bob Giroux sent me a copy of the book jacket for Demons, and I think it is charming. I have a couple of small quarrels with it, and since of course it’s too late to do anything about it, and would only cause disturbance to have me raising points now, I’ll note them here, just to get them on the record, and not mention them to Bob.
First of all, of course, the house is clearly in Connecticut, not Vermont. That landscaping job belongs on Winton Road, Westport. So does the willow tree. In Vermont, a willow tree is effete. Ditto the fieldstone wall and lewis-and-conger standing lamp. It has been decided by the North Bennington postmaster, the milkman, and the barber that the tree in front is a New York maple, and the three tall ones in back probably elms. No respectable Old House in Vermont—or, I believe, anywhere in New England outside Connecticut—ever ever ever sat kitty-corner to the road. They all face front squarely, to keep a good eye on what’s going on. The postmaster was amused by the mailbox, since he always thought that one of the reasons we moved was so’s we could pick up our mail in the post office like everybody else.
The Letters of Shirley Jackson Page 33
