Dear Donald, Dear Bennett

by Bennett Cerf

  John Gunther had a huge cocktail party the other day. Then a whole bunch of us spent an old-time New York night wandering the town. The tour included the Colony for dinner, the Barberry Room for drinks, and a final windup at “21.” I should worry; the bills were all Gunther’s, and I hate to think of what the total must have been. Included in the party were Bill Shirer, Bob Riskin, [Harold] Ross, Marc Connolly, [Samuel] Behrman, Major [Anatole] Litvak (!!!), Fay Wray, Jean Dalrymple, Howard Lindsay and his wife [Dorothy Stickney], and God knows who else. They came and went like ships in the night, if I may coin a phrase.

  Two moves are on foot. One is to get Elmer Davis to do a 15-minute broadcast to the nation every week. I think this would be a wonderful idea and would do much to clarify the atmosphere. The second move involves a “Draft Willkie” campaign for the Governorship. I have agreed to do a little work on this project because I’d dearly love to see Mr. Dewey erased from the scene, and Willkie is obviously the only man who can stop Dewey from getting the Republican nomination. At 2 o’clock this morning Mankiewicz came running over in triumph to state that he had won the campaign for Willkie by definitely committing Harold Ross to coming out publicly for Dewey. And what PW and Mr. Winchell have done to him since beggars description.

  Well, that’s enough for this time. Let me know just as soon as your plans are settled for the next few weeks. And I hope to God it will be Harrisburg or some other place even nearer home.

  My love to Pat, Tony and yourself.

  As ever,

  Bennett

  P.S. My social secretary (slang for Jezebel) reminds me that Tuesday is your wedding anniversary. My heartiest congratulations to both of you, and here’s hoping it is the last one that we spend apart!

  July 1, 1942

  Dear Don:

  All of us were staggered by the knowledge that you are practically back in the publishing business. Two months to finish one book indeed! Why, in that time, Klopfer, Commins and I expect to turn out two volumes of Thomas Aquinas, one volume of St. Augustine, and the Sex Life of Elmer Adler. We are torn between pleasure at the knowledge that you are doing something you really know something about, and worry that you will fret at such a humdrum interlude in what promised to be the high road to adventure. Don’t forget we are all pulling for you no matter what you do, and we are still hoping that something will bring you East. Why the hell don’t you tell them that you can finish that book much faster in New York where your former cronies will help you, if they absolutely have to.

  Many thanks for the renewed invitation to use the farm. I hope to take advantage of it either myself sometime in July, or when Phyllis gets back in August. As I think I have written you, she is leaving with Bubbles one week from today for the coast for a three week vacation. Bubbles is treating her to the round trip and both of them will be boarding with Anne Shirley, so the price looked right to us! I urged her to go since, under present circumstances, it is unlikely that I will get more than a week at a time off, if that much.

  Business news in a nutshell: I asked Mannie to send you the May statement which is a pippin. June will be even better but, of course, a lot of the profit in June will be a bit on the phony side since we are selling thousands of dollars worth of inventory that is marked down on our books to next to nothing. Not one remainder was disposed of in May, however, so the May figure is strictly kosher. The Reynolds and the Paul books keep up beautifully. You will remember that we made a 10% free book offer on PARIS a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday Harold Williams called up and bought his third thousand on that basis! My God, how the dollars—at least the accounts receivable—roll in!

  Frances Merriam is going to take Leah Daniels’ place beginning Monday, and I think we are damn lucky to get her. The picture of you in uniform decided her to take the job and she has agreed to take a $10.00 cut in salary the minute you come back. My God, how you mesmerize those Macy gals.

  Believe it or not, we haven’t signed a contract for a new book in three weeks. Harry Maule is home today whipping the new Maritta Wolff book into shape. He says it is going to be a world beater. A new manuscript from Chris Massie arrived yesterday along with a voice from the dead in the shape of a long new novel by Morley Callighan. The Fearing novel is a complete flop, as expected. ST. LOUIS is tapering off, but will do well over 8000, which isn’t bad in these times.

  I honestly think that is all the news I can give you. Elliot Paul has blown into town and is waiting outside to have lunch with me. Next thing you know, you will be getting a telephone call or something from Mrs. Bennett Cerf. She should arrive on the coast about July 10th.

  My love to you.

  As ever,

  Bennett

  Aug. 11—’42

  Dear Bennett—

  I’ve neglected to write before this as I haven’t known my plans. We drove across the continent in the six days allotted to us and I reported Tuesday morning.* Hoisington had arrived before me having sold a hill of goods to the training command at Ft. Worth. We’ve reworked the book and he’s off for Ft. Worth and Washington to-morrow. If he sells the idea of printing it at an outside printer I’ll be back in N.Y. next week. If not I won’t be back until after the war. My present assignment is in charge of Training Aids out here. If I stay I can build up this department into something really big. We can do one helluva job but I don’t know how long I’ll be left here. It seems like a long way to the Harrisburg School but you never can tell what will happen in the army.

  We’re living at the Santa Ana Hotel until I hear from Perry next week. Saw Georgie over the week-end. He thinks he’s going to get a commission in the motion picture division of the Air Corps. Which is where he belongs.

  Tell Bob that I’ve dropped Bob Jr. [a Navy pilot] a line.…

  I’m sure I’ll get him this time if he’s here.

  Give my love to all of the gang.… I left rather abruptly without telling you how grand it was to be back even for a little while. Please use the farm for your vacation.… And use some of my liquor. It’ll spoil. Kiss Jez for me.

  Love,

  Donald

  August 31, 1942

  Dear Cap:

  A sudden burst of frigid weather sent us scampering home from Maine a few days ahead of schedule, and what did we do over the weekend but pack up Christopher, his nurse Margaret, his potty and various and sundry other accoutrements, took Edith and Lewis Young along as a happy afterthought, and proceed down to the Klopfer farm for as nice a weekend as I have had in a long, long time. Before I go any further, I want to thank you both very much indeed.

  It rained all day Saturday and I read Maritta Wolff’s NIGHT SHIFT straight through. The book could have been cut a little bit more, but it certainly has in it everything but the kitchen stove, and I think we can push it in something like the fashion that Viking adopted for THE SUN IS MY UNDOING. I have already given Johnny Beecroft a terrific sales talk on the book. Galleys are in his hands and we can only hope. While I am on the subject, Bob is handling the Dinesen negotiations with the BOMC. It is an “A” book and we are all in high hopes. The Lin Yutang looks dubious for a strange reason. Merry Wood and Harry Abrams are all for it, but Harry Scherman is very frigid about the whole scheme. The reason, believe it or not, is that he is sore as hell at Lin for his attitude on India and the Far East today. Mind you, Harry doesn’t say this in so many words, but it seemed perfectly obvious to both Bob and me on separate visits. I am afraid that all those arguments that you and I had with Harry about India and so forth didn’t help the situation any. It is sort of a wry joke that, after all the Chinese stuff the Club has adopted, Harry should go off on this angle just when we have something to throw into the pot! I haven’t given up on the Lin book yet, but if we can jam it by Harry in his present state of mind, it will be a minor miracle.

  …

  To go on with the tale of the weekend, yesterday was perfect and we played lots of paddle tennis. The farm is in wonderful condition. The corn and the peaches are beyond description (Lewi
s and I each ate exactly twelve ears of corn apiece while we were there). I came in this morning on your regular train which, in honor of my presence, was forty minutes late, thus enabling me to get to the office at my usual hour and preserving Jezebel’s sanity, such as it is, for another few days.

  Gaston seemed really glad to see us. Marguerite* seems pretty well recovered, but now has hay fever to bother her and Gaston thinks this will retard her complete convalescence for several additional weeks. She is expecting Pat on September 9th. Is that correct? Thrup is finding out what the expenses were for the weekend and we insist on your accepting remuneration for the same. Don’t forget that we agreed on this basis before you left. I don’t want any shenanigans from you about it.

  Business is sound and PARIS and STARS keep up amazingly. We had to borrow another twenty from the bank today to cover royalty payments, but that looks like the last trip we’ll have to make to this particular well, and I honestly think that, by January 1st, we’ll be financially sound, at last.

  I don’t quite understand your new post. If you have time, I wish you’d explain it to me a little more fully. I do hope you will be able to make New York again this Fall. I miss you badly enough at the office here, but down at the farm it gave me a strange empty feeling not to have you pottering around in your handsome blue overalls. Tell Pat I missed her very much at the farm too—honest. As for Thrup, she is your wife’s devoted slave and champion.

  …

  We’ll take care of Sergeant Moore’s manuscript when it gets here. My desk is an awful-looking mess, so I will cut this now and write again when I am caught up with myself.

  Love,

  Bennett

  P.S. Did I tell you that I am working on an anthology of military humor for Pocket Books? I hope you will send along any funny stories connected with the war that you can think of. Keep ’em clean; this book is aimed at the army purchasing commission and the Red Cross, and if I do a decent job, I honestly think it will sell a half a million copies.

  P.P.S. Just as I finished dictating this letter, Jezebel informed me that she had gotten a note from you this morning saying that the manual had been canned in Washington. Why in hell she didn’t tell me this while I was dictating this note is a problem more for a psychiatrist than for myself. Does this all mean that all the months’ work that has been put in on the manual goes for nothing? And is there no chance of a reversal somewhere?

  Sept. 1 — 1942

  Dear Bennett—

  I’ve been a bit neglectful about writing lately but things have gotten dull around here. The Manual has been canned by Col. Smith in Washington after receiving the blessings of the Training Command in Ft. Worth. We were to do it for the whole country but I guess the Washington boys will want credit for it so they’ll probably come out with one like it in time for the next war. It’s pretty discouraging and is symbolic of the nonsense that still goes on here in Washington. God save me from Headquarters anywhere. I haven’t gotten any details from Perry yet but I guess he’ll be back in another week and then I’ll hear all about his misadventures. In the meantime, we are working along here on our little projects to help out wherever we can in training these cadets so that they won’t commit suicide when they have to fly against some real opposition.

  We took a little house at Lido Isle—get into it September 20th—that’s OK since Pat is returning to New York on Saturday and I would not want to “keep house” by myself. It has three bedrooms and two baths and is about 100 yards from the water. So if you can get out here, there’s plenty of room for you. My wife will do the cooking and cleaning but it’s very compact so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I’ll expect to lose weight then and I can stand it.

  I seem to be further and futher from action in this job and I really miss the gang and the business like the devil. This seems like so much play when there’s real work to be done.

  Give my love to Thrup, Bob and the whole office. Let me hear from you once in a while.

  Love,

  Donald

  September 4, 1942

  Dear Donald:

  Your letter of September 1st sounded a little down in the mouth to me, and I hope it was only a passing mood. I have got enough sense to understand your feeling of complete frustration over the manual debacle, and I also understand that the prospects of teaching a lot of squirts at Santa Ana for an indefinite period is not too glamourous. On the other hand, another shift may come along at any second and the first thing you know, you will find yourself ordered to some foreign clime. And just think, you might have been stuck down in Washington. I had dinner with Chester Kerr on Wednesday evening, and I gather that the guys who are stationed down there, both in uniform and in offices like the CWI, are in a state bordering on complete dementia. In spite of all this, things do seem to be getting done and, if the Russians can only hold in the South a little bit longer, the tide may turn once and for all.

  David Ormsby’s THE SOUND OF AN AMERICAN has finally been published by Dutton’s and is getting incredibly mixed reviews. Some of them are devastating, but the book is going to sell, possibly better even than anything he ever did under the Longstreet handle. It certainly wasn’t anything for the Random House list, even if it hits 100,000.

  Yesterday’s total on PARIS is exactly 846 copies, and we are well over 50,000, and I think there is another ten or fifteen thousand in the woods on it for sure. We gave Saxe a $500.00 bonus the other day for his work on the book and I am sure you will approve of this gesture. Needless to say, he was delighted.

  Under separate cover, I have sent you a set of bound galleys of the Cecil Brown book. That is the next baby on which we are going to concentrate our big guns. The Maritta Wolff opus is in line to follow. You can rest easy that the Fall list is going to go over big and that everything possible is being done for it.

  Frances Merriam is working out in a brilliant fashion and is a great addition to our ranks.

  …

  I wish to hell you were sitting across that desk from me at this moment.

  As ever,

  Bennett

  P.S. I have just received the enclosed letter from Manny Piller. Will this guy be anything for us in case we found an opening? Please return his note to me along with your comments.

  September 11, 1942

  Dear Klopf:

  At the end of a long and particularly trying day, I shall cease potching Jezebel just long enough to write you a brief report.

  1. Interest in the Cecil Brown book is terrific. It’s been made an “A” book along with the Dinesen [Winter’s Tales].

  Maybe out of the two, we’ll get one windfall! The Philadelphia Inquirer has bought the second serial rights to SUEZ for the unbelievable sum of $1200.00 and, using this as a lever, we got the even more unbelievable sum of $1400.00 from the New York Post. Unfortunately, we had to throw the New York deal into the pot to sweeten the deal with the United Features Syndicate so, although we get half of the Philadelphia jack, we’ll only get 25% of the New York sum and similar ones that follow. United Features rang up $18,000.00 worth of sales on this hitherto undreamed of end of the affair alone. We are releasing second serial rights on December 7th, which is a date that may have some connotations for you!

  2. Hollywood is seemingly very excited over NIGHT SHIFT. Today, at the last moment, the William Morris office called to calmly tell us that Maritta Wolff has made them her movie agent. Harry Maule is in Maine, as you know, so Bob and I will have to try to find out what kind of idiocy this is. I told the smooth and hitherto unheard of bastard at the Morris office that his coming in at this particular time was like somebody claiming a commission for getting F.D.R. some time on the networks. I won’t even give him galleys until I see what’s what. We’re in for 20% of these movie rights and mean to protect our interests to the last ditch, even if you have to go to jail for it!

  3. Walter Black has taken RINGED WITH FIRE for his Detective Book Club.

  4. We wangled Twentieth Century-Fox into buying 500 o
f our remaining 700 copies of THE OX-BOW INCIDENT at $1.00 a copy net.

  5. Elmer Davis has written that Brown’s book will go through Washington O.K. with just a few minor changes.

  6. We are turning down a putrid adventure story by Randau and Zugsmith that is just a musical comedy version of THE SETTING SUN OF JAPAN. Collier’s has bought it and some publisher will undoubtedly do it, but it stinks on ice and, when good old Max Lieber said we couldn’t have any share of the movie rights, we gave him the old brusheroo.

  7. Kenneth Fearing has turned in some stinker that he dug out of the trunk in an obvious effort to end his contract with us. We are going to let him get away with it. I am just fed up with shenanigans of the likes of him. I hope this meets with your approval.

  8. All of the above will give you a rough idea of what our business days are like right now.

  Pat and Tony blew into the office to say hello on Tuesday, but we’ve seen no sign of her since. That evening, at about 7:30, good old Rae called up to say she was having a party for Pat and had forgotten to ask us. This squares us up for the Junior Miss party. If she ever brings that up again, I will push her teeth in. In fact, I’d be glad to do this anyhow. Thrup has been trying to get Pat over for dinner, and I hope we will be able to make a date with her when she gets her deck cleared.

  Jez has promised to send you all important books from now on. Let’s presume for the nonce that she knows an important book when she sees one. She’ll have to prove it to me. (Faces are being made while I dictate this.)