The Norman Maclean Reader

by Norman Maclean

  Is there a prejudice among East Coast publishers against Western stories?

  Not until recently have the Western writers ever gotten a good break from the publishers in New York. I feel that deeply. If I heard that one of the New York publishers was coming across Grizzly Basin I’d be out there and shoot him on sight. They are a filthy bunch.

  I had the good fortune of a dream coming true. I’m sure every rejected writer must dream of a time when he’s written something that was rejected which turns out to be quite successful, so that all the publishers who rejected him are now coming around and kissing his ass at high noon, and he can tell them where to go.

  Alfred A. Knopf, probably the most celebrated of all publishing companies in this country, rejected A River Runs Through It. Two or three years after it was rejected, I got a letter from an editor at Alfred A. Knopf asking me if Alfred A. Knopf couldn’t have the privilege of getting first crack at my next novel.

  Well, well, well. I don’t know how this ever happened, but this fell right into my hands. So I wrote a letter. It’s probably one of the best things I ever wrote. I understand it’s on the wall of several newspapers in the country. I can remember the last paragraph:

  “If it should ever happen that the world comes to a place when Alfred A. Knopf is the only publishing company left and I am the only author, then that will be the end of the world of books.”

  I really told those bastards off. What a pleasure! What a pleasure! Right into my hands! Probably the only dream I ever had in life that came completely true.

  Have your stories done anything to change the prejudices against Western stories?

  I hope so, but a change like that has to be very broad. You talk about New York publishers, and in a way there is no such thing; there’s this bastard and that bastard. It takes a lot of things to affect a good many of them. It may be that the most important thing is not that they’re accepting more Western writing, but that Western writers are getting broader-based themselves, more generally interesting and more generally concerned about problems of mankind instead of just cattle rustling.

  It’s a much healthier situation now. Not very much happened for many years, but now things are happening. You have a guy like Ivan Doig writing. I don’t care how much of a New Yorker you are, you better realize you’re reading a helluva good writer when you read Ivan Doig.

  What was the reaction to A River Runs Through It back East?

  There were four or five New York publishers who turned it down. On the other hand, New York reviewers, from the very beginning, have thought very highly of it. Publishers Weekly was very warm-hearted about it. There were probably 600 reviews of it, and I think I read only one poor review. Reviewers consistently have been very warm-hearted, irrespective of the reason. So I have no kick about reviewers.

  Who were some of the writers that you’ve learned from?

  The Bible. Wordsworth. Very early, through my father, Wordsworth became a favorite poet of mine. He’s influenced my life a great deal. When I was in the woods I always carried a copy of his selected poems with me. I think poets have influenced me more than prose writers. Gerard Manley Hopkins has influenced my poetical side, and I think some of it comes out in my prose. I like his passion. I think Browning is the best English poet after Shakespeare. I learned a tremendous amount from him about how to handle dramatic dialogue, dramatic speech and character.

  Same way about Frost, who had a lot of influence on me. He was an occasional teacher at Dartmouth when I was there, so I had the privilege of being in classes that he taught. I liked him even before I went to Dartmouth. He talked straight to you, and often poetry was there, or something close to it.

  What did Frost teach?

  Creative writing. We had evening classes in a great big basement room with a wonderful fireplace in it. He’d just walk in front of the fireplace in circles. As a teacher he was like a poet: he composed nothing but monologues. Nobody ever stopped him.

  How about Hemingway?

  Hemingway was an idol of mine for a while, as he was for practically all of us of that generation. He and I were about the same age. Unlike a lot of people who thought a lot of Hemingway, I still think a great deal of him. Now Hemingway is in disrepute as a kind of fake macho guy. I realized that he did put on kind of a show, but on the other hand I don’t see how you could be a real American writer unless you knew Hemingway well, and had learned a great deal from him. He was a master of dialogue of a certain kind, that very tight crisp kind. He was a master in handling action, too. He was almost as good as Charlie Russell. In a page or even a paragraph he could tell you the most complicated action. So I don’t fall into the school of so-called modern critics who dislike Hemingway.

  According to The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which you mention in “A River Runs Through It,” man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Did writing the stories help you to do that?

  I don’t know whether I can answer that. I suppose that in any conventional sense I’m a religious agnostic. There are things that make me feel a lot better. I don’t particularly find them in a church. I find them in the woods, and in wonderful people. I suppose they’re my religion.

  I feel I have company about me when I’m alone in the woods. I feel they’re beautiful. They’re a kind of religion to me. My dearest friends are also beautiful. My wife was an infinitely beautiful thing. I certainly feel that there are men and women whom I have known and still know who are really above what one could think was humanly possible. They and the mountains are for me “what passeth human understanding.”

  Selected Letters

  Letters to Robert M. Utley, 1955–1979

  Maclean first contacted Robert M. Utley in May 1955, querying him about his master’s degree thesis on George Custer. That contact led to a friendship, conducted mostly via mail, that lasted about a quarter of a century. When Maclean talked Utley into collaborating with him for an article about Edward S. Luce (included earlier in this volume), he described their collaboration as “a mail-order marriage.” Maclean acted as writing tutor to the young Utley, and the up-and-coming western historian acknowledged Maclean’s influence on his second book, The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (1963). The correspondence also reveals Maclean wrestling with his Custer manuscript, eventually abandoning it and turning to writing “reminiscent stories.” Utley has had a distinguished career as a National Park Service historian, publishing over fifteen books, including, most recently, Lone Star Lawmen: The Second Century of the Texas Rangers (2007). Maclean was a proud and loyal friend, lauding every new book and writing to him once in the 1970s, “You knew how to write a book before you knew how to write.”

  May 11, 1955

  Dear Lt. Utley:

  Jim Hutchins1 of Columbus tells me that I ought to write you about one of my interests in the Custer story—namely, the use of Custer and the Battle in “literature” from 1876 to the present. I am using “literature” in a very broad sense to include not only poems, dramas, novels, but radio and televisions scripts, etc. (and painting and music as well). Jim says you wrote your dissertation2 on this subject or on one closely allied to it but he wasn’t sure to what university you submitted it (he thought it was the University of Indiana). Is it on file in some university library, for, if so, I probably can get it through the inter-library exchange and not put you to any bother? If it isn’t publicly obtainable I hope that you are planning to publish it soon (or at least a condensed version of it). Let me know if you have any such plans. [. . .]

  Very sincerely yours,

  Norman Maclean

  May 21, 1955

  Dear Bob,

  Thanks for your good letter. I’ve already sent for the thesis. $3.75 for shipping charges! God damn, it better be good at that price.

  Some of our interests must coincide, but I doubt if they are identical. If they are, I’ll tell you after reading the thesis. I’ll tell myself first, though. I think I am going to do something on Custer, but I’m not going
to do anything that has been done or is in the process of being done. For me to spend 4 or 5 years of my life on Custer is to take a long leave of absence from English scholarship. I will not do so, you may be sure, unless I am convinced that I can do something on Custer that is worthwhile and different. I think that I come to Custer and the Battle with a somewhat different background, training and set of interests from those who have worked on him so far. But I may be wrong in thinking this way, and if I am I’ll go on about my business—the sooner the quicker.

  If you get to Chicago before the end of June, be sure to let me know. I’ll be out in Montana for the summer—I have a cabin on a lake near Missoula, but I’ll be back again in September. Don’t go through without looking me up.

  I’ll write you about that $3.75 after reading the thesis.

  Sincerely,

  Norman Maclean

  Seeley Lake, Montana

  July 16, 1955

  Dear Bob:

  I finally caught up with your letter, or maybe it was the other way around, but in any case I was mighty glad to get it. Thanks, Bob, for the permission to microfilm your thesis, and I was very interested in your plans to expand it. The chapter on the 20th-century historians, of course, is a “must” and ought to be very interesting. [. . .] [T]his bunch interests me very much, and I hope that you won’t be too long delayed in getting your chapter on them in shape.

  In respect to your proposed chapter on the evolution of the Battlefield, I think that I ought to give you an item of information that I picked up on the Hill when I was there several weeks ago. They have a new historian by the name of Rickey3 and I was on his tail to get some jobs done around the Museum that would make the road to research easier, but he told me that he couldn’t get to them for some time because his first assignment was to write a history of the Battlefield. I hope that this assignment doesn’t interfere with your plans, but, lest it should, I think it a matter of simple decency to tell you about it. [. . .]

  Like yourself, I’ve read part (about half) of Custer’s Luck4 and am not nearly so impressed as the professional reviewers. The reviews that I have read have gone all out, but the need for a book on Custer that at least seemed to be impartial was bigger than a barn door. Then, too, this was a fortunate year for Stewart, with the air full of Davy Crockett and the American legendary hero. On the other hand, the book has some power to it. Of what I’ve read so far, I like best the opening part which puts the Battle in the large context of that part of American history involving the Indian problem. He thus comes to the Battle with the power and interest of America behind it. [. . .] I thought Stewart’s appraisal of the Indian problem was cool, realistic, and complex. (I ought to add, though, that I don’t know Indian history well enough to be a good judge of it.) I also think that Stewart writes well. On the whole, he moves right along—not fancy, but clear and a good eye for colorful detail. At times he can’t free himself of detail, as in the over-long chapter on “The Montana Column,” but I’d rather have someone err even by being too detailed than not detailed enough.

  Now, for the other side. (1) He’s too long getting to Custer. (2) When he does, he doesn’t seem to know the elementary facts. On p. 167 where he first describes him, he makes 3 or 4 mistakes, if I can trust my memory. [. . .] [I]n the Civil War, Custer wasn’t “originally assigned to the Balloon Corps,” but to the 2d Cavalry, or am I too old to rely upon my memory? There are other statements in that short paragraph that I would challenge if I had my sources around, and on the opposite page (p. 166) Stewart gives 1872 as the date of the Stanley expedition and “the next year” (that would be 1873) as the date of the Black Hills expedition. I may only be revealing my ignorance, not Stewart’s, but I’ll confess to you that in my ignorance I’ve believed that the Stanley expedition was in 1873 and the Black Hills expedition in 1874 (with no campaign in 1875), and I’ve believed this for a long time. At this point, I decided I’d quit reading Stewart for a while, let my mind clear up, and do some work about the cabins for a week or so. [. . .]

  Well, Bob, I didn’t mean to unload so many pages on you, but Custer was never one for short marches. Write me if you get time.

  Sincerely yours,

  Norman Maclean

  Seeley Lake, Montana,

  Aug. 22, 1955

  Dear Bob,

  Here it is only a couple of days before I am going to break camp for the summer and I haven’t answered your last good letter. There are a couple of other things I haven’t done either. No work on Custer. Almost no work on a paper which is to be delivered at the Modern Language Assoc. at Xmas but which has to be written by the end of Sept. I don’t know exactly what happened to the summer, but it was very nice. For a change, I was in good health. Also had good luck fishing with my boy, who is big enough to want to take overnight trips into the back country and fish glacier lakes where, as the freshman composition student would say, “the hand of many has never set foot.” Anyway, I can’t be very abject about not answering your letter sooner when all that I can say in the way of apology is that my health and the fishing have been good.

  I’ll spend a week at my wife’s old home near Helena and while there I always spend a day at the State Historical Museum talking to Ross Toole,5 the Director and Editor of the Montana Magazine of History (it has a new title which I forget) and Mike Kennedy, his chief assistant. I have known Ross and the whole Toole family for many years, and think that he is a remarkable fellow in every way, and I want him to know about you as one of the most promising young western historians on the horizon. I shall be sure to tell him about you in a general way, but have you anything in mind of article-size that you could work up during the next year and that might catch the eye of the editor of the Montana Magazine? For instance, I’m going to tell him about Hutchins’ and Cartwright’s6 discovery of the site of the Bozeman Party fight of 1874 which I hope I can convince editor and authors could be made into an interesting article. I perhaps also should add that when I talked to Ross in early July I told him that the spring issue of 1956 should feature Custer and the Battle (because of the spring of 1876), and he agreed. So that might give you an idea. My guess is that a history of Custer historians would be too special in its interest for the Magazine, but maybe not. [. . .]

  It occurs to me you may feel that since writing me a couple of letters you have been subject to a lot of paternal pushing around. This is probably the case. I can’t help being what I have been for nearly the last 30 years, and in my defense I will say on that after a considerable amount of practice I have become pretty good at spotting young people with promise and at seeing they get tough training and some contacts and “breaks” to make the next steps easy.

  Expect to see Kuhlman7 on the way back and to spend a day on the Hill with the Luces.8 You have probably heard by now that they are not leaving in November, but are to remain until next May. I wish, though, that they would stay until he was 70. There will never be another combination up there to match them—in dedication, ability, and color. I’ll certainly agree with you that the Major is “unforgettable.” My God, Bob, I just had an “idea” after writing this sentence. If the spring number (1956) of the Montana Magazine is going to feature Custer and the Battle, and if the Major is going to retire in May, 1956, shouldn’t there be a little article on them? As a minimum, the main facts and a hail and farewell—or, something more extensive, like a New Yorker profile, that would try to recreate them as people. Are you any good at characterization? Seemingly objective and light but underneath tender and deeply appreciative [. . .]

  Sincerely,

  Norman Maclean

  November 3, 1955

  Dear Bob,

  I’m very sorry that I have been so long in answering you, but I don’t feel that I have been responsible for the delay. I hope, therefore, that a complete explanation will take the place of an apology.

  I saw Ross Toole and Mike Kennedy in Helena during the last week in August, as I told you I would. When I got back to Chicago on the 6th or 7th
of September there was a pile of stuff I had to dig through, but I notice the date of my first letter to Ross is September 14 so I wasn’t sitting on the oars. I wrote him because, as I told him, I have learned with a certain number of lumps on my head that what I thought I heard an editor say in conversation was not what he later remembered saying. So I put down in black-and-white my understanding of our conversational agreements back in Helena and I asked him and Mike to O.K. or alter them before I made any moves (including writing you). [. . .]

  Concerning the tribute to the Major, they said that they recognized its appropriateness, but they also said that such a thing was hard to write and when it was not well written it was very poor reading matter. I agreed that such a thing could be very flat, and in making this admission I trapped myself. So they then said that they would include the tribute if I wrote it. I next told them about you and how you were the man for the job, and I hope and think I impressed them with your qualifications as one of the coming historians of the west, but I couldn’t shake myself altogether free. The matter was left in this way: the tribute to the Major is my responsibility, whether it is written by me, or by someone else, or by me and someone else.

  Bob, what about doing this thing together? I don’t know yet what co-authorship would mean in detail, but I have the general feeling that together we could do a good job on the former “Sarg” of the 7th. In fact, a really good job. But if you feel co-authorship is impossible on a thing like this, will you try it yourself? [. . .]

  The Major and Mrs. Luce were in Chicago recently and stayed with us—the occasion being several awards and medals in his honor. [. . .]

  Sincerely yours,

  Norman Maclean

  [P.S.] I think it is pretty hard to detach a chapter from a large narrative and expect it to be self-sustained and to have all the power it has in its context. I had the same problem when I came to publishing part of my thesis. I thought I would pull out a chunk, make a few verbal changes at the beginning and end, and be all set. Instead, it took me a whole winter—one of the hardest things I ever wrote. In one way or another I had to move most of my thesis into the one piece from it. On the other hand, page after page of your thesis suggests interesting articles. [. . .]