by Ultan Macken
Sincerely,
Don Congdon
A post card came from Sabina in France. It was from a famous resort in the south, Juan les Pins. My father wrote back to her:
Gort na Ganiv.
July 18th 1956
My dear Sabina,
Hope this finds you. When you settle down somewhere, let us know. I have the page proofs of the books of short stories that I want to send you. I have finished the new novel called ‘Sullivan’ and both publishers are pleased with it, so if it is a real success, I will buy Juan les Pins. Peggy and I are off to London July 24, back August 1st, a play on BBC Third Programme. It will be a break. We enjoyed our two weeks in Cork, very beautiful, very quiet.
Fr McCullagh wants to know if we have any chance of seeing you at all this year. I said I hoped so. Is that enough of a hint? Peggy will pass out if we don’t get to see all of you somehow – any chance?
Hope the lads are enjoying the trip. Give them our best. You know we love you and desire to see you.
Walter and family
John McNulty came to visit us quite a few times during the 1950s and he was a great help to my father when he was in New York both with The King of Friday’s Men in 1951 and with his own play, Home is the Hero in 1954. On 29 July 1956, John McNulty sadly died from a heart attack at his home in Rhode Island. He was only sixty.
My father wrote to Wally Óg in July when he returned from taking part in the BBC radio production of King of Friday’s Men:
Gort na Ganiv.
July 31st 1956
My dear Wally Óg,
Thanks for your letter. We got back last night arriving in Galway at about 7.30. It was a tough week. Up at 6.30 a.m. each morning to walk 2 miles to mass, rush to get a bus into London at 8.30 a.m. Rehearsing from 10.30–5.30 and on Sunday (God forgive me) practically all day.
We didn’t have a flight booked yesterday, so we went out to the airport and tried out on stand-by; and with help of Our Lady a couple didn’t turn up and we got their seats on the plane. The plane was two hours late but we didn’t mind, Mick and May had been out to the house and brought Nigger [our black retriever dog] into Woodquay.
Have tried to light the adjectival Aga twice and it went out both times. I hope you are happy. Anybody who asked me where Wally Óg was I replied carefully that himself and a few other lads had rented a 300-acre castle in Meath for a few weeks, so now they know that we are all millionaires [probably Lismullen – which Opus Dei later converted into a major retreat centre].
All the best, we will be looking forward to seeing you. We enjoyed London. We had a lot of fun at the rehearsals. There were a lot of ex-Abbey people in the cast so it wasn’t too bad. A good laugh! But I’m so happy to be home again. Your mother will write (I hope!). Anything you want ask!
Love,
Your ould fella
My father always included news of what was happening in his life in his letters to his relatives in America:
Gort na Ganiv.
September 14th 1956
Dear Rita,
Many thanks for your letter and the cuttings. I’m very pleased that you liked the stories. They got good reviews in the USA and in England as well. It all goes to prove that people are the same everywhere. Writing stories about the people in Galway is just writing about stories about humanity in general, if all men could truly recognise the truth of that we would be all brothers and true Christians – no thought of segregation, or apartheid or the other names men think up for intolerance and lack of charity. That may be an over-simplification but it has a shade of truth somewhere.
I’m delighted to hear that your mother is well. Pity we can’t meet for a chat. But who knows. No chance of you and your mother coming on a visit to Ireland, I suppose. Would that be too painful for her? Suppose all that travelling around would be too hard on her. Maybe we will get to the USA again but at the moment, there’s no sign of it.
Wally Óg, eldest son, is off to College this year. Probably Dublin, he will start studying for his MA. Languages and the Humanities seem to be his bent. After that, journalism or the Diplomatic Corps – he doesn’t know which yet, Ultan, 13, we will have still have for a few years more, Thank God.
Something that might interest you. Windsor Lewis – he directs plays on Broadway and he stage-managed the first play I acted in over there – called to see us a few weeks ago with his wife Barbara Bel Geddes. They loved the land so much that they bought a house down the road from us. It’s a beautiful property, built on the shores of the lake, lying in 56 acres of woods and shrubs. They hope to come and live here for a year, next April, bringing their two girls. They should be happy in it because they will be living in a welter of beauty. They will stir us up anyway in case we become too somnolent.
‘Twilight of a Warrior’, the play I wrote last year will be published in England in November. I won’t forget to send you a copy. No publisher in the US yet until we can get it put on stage there. Up to this they complain bitterly that it’s too ‘good’ to take a chance on. You can judge it for yourself when you get a copy.
The new novel is called ‘Sullivan’. It’s all about an actor (by a strange coincidence) who starts acting in a small town in the West of Ireland and deals with his life in Dublin, London and New York.
All the best to your mother, family and yourself. Thanks again for your letter.
Sincerely,
Walter
There was another letter from his American agent, Don Congdon about Sullivan at the end of September:
Harold Matson Company,
30 Rockefeller Plaza,
New York 20.
September 26th 1956
Dear Walter,
I had lunch with the Macmillan people, John Budlong and R.L. De Wilton last Friday at which time we discussed ‘Sullivan’. They made an offer to do the novel contingent on a revision, and the letter embodying the terms and their criticism is enclosed herewith.
The letter is largely self-explanatory. I think if you brought off a satisfactory revision that I could improve the royalty terms which seem to me to be very low. The other terms seem to be reasonable in view of their dissatisfaction with the last third of the novel.
As you know, I too felt disappointed with the section taken up with Sullivan’s being in America and I also felt that Bernie need to be brought into the ending since she was such an appealing character in the earlier part of the book.
I’ll say no more until you let me know what you want to do about Macmillan’s offer and the revision. If you decide that you don’t want to change the book for them, they have said that they would have to reject it and they hate like hell to do it because they have real enthusiasm for your and your writing. They have continued to advertize the short story collection, incidentally, even though their sales to date are just under 3,000 copies. I don’t mention this to influence your decision concerning a revision, but only to confirm their present faith in you and their hopes to continue publishing your books.
If you’d like to submit the novel elsewhere, of course I will be glad to do so.
Yours,
Don Congdon
The following is the detailed letter that Macmillan sent to Don Congdon, which he forwarded to my father:
At luncheon you asked that I wrote to you about our and our readers’ reactions to the novel. They are substantially what Mr Budlong and I conveyed to you. Here is the consensus of those reactions.
All knowing Mr Macken’s ‘Rain on the Wind’ and ‘The Bogman’, and knowing also his experience as a playwright and actor, feel that he could do a first rate novel about the theatre. Everybody who read the manuscript of ‘Sullivan’ thought at the beginning and well on into the story that he was definitely on his way to bringing it off. Up until the change of scene to America, the novel has vitality, excellent scenes, and convincing characterisation and detail.
There was only one real criticism of the first part, and that was the handling of the marriage of Sullivan and Bernie. The situat
ion seems a bit contrived, as one reader put it, ‘to clear the decks for Macken, the marriage serves to get the sex problem pretty much out of the way, and yet Bernie is to all intents and purposes eliminated from the story’.
From that point on it was thought that Sullivan’s character suffers and that there is not enough seriousness in his portrayal. It isn’t clear just what Mr Macken is trying to do with his main character. I have a definite feeling that the story begins to bog down and fall apart soon after the arrival in New York, in the main because Mr Macken allots too much space to the critical discussion of the theatre as he found it, to a large degree, probably, from his own experience. Macken’s criticism is doubtless true, and deserved, so far as it goes – but one cannot help seeing that it is one-sided, too narrow. It is here that the characterisation of Sullivan, but of all the other people, suffers. Some readers thought that this part became patently autobiographical.
Some thought that since Bernie is so important in the Irish part, so important in the beginning, so far as Sullivan is concerned, it would be only logical and desirable to have her play a definite part at the end – at least something more than a memory in Sullivan’s mind. Others thought that the sacrificial element of Pi’s death was too great a price to pay for arousing Sullivan from his self-centeredness; in the degree that Pi looms large in the reader’s sympathy, in that degree Sullivan seems to lose. Perhaps that is a partial reason why Bernie should be of more importance at the end.
We are all convinced that with some revision, Mr Macken can make this the novel it ought to be. All our criticisms have been made because of that belief in him; and it is for that reason, too, that we have made this offer. By publishing ‘Rain on the Wind’, ‘The Bogman’ and ‘The Green Hills and other Stories’ we have helped to establish firmly his American reputation as an important novelist and we are sincerely solicitous that that reputation be maintained and increased.
Sincerely yours,
R.L. De Wilton
My father replied to Congdon’s letter:
Gort na Ganiv.
Oct. 1st 1956
Dear Don,
Thank you for your full letter of Sept 26th. As I told you before, I am no Iron man. I’m not writing for posterity but to try and make a living, and I am quite willing to tackle the last third of the book in order to try and make it more appealing. I will even save the life of Pi (something which on reflection I like doing even if it revolts against my whole plan). However, I will endeavour to return Bernie to the fold so that everybody will be happy. One of the main reasons, I will do this is because you yourself thought it could be done even before the publishers read the book.
Before all this, however, I will have to get in touch with London Macmillans. They didn’t criticise the ending at all. I will try and find out if they really would approve the changes of if they want the book to remain as it is. If they like it to remain as it is, that means there will probably have to be two versions, but that’s all worry for the future. One point on which I cannot change is the marriage of Bernie and Sullivan. I was not dodging sex in that. All that is based on a lot of life and a lot of truth and it is something that will just have to take it as it stands or no deal.
Since I haven’t a copy of the MS, would you arrange to have the final chapters returned to me, that is the chapters before Sullivan’s trip to America and all the subsequent ones.
All the best,
Sincerely,
Walter Macken
That same day, my father wrote a letter to Lovat Dickson in London:
Gort na Ganiv.
Oct. 1st 1956
Dear Rache,
Would you read the enclosed and please tell me something honestly.
Would you or your colleagues and your readers agree with the criticisms therein contained? Would you agree that the book should be revised as suggested?
I wouldn’t consider the revision but Don Congdon when he read the MS before submitting it to the publishers, wrote almost the same criticisms, and writers are not in this business for their health but let us say to be guided by sale-ability, or are they?
I don’t know, I am a bit confused. I remember what you made me do with ‘Rain on the Wind’ and how solid your advice proved to be in the long run.
So I am hoping you will clear up the confusion and tell me what you think.
With all the best wishes,
Sincerely,
Walter Macken
Don Congdon replied to his letter first:
Dear Walter,
I thought your letter was a damned good one in answer to De Wilton’s and I passed on two of the pertinent paragraphs to him to mull over. He called me this morning to say that he liked your letter and your reaction, too, and asked if he should go ahead and make a contract. I said, yes, except that we wanted the same royalties that you had on the book of short stories; I see no reason why you should accept 10% to 7,500 copies inasmuch as you’re agreeable to making the changes they want.
If Macmillan of London says anything that’s relative to the New York Macmillan situation, let me know right away. Macmillan is returning the novel to me and I’ll send it off to you first class for the revision. De Wilton asks if you could have a more careful retyping of the manuscript when the revision is done. He says that your typing job would be difficult for the printer to set from, and there would undoubtedly be some overcharges from the composition room. As a matter of fact, I could use a carbon of the novel myself, or two copies, because I think it has a chance with the magazines, as well as offering a potential with the motion picture companies.
Yours,
Don
Lovat Dickson wrote my father a long letter of six pages. Here is an excerpt:
Dear Walter,
I have now read ‘Sullivan’ with great care and interest, and I find myself, up to a point, more in agreement with the criticisms which the New York Macmillan Company’s readers have made than I expected to be when I wrote the other day.
In fact your letter of October 1st only asked me to tell you honestly whether I would agree with the criticisms contained in De Wilton’s letter, and whether the book should be revised in the way suggested. But I think you may value it more, knowing the genuine regard we here have always shown for your literary welfare, if I tell you exactly what I think is wrong with the book – for there is something wrong – and leave it to you to decide whether to follow the American recommendations, which would certainly be the easiest way, or to follow ours, which will entail considerably more work, but which I think will produce better results in every way.
The trouble, of course, is with the character of Sullivan. He starts out admirably, but you have made him a monster of selfishness and self-centredness, defects conceivable enough in a gifted actor’s make-up, but not the kind to hold a reader’s sympathy throughout a long book, and assist the important process of his self-identification with the leading figure.
The three main themes in the story are Pi’s devoted friendship for Sullivan; Sullivan’s and Bernie’s love story; and the life and difficulties of a gifted actor. I think, that you don’t hold these in proper proportion, and the reason is not hard to find, nor are you wholly to blame for it. Pi’s devotion to Sullivan is obviously the thread that has attracted you most, and understandably you spend most of the novel on it. Bernie and Sullivan’s love is, as you describe it, merely an incident in the development of Sullivan’s character; you seem to me to give it much too little emphasis and significance of its own. As you tell the story, it affects Sullivan merely by giving him nostalgic feelings for home; it represents purity as opposed to the hypocrisy and falseness of stage life; it is the distant haven to which Sullivan is eventually going to return. But to be all these things properly it should have occupied a much greater part at the centre of the novel.
Bernie is well portrayed, but you had the chance for the development of a love story which would have been of vital meaning in Sullivan’s life, and it seems to me that you don’t make en
ough of it. I do not agree with the point the Americans make that you might have made this a first-rate novel about the theatre. Somebody might one day do that, but the novel will be about people, not about the theatre, which will provide only the background. Back-stage films may be successful, but novels about actors and the theatre have to conquer an extra layer of disbelief with the reading public who find it hard to credit the real emotions of people whose profession is to display false ones. Certainly Sullivan can be a figure of absorbing interest as an actor who is at the centre of the story, but I think you have to keep down the theatre and bring out the personal off-stage side of his life. My criticism is that there is too much theatre in the book and not too little. For example, you often go into digressions about theatrical practices in which the reader suddenly ceases to see the story through the eyes of the characters and is conscious of the author writing about the theatre.
This is only the first part of the letter which went into incredible detail as to what Lovat Dickson would like to see changed. My father spent the next two months cutting and revising his MS and then resubmitted it to both the London and New York offices of Macmillan. They both accepted the revised version for publication. Thomas Mark wrote to him on 7 December:
Dear Walter Macken,
Lovat Dickson had to go to America for a few days and has asked me to write to you about ‘Sullivan’, as I have been getting the MS ready for the printers and had promised him to let him have my impressions of the book. As you know, I am strongly pro-Macken, but I have to admit that I have not enjoyed this work so much as your earlier novels. I liked the opening chapters, but later on I became impatient with Sullivan himself and found the whole situation difficult to believe. However, I would not attach too much importance to this reaction, for these characters who generate trouble in and around themselves without any easily acceptable reason are not new to your work, and an extra dose of the artistic temperament in Sullivan’s case would no doubt explain a great deal. All the same, I think you will have to accept the fact that the ordinary reader may find it difficult to develop that feeling of sympathy and almost self-identification with the central figure which is such a help to a novel.
