Selected Letters of William Styron

by William Styron

  Well, that’s that for today.

  Biliously yours,

  B.

  TO MAXWELL GEISMAR

  June 26, 1957 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Max:

  Congratulations! Or is it best wishes? I ask the last only because as I write this my Susanna is scrambling all over my shoulders and is saying such a lot of precocious things that I am stricken chill with the notion that her day, too, is not far off. Rose and I would love to come to the fiesta, but unfortunately we have guests lined up for that week-end and won’t be able to make it. Please kiss the bride for us, though; we’ll be there in our hearts.

  I am up to p. 703 (this is a quantitative age, which is why I’m so quick with figures). Your last letter bolstered my spirit some. There are bastards on the right and left of us—the mob and the university creeps—and sometimes I wonder which is worse. Have you looked at this new anthology “Mass Culture”?§U It’s spotty but there are some really brilliant essays in it, especially one by someone named van den Haag whose view is so gloomy as to make one want to weep but whose analysis of mob culture is so brilliant as to be spellbinding and in an odd way strengthening.§V One finally gets from this book such a grim + apocalyptic view of modern times that in a curious way it’s almost a cathartic and the duty of the writer—if there is any longer such a thing as duty—seems forlornly and rather splendidly noble. Read it.

  I hope Rose and I will see you all before long. We are going to Nantucket for a while in August, but there’s plenty of free time before and after, and among other things I should like to engage Anne in a conversation regarding Eisenhower’s gonads and other pharmaceutical subjects.

  Love and kisses to bride and all Geismars.

  Bill

  TO LEON EDWARDS

  August 29, 1957 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Leon,

  Your recent and much-enjoyed letter recalled to mind what a lousy correspondent I am. Forgive the lapse, if you can, and chalk it up not to indolence but to the fact that, as a writing man, so called, the day’s end leaves me fed up with words as they are writ—even such amiable, nonprofessional ones as I might write you. I have just this month handed in 90,000—100,000 words of my next literary experiment to my publishers and, being still not much more than mid-way in the book, have for the past few weeks taken the sort of complete vacation that you seem deservedly to be taking down in San Antone. I’m all for it the easy life, that is; it clears the mind of too much seriousness and allows one to get a half-way decent perspective on life—not as she is lived by the bottled-up self but by other people, too. At the same time, the grass is always greener, etc., as the saying goes. I for one certainly curse myself for taking up the writer’s craft, or profession, or art, or whatever. It’s a miserable trade, cowardly and neurosis-producing. Some Protestant ethic in me keeps nagging at me that it’s not a fit job for a MAN and that I should be out healing the world’s wounds like you are doing, but it’s too late to go back, of course, and I can only keep grinding away. All this is merely in response to a statement in one of your last letters to the effect that you were still seized by the itch to write; my advice is to stay the hell away from it. It will do nothing but fill your life with nightmares.

  However, all these disclaimers aside, I think I’m writing a good book. It’s absolutely totally different from LDID in theme and subject matter so that I will either be praised for “versatility” or condemned for getting out of my depth—probably the latter, but either way it doesn’t matter. You end up writing what you have to the most. At the same time writing a long novel, as I am doing, has an overpowering effect on the psyche. There’s so much of it, there are so many things to keep straight, so much that you want to put into but for artistic considerations can’t, so much that’s almost bound to fall short of your lofty aims that, if you’re at all serious, you end up existing in a perpetual state of sweat and melancholy and quasi-alcoholism. In effect, it’s a perfect symbol of one’s own strengths and weaknesses as a human, and I can only console myself with the rather feeble notion that perhaps, after all, that is all a novel is supposed to be.

  We are now living like the Massah himself in the “big” house, which we have fixed up to resemble something that falls between House + Garden and The Saturday Evening Post. We have also acquired a huge Newfoundland dog weighing 150 lbs. who for some reason is named Tugwell. You mentioned in your letter that you were reporting back to Boston next January so you must right now make plans to stop by on your way and pay us a visit. One thing we have is a surfeit of rooms, so do try to come. I have no intention whatever of approaching your disturbing fecundity, but just to show that I’m keeping my hand, or something, in I want you to know that Rose is expecting another in March. We have already nearly given Pop apoplexy by promising to name it, if a boy, Harry Flood Byrd Styron.§W

  Tomorrow we’re heading toward your country for Labor Day—to Newburyport, for several sessions on the beach with the Marquands. I’ll give a Hail Mary as we pass Newton Centre. It is sad to see summer draw to a close, and we often could wish that Roxbury were more in the general latitude of San Antonio. At the same time I’m usually pretty happy to be up here in this frosty climate—too much sun breeds a soft mind and softer books, I always say. Don’t forget about us on your way back. Rose joins me in all sorts of love to Marianne and the Kids.

  As ever

  Bill

  TO MAXWELL GEISMAR

  October 2, 1957 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Max—

  Thanks for your letter, which was fine, although I don’t really know what the postmistress will say about the “Artist Extraordinary” cachet on the envelope. It’s tough enough being an artist in this country, anyway, without advertising the un-American fact. But thank you for the compliment.

  The essay sounds nice—or more than that—and I’m grateful for it, and I hope you’ll send me a copy of the book when it comes out. I think I’ve told you before that I’m not so removed in interest from the critical scene not to be touched and flattered by your espousal of my cause—whatever that might be. Outside of Aldridge, you’re the only critic (I’m not talking about the newspaper boys) who has ever paid the slightest bit of attention to me, or anyone of my colleagues, for that matter. What the hell did Hemingway, Fitzgerald + Co. have to scream about and call themselves the Lost Generation? In terms of any literary recognition or acceptance this (our) generation is about as lost as you can get. As an attitude generally prevailing, I call your attention to the review several weeks ago in The N.Y. Times by one Du Bois, of a book called “Best Short Stories of World War II,” in which The Long March is included.§X He roundly damned all 20 stories—Mailer, Burns, Shaw, Jones, et al.—and finished up by calling The Long March “this slightly hysterical piece.” In other words, the general tone—outside of the review’s essential ignorance—was that the generation post World War II was simply not worth a damn. Du Bois, of course, is simply and patently a stupid person, but what is so depressing is how representative such a review seems to be of the thinking of those who would judge the literary group which has emerged since the war. Hemingway and Fitzgerald and that gang, it seems to me, had the least claim to being lost of any people I know. They were read, they were celebrated, they were appreciated. And we are roundly damned at every turn. I hope the tincture of self-pity here is not too strong. I don’t mean it to be. I simply think that all this is true, and that is why people like yourself are rare and valuable. Perhaps around 1980, with your help, people will wake up to the fact that we were writing our literature after all.

  Someone gave me the galleys of Jones’ new book, and I’m sorry to say that I have to agree with you, and even more: I think it is very close to a catastrophe. In “Eternity” he was writing the real McCoy. Here most of the stuff sounds like the work of a not-too-bright literary 15-year-old, and it really grieves me, because it will simply be another turkey for the Du Boises to fall upon and say, “See about this generation? I told you so!” But maybe the experience (a
nd I can’t possibly foresee anything but mayhem in the book pages) will sober Jonesey (he has been outrageously cocky) and he’ll go on to write a good #3.

  I’ve turned in 650 pages of my next one to Hiram, with about 400 or so to go, which should occupy me for another year. Christ! it takes a long time to do a good job. I think Hiram is enthusiastic. Personally, I think it’s better than LDID, but then I’m not a critic. Hope it won’t be too long before we get together.

  Bill

  P. S. In response to your wonderment about writing Jones, tell him frankly what you think of it. Flattery, as the saying goes, will get you nowhere. BS

  TO WILLIAM C. STYRON, SR.

  November 9, 1957 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Pop—

  I was indeed sorry to hear about your little set-to with the hospital, but was mighty happy to hear that you pulled through in good shape. With the feeling that some of your distress might have been occasioned by the criminal sort of bills that TV repairmen seem to be in the habit of sending these days—and that goes for auto mechanics, too—I am sending the enclosed check (written as you can see on my Nipps checkwriter, the use of which I am getting quite adept at) with the hopes that it will help ease some of the autumnal strain. American gadgetry has gotten into a preposterous mess. As I told you before, I think, our Bendix washer went into the sick decline to the tune of $115 for repairs, an amount which could have almost purchased a new washer. The man had the gall to send me another bill the other day for $15 more, at which I balked finally, writing him a letter to the effect that I felt under no obligation—morally, legally, or otherwise—to pay any more, that he could sue me if he wished, but that he would not get a penny more from me. After a point one can not be bled further. I have not heard from him, and don’t think I will.

  Everybody is well up here, and we are crossing our fingers in regard to the flu. About a week ago Susanna had a fever of 104°, but to show you how sturdy the little scamp is the fever went down to almost normal the next day, and she had not a sniffle nor a complication, and within 48 hours was bedeviling the life out of us, as usual, with her chatter and her dollies and had spread several hundred poker chips the length and the breadth of the house. So I think we can be sure that if anyone suffers badly from this Asian malady it will not be our darling daughter. Rose is well + thriving. She is going in Monday to see Alan Guttmacher about the new heir or heiress—a routine thing. We will of course be satisfied with whatever the Lord chooses to bless us with but we are both secretly hoping that it will not have quite the high-octane charge that was built into Susanna—though it probably will.

  As I think I told you, the book is coming along quite well. I think I’m over the hump now; at least the end seems a possibility and not just a misty improbable vision. It is the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life and since I’m putting so much into it, and since deep down I feel that when it is done it will be one of the finest novels in a long time, I think it is only fitting to tell you that it will be dedicated jointly to Rose and to yourself, who are the two people who, as they say, are the most.

  Rose sends her love to you + Elizabeth, as do I, and joins me in hoping that the autumn brings fair skies and sunny days.

  Bill

  TO MAXWELL GEISMAR

  November 23, 1957 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Max:

  I don’t know if you saw this, but it is something said by Albert Camus in a wonderful interview in the current Reporter: “Like so many men today, I am tired of criticism, denigration and meanness—in short, of nihilism. We must condemn what deserves condemnation; it should be done with vigor and then put aside. But what still deserves to be praised should be exalted at length. After all, it is for this that I am an artist, because even when what the artist creates is a denial, it still affirms something and pays homage to the miserable, magnificent life we live.”

  I think you mistook my last letter. No honest man wants the limelight; this is for movie actors, quizmasters, people of the caliber of Charles Van Doren, and other such pallid creeps.§Y A writer who is worth anything wants, however, like Dylan Thomas, to be known, and in order to be known look at Thomas—look at the excruciating posture he had to put himself in in order to get the recognition which should have been his due anyway: it killed him. This is an extreme case, of course, but the symptoms are the same. What I’m getting at is that a writer these days has to compete like he never did before. Was there ever a time when a serious artist had to contend with attention with the wretched likes of a Paddy Chayefsky? This sounds silly in a way, perhaps, and I have enough residual respect for the human race—though I sometimes wonder why—to realize that art eventually triumphs and all that crap; nevertheless, the feeling that one is writing in a vacuum sometimes gets overpowering. Look at your pal Griffin; I recently read Devil, and while I don’t perhaps share your complete enthusiasm for the book, it was a damn good job, but in spite of the NAL reprint and your critical support and so on did it get 1⁄10th of the attention it deserved?§Z No, the assholes were all reading The Caine Mutiny or some such tripe.

  But I’m tired of complaining and I’m not going to do any more for a while. I can only reiterate, though, that like Camus I am tired of criticism, denigration and meanness. This book I’m writing—I have gotten to about p. 800 in the monster, and am at a point, over the hump, so to speak, where I can clearly see its virtues and defects. The defects, I think, are minor, or at least are outweighed by the virtues, which is as much as I can ask, I suppose. I have had the notion off and on that it might be too long, but I am now able to see that it encompasses its longness, and that makes it all right. What is most important, though, is that I think it’s going to be a better book than Darkness—it is less of a “novelistic” novel in that it is less confined, spreads out more, and I simply have more to say.

  Trouble with Darkness, I think—in spite of the fact that it was a good book and all—was that it wasn’t intellectually attuned to that dreaded word Zeitgeist, that though it was a fine job for a novice it was still more arty than art; in short, it was a book which had almost everything except a really solid apprehension of the present in relation to the past. This book I think lacks some of the youthful zest and lyricism of Darkness and it has the grave and limiting but necessary defect of having the whole first half told in the first person; but it is a bigger book in every other respect. The book is really the reason why I say I’m not going to do any more complaining for a while, since all the things I hate most are getting pretty well taken care of in the story. I don’t mean that it’s a polemical book or anything stupid like that. I think it will serve however as an antidote to a lot of smug shallow contemporary American thinking. As a matter of fact, the whole thing is fairly Anti- or un-American all the way around. Also anti-Catholic, anti-criticism, anti-denigration, anti-meanness, anti-nihilism. Time will hate it, the New Critics will ignore it, people instead of reading it will burn holes in their heads looking at What’s My Line? But it will be a good book. Rose will read it, you and Anne will read it, and it will be banned by the Archbishop of Detroit. What more could a writer ask? Want to know the title? Set This House on Fire. From a sermon by John Donne.

  In this same essay Camus says: “I hate self-satisfied virtue. I hate the despicable morality of the world, and I hate it because, just like cynicism, it ends by depriving man of hope and preventing him from assuming responsibility for his own life with all its terrible burden of crimes and grandeur.” There could not be a more eloquent statement against the rotten hypocrisy which is the modern American way and therefore the way of the world. I just hope this book of mine is able to help reaffirm that statement. It is a tough road to go, but it has to be worth it or else we are all worth nothing at all. That is not ego speaking, it is faith.

  I hope we can get together before too long. I realize as you say that you have more to complain about than I do, “being the obscurest critic in America,” which however is not true. If my feelings hold any water, though, let me say t
his: you will be un-obscure and you will endure simply because you are about the only critic I know who does not secretly loathe and despise the creative act. You have no envy. You are not an insane little prurient groper who hates both life and art. You will endure. It is embarrassing for a novelist to say this to a critic, I suppose, but it is true.

  Love from all the Loftises,

  Bill

  Milton.

  TO ROBERT C. SNIDER‖a

  January 29, 1958 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Bob,

  I have tried to write you several times since receiving your nice Christmas card, but for one reason or another always got hung up. Maybe if I try pen instead of Royal Portable I’ll have better success.

  First, let me congratulate you upon your fine looking wife and boy. Second, let me felicitate you upon your appearance; the passing years have done little to efface what I remember as always being a slightly jaded optimism—good combination—and unlike myself and most of my contemporaries you seem to have taken on only a few ounces of avoirdupois around the jowls. Third, may I express my happiness at your professorship, especially at a place like Chicago; I always felt that, in spite of all the odds, there was one person in the F.M.F. who was destined to become something other than a plumber or a golf pro or a used-car salesman—and that man, of course, was you. What are you teaching, by the way? Chaucer? Socio-dynamics? Sanitary engineering? I’m in the dark.

  The U.S.M.C., of course, laid a trauma upon my soul from which I am only gradually emerging to this day. To be sure, I had them—or they had me—twice, since I was called back in 1951, spending the whole time (10 months) at Camp Lejeune, where with that wonderful irony that happens only in life and not in books I was assigned to an outfit which made its headquarters in the identical building we both suffered in during the regime of Lt. Perry. Did you ever put a tracer on that bastard? He could not possibly survive in civilized society, except behind bars, and I’ve often yearned to know what institution he was eventually committed to. Anyway, pleading blindness and psychosis both, I got out, quickly got myself a discharge, and in this age of miracles finally consider myself safe and invulnerable. But it took a lot of sweat along the way.