In case one of the planes I will be flying on later should go down over Silesia, and I should join bliss eternal, I want to inform you that I have made you the recipient, in my recently drawn-up will, of the note sum of $10,750.QQ Already I find this subject both grisly and rather embarrassing, but my lawyer told me that I should tell you this—for the record, so to speak. My motives are both more generous than they might appear, and I shall try to explain. In the first place, disabuse yourself of the notion that I am well off enough—or that my estate, morbid word, would be large enough—to leave you this REAL sum, much as I would like to leave it—and to about only two other people who deserve it, besides yourself. To put it simply, in my mortal state I hope that you will be in a position someday to pay the note back. Dead as a smelt, however, as I surely will be if that kraut pilot makes a misstep coming into the Tempelhof airport, I will not need $10,750; and since Rose, who is well provided for, will not need it either, I and my lawyer figured that this would be the best way, under such circumstances, for you to be disencumbered of any posthumous debt to me. Furthermore, as it stands, you see, this loan is in the legal sense a sort of a gift: that is, it is money upon which I have already paid taxes and which, if paid back while I am alive, is tax-free. Under law, however (at least in N.Y. & Conn. which have the worst estate taxes in the union) a note is like a liquid asset: if my estate collects from you when the note comes due (which, as I have explained, I do not want them to do, nor does Rose), the estate will have to pay taxes on it—something like a horrifying 50%, too. I think you will agree that we don’t want all of that money to go to the govmint, the motherfuckers. When, then, Jesus forbid soon, I have become but clay, my estate will bring you the glad tidings that in my generosity I have left you $10,750. Choking back a sob, you will present your copy of your note to me in the same amount (my lawyer will also have a copy of the note in his safe), and it will be thereupon agreed that nobody owes nobody nothing. The government doesn’t get a nickel, you owe nothing, and they will sing an extra psalm for me in the hereafter. I hope all this is clear. My lawyer, incidentally, tells me that this sort of thing goes on all the time. As for myself, the very subject depresses me hopelessly, and I don’t want to say anything more about it.*
I hope we shall be able to get together again soon, when (and if) I get back from Europe—did I gather from your Xmas card that you are going back to Walter Reed? If possible, I am never again going to spend a winter in Connecticut. Post-nasal drip, chronic bronchitis, and general sullenness have been my lot for two months. The children are all fine, though I think Susanna is coming down with measles. Small World Dep’t: it turns out that your first cousin, Betty Lou Holland, in whose father’s N.Y. apartment you and I slept our first night ever in New York, has gotten herself married to a friend of mine named Cordier, a Frenchman who has taken on an option on Set This House on Fire for the movies. I saw them the other night. They look the picture of wedded bliss, and though Betty Lou is a curious amalgam of both you and Bozo, I find her hauntingly sexy.
Love to Marianne and the kids.
Bill
* My lawyer pointed out that the foregoing knowledge could be an incentive to murder, but I told him that you were a decent chap.
TO MYRICK LANDRR
February 8, 1962 Roxbury, CT
Dear Mr Land:
Your book sounds interesting and I wish you success with it, but I really don’t want to go into anything about Mailer and me, save perhaps to reflect on the fact that both Mailer’s honesty and his gift for prophecy are contained in his statement which you quote in paragraph 4: “For Styron has spent years oiling every literary lever … and there are medals waiting for him in the mass-media.” As anyone who read the reviews of Set This House on Fire can recall, the medals were made of solid lead. As for the rest, any “feud” which exists has always, for some queer reason, seemed far more important to Mailer than it has to me.
Sincerely,
William Styron
P.S. Feel free to quote the above in part or in toto.
TO LOUIS D. RUBIN, JR.
March 10, 1962 Grand Hôtel de la Ville, Rome, Italy
After this date: Hotel Lotti, rue Castiglione, Paris
Dear Louis—
Many thanks for your letter. Yes, I will certainly agree to come to Hollins, provided I don’t have to make a formal speech but can either (a) read from my work and/or (b) engage in a kind of colloquy with you, as I did that time at Hopkins. Speeches scare me and I’m no good at them. If this is O.K., let me know.
It might provide an interesting footnote to your piece on me to mark the fact that Set This House on Fire has, in French translation, achieved the biggest success (both critical and popular) of any American novel in France since the war. It even astonishes me. It is selling by the thousands, there have been new printings every week, and overnight I have become literally the best-known American writer in France since Faulkner. What the secret of all this is, is mystifying, except I imagine that the book contains just enough nasty but honest knocks at the U.S. to satisfy the fainting French spirit. But you have never heard such praise. L’Express, front page (equivalent to the Times Book Review): “the most intelligent and optimistic of the great American tragedies.”SS Robert Kanters (the Edmund Wilson of France) in Figaro: “a great book which may not be a work of genius but is certainly the product of the highest talent” etc. I am really left quite numb and had to flee Paris for fear of being plastiqué like Sartre and Malraux. At any rate, vengeance is truly sweet and I shall be overjoyed when the news seeps back to the American super-literati and super-patriots, as it most certainly will.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing you in Hollins next year, if not before. Hope the book goes well. Naturally, I’ll be interested in seeing it, even if I don’t agree. But I expect I will.
Best to you and Eva,
Bill
TO WILLIAM C. STYRON, SR.
March 24, 1962 Hotel Lotti, Paris, France
Dear Pop:
I have been traveling at such a great pace these past weeks that I’ve hardly had time to sit down, much less write. The Book, in France, is now a matter of history. It received the greatest reception of any American novel since the war. “A masterpiece,” “one of the great American tragedies,” “written with an almost supernatural power to impart life, like God the father,” “a miraculous achievement.” Those were some of the quotes. The most severe criticism I received was in one of the journals, which said that it wasn’t quite a masterpiece, but still a literary work of the highest order. So at last I feel pretty much vindicated after the mauling I took from the American critics. The book is selling very well indeed. I allowed myself to go on a television program (something I’d never do in the U.S.) and since there is only one channel in France (state-owned) I was seen by every Frenchman with a TV set. As a result of all this, Gallimard the publisher is planning to reissue the translation of Lie Down in Darkness. It is quite astounding the seriousness with which the French take a novelist, who in the U.S. ranks somewhere below a local politician, and certainly below a preacher or a doctor. Here he is without doubt Numero #1, as with the Chinese.
Rose and I are both getting dizzied with travel. The trip to Rome by jet Caravella (1 hr 40 min) was spectacular but not nearly so spectacular as the Rome–Geneva flight, with the light sparking on Mt. Blanc at 15,000 ft. Tomorrow we go to Frankfurt, and all next week I will be giving readings to the Krauts, in Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich. I will tell you about Dachau, which I intend to see. My publishers, the Fischers, were Thomas Mann’s publishers, and are extraordinarily kind, gentle, and intelligent people. They are Jewish and were evicted by Hitler at around the book-burning era of 1937–38. They went to Vienna, and were forced to flee during the Anschluss. They then came to the U.S. via Sweden and Russia under the aegis of Thomas Mann, who was then living in California. They became American citizens, have a house in Greenwich, Conn. and now run the biggest and best publishing house in Germany. Really
extremely civilized people (they make no bones about deploring their fellow countrymen) and Rose and I will be glad to see them. Rose is flying back to N.Y. on March 31st from Frankfurt, and I’m coming back to Paris for two or three weeks to work on my book about Nat Turner. Then I shall return to Roxbury spring and the kiddies. I expect to stay here at the Lotti during that time, though a French friend offered me the use of an elegant 12-room apartment which I found hard to resist, save for the fact that it is simply too huge for one all alone.
Selma says the kids are flourishing and I know you enjoyed seeing them in Baltimore. I hope we’ll be able to see you in the spring. Love to both of you from both of us.
Bill
TO ROBERT LOOMIS
April 3, 1962 Hotel Lotti, Paris, France
Dear Bob: As of this Thursday “Set This House on Fire” is the #3 bestseller in France. There is only one list (in L’Express) of 10 books and it includes both fiction and non-fiction, so this is something of a rare phenomenon, especially since there are only two other fiction works on the list (one of them Salinger’s “Nine Stories,” #6 or 7, I believe). I have even outstripped Shirer’s “Third Reich.” The man at the French-American cultural center who gave me the advance news, and who seems to have firm knowledge in such matters, said that he was fully confident that next month (the list is publicized only monthly, incidentally) it would be #1; and he added that so far as he knew this had not happened to an American novel since the war. The reviews continue to be fantastic. I’ve been trying to get a copy of the review in Le Monde, which of course is the French counterpart of The N.Y. Times. They ordinarily don’t give much space to novels, especially foreign ones, but as Romain Gary pointed out to me they treated the book more as a news story, and the article is long and laudatory in the extreme. I’ll send it to you soon.
I’ve finally gotten to work on Nat Turner and it is proceeding well. I’m going to stay here alone for about three weeks, returning to Rox. on April 21st. The German trip was very tiring but fascinating, and I suspect I’ll never again do so much flying. Frankfurt is a sheer drag, resembling Bridgeport, but Berlin is an amazing place to see, especially the other side of the famous wall in East Berlin, where the world suddenly turns unutterably gray and dismal. There everything remains in complete devastation, and any rosy concept of Communism has to be abandoned in East Berlin. I had great audiences everywhere (in Berlin they had to pipe the proceedings by loudspeaker to the overflow in the lobby) and it is really touching to see how all these young people really dig American lit. I had to go all the way to Munich, incidentally, to finally meet my neighbor Arthur Miller, and flew with him and his wife from Munich to Paris.
Drop me a line. I know Rose would love some company in Roxbury, so why don’t you arrange a week-end while I’m gone?
Love to all, especially Gloria Margerainelle Loomis and Fat Di.
B.
TO ROSE STYRON
April 5, 1962 Hotel Lotti, Paris, France
Dearest Mouse: Enclosed are what may be three items of interest: the bestseller list from L’Express, which came out today; the expert review in Le Monde, which I finally got hold of; and Romain Gary’s “attack” on Southern writers in Candide.TT The sub-head of the last piece, as you can no doubt tell, reads: “Stop your eternal groaning over the poor Negro, Mr. Faulkner. Cease so exquisitely cultivating your guilt Mr. Styron.” But the tone is rather light-hearted and all in all it’s a rather clever piece.… While I think of it, I may as well mention the other enclosure—the authorization forms for income tax which Ader sent me and which I think he’s already written you about. I hadn’t realized it would be so enormous—over $15,000 for both last year and this year—so maybe to be on the safe side you should get in touch with John Motz and have them transfer at least $10,000 to the Baltimore checking account, and then write out those two checks accordingly. Anyway, as you know, it has to be postmarked no later than April 15th.
I loved getting your letter and learning about the smooth trip and about all the dear little mice. They sound wonderful and I know they really flipped when they saw you, + vice versa. I long to see them but it will be even more fun to see them in the Roxbury spring. Speaking of which, “April in Paris” is a fraudulent phrase, as I have never seen the weather here quite so dreary, wet, chill, and dismal. I am hoping that it will let up, but my hopes are not too high. I have been on the verge of a cold, but Cordiel touted me onto Vitamin C which I’ve been taking in quantities and which so far has staved off a major attack.
T. Capote called me this morning and we had lunch at the Ritz and as usual his communication was one long malicious delight. His malice ranged from Mailer to Salinger to Jamie Hamilton to Jackie Kennedy and I enjoyed every second of it. He took special pains to tell me to send my fond regards to you—he remembers you with great affection. He has with him a hideous English bulldog named Charlie whom he spoils outrageously and feeds pâté from the table. I also saw in the lobby of the Ritz your friend and mine Connie Bessie, and we’re going to get together sometime. Paris is getting to be about as exotic as Grand Central Station.
Tonight I’m making my last public appearance—the lecture at the French-American cultural center. I somehow dread it—these things are getting to be a drag—but I guess I’ll pull through all right. Jim and Moss are going along for support and afterwards there is to be a small dinner chez Jacques Faro. So I suppose it could be worse.
I miss you and all the mice enormously. Are Ethel and Terry O.K.? Give them my fond regards. And also Gerry, of course. Kisses all around, and much love from your own
W.S.
TO ROSE STYRON
April 9, 1962 Hôtel Lotti, Paris, France
Dearest Mouse: It was lovely talking to you both times and hearing all the kiddies’ voices and surprising and delightful, also, to hear Red Warren’s unique Kentucky accent from 3,000 miles.UU I miss you all very much and though I am indeed profiting greatly, I think, from three weeks by myself, I will be happy to come home to Roxbury. As it is, I plan to take the 11:00 P.M. Air France flight from Orly on the 21st and will arrive at Idlewild at 3:30 P.M. or thereabouts. If you would like to meet me I will be happy and we can go back to Roxbury the same afternoon. I’ve received a couple of your letters since Sunday’s phone call and enjoyed them both. As for the Mercedes, why don’t you go ahead and have them re-paint it at the St. Denis Body Shop—whatever color you choose. As for your item #2, you might as well go ahead and pay the Roxbury town tax. If, as you say, we have around $10,000 in Baltimore and if Motz put in $10,000 more, we should have an adequate amount for the immediate future, including payment of all taxes. Item #3: I should think $50 to the Rumsey Development fund should be enough. Item #4: tell Mr. Sanderson that I just can’t make the Suffield Academy writer’s thing.VV Incidentally, I wish you would also ask him if he got a letter from Eliz. McKee, telling him that I couldn’t participate. The reason I want you to do this is because, when you and I were first here at the Lotti and Eliz. was forwarding my mail, she included a letter from Sanderson about the same thing. I wrote her back, asking her to write him, saying no. It would seem possible now that Eliz. failed to write him, as I had asked. If this is so, it certainly would be another reason for me to quit her, and that’s why I’m asking you to ask Sanderson.
Apparently, while STHOF has been making the big stir in Paris, The Long March begins a belated ovation in London. Truman Capote called me excitedly this morning from the Ritz, saying, “Honey, haven’t you seen the reviews?” I said I hadn’t, whereupon he told me that yesterday (Sunday) he had read the reviews of The Long March in the Observer and the Sunday Times, and added: “They’re the most fantastic reviews I’ve ever seen, sweetie, why you’re the biggest thing in London since King Kong.” I haven’t seen them as yet, but Truman is going to pass them on to me, and I’ll send them to you. The enclosed review from The Spectator was sent to me by Jamie Hamilton. Aside from the gibberish at the beginning about “moody gravy” and “burdensome obligations,�
�� it certainly is what might be called a rave review. Somehow though, withal, I still regard the British with a jaundiced eye, and have very little respect for their critical opinions, pro or con.
Tonight Jim and Moss are giving me some kind of party. Mary McCarthy is to be there and Truman, and my “date” is to be that nice faggot John Ashbery, so feel no qualms.WW I think it will be fun. A session of bitching between Truman and Mary McCarthy should be a spectacle to be witnessed about once in 50 years.
All my love to the little mice and save great hunks for yourself, for I miss you. And say great hellos to Ethel, Terry, Jerry, et al.
Much love,
B.
Selected Letters of William Styron Page 35
