Anyway, I murmured something polite and appropriate, and he said: “Where did I see you quoted the other day? Was it the Times?” and I suppose again I said something harmless and appropriate, but almost immediately he was asking: “How is that book of yours coming along?” Now it had been almost a year and a half since I had been on that boat ride with Jack and Jackie, and I had forgotten that I had even mentioned to him then Nat Turner, which I had not even started but just planned, but here he was all these many months later, asking me about the damned thing. And so we talked about it; he asked me something about historical sources, and what research I had used, and what approach I was going to use to tell the story, and of course that started me off, the flood-gates were opened, and we chattered happily about Negro slavery for a full ten minutes, the conversation finally getting around to the present revolt, just the three of us standing there amid a swirling mass of showgirls. It was all quite bizarre, but how much it tells about what kind of man Kennedy was! His eagerness, his honest curiosity, the real interest, the quality of caring! An hour or so later, just before he left the party, he passed me and shook hands and said good-night, casting a wry glance at Rubirosa or someone like him, and said to me: “If you can’t get a story out of this kind of party, you’re no writer.” And Rose said she could feel his hand warm on her shoulder, as he told her good-night and said, “Take care.” Famous last words.
Anyway, he is gone, and I suspect that in the great sweep of history he will be measured as somewhat less than the colossus he has seemed to be as the result of his martyrdom. But no matter. No one we have had since Jefferson, certainly, would have literally homed in on a writer as he did that night, and cared and asked questions, and made a writer feel that writing and the republic of letters was an important part of the other Republic, and figured large in the scheme of things. He was, as my father said on the day of his death, better than America ever deserved. I do sorely miss him.
Perhaps by now you have received The N.Y. Review of Books with my anti-smoking diatribe.*JJ On the day of Kennedy’s death Life magazine asked me to compose an elegy of some sort, but I was so shattered that I couldn’t make it—and ended up writing about the sorrows of nicotine.
Merry Xmas to all in Durms,
W.S.
TO DONALD HARINGTON
January 10, 1964 Roxbury, CT
Dear Don:
I was sorry that you were unable to make it down here, but I fully understand your baby-sitting difficulties, and hope you all will come instead sometime before too long. Almost anytime from now on will be fine with us, if you can give us a few days’ notice. Santa Claus brought me a marvelous gift in the form of a 16 mm sound movie projector so we are literally holed in for the winter, each week-end bringing us such delights as “The Informer,” “Diary of a Country Priest,” “Gold of Naples,” and others of the same class.*KK I once thought that the summum bonum in life would be to have your own movies at home like a Hollywood Tycoon and now that that has arrived I will, in such beatitude, probably stop both reading and writing.
I will, however, save the time to read The Cherry Pit which I am most eager to see. I hope you will arrange to have a copy sent to me, of the MS or whatever, as soon as it is feasible. I have not talked directly to Loomis about it recently, but I have been led by grapevine comments to believe that you have written something very special—therefore my anticipation is running high. About writing “blocks”—I think you must learn to expect them every now and then.*LL For instance, after a steady run on Nat Turner from the fall of 1962 until fall of this past year, I succumbed to an awful slump (not helped any by Kennedy’s death) and have literally only this week managed to start to extricate myself from the mire. I’ve had these empty periods all my life, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over them; I console myself with the notion that possibly, they serve as some sort of necessary psychic relief—a moment to restore the brain cells—but this may be a rationalization on my part. At any rate I wouldn’t suffer over them too much but more or less roll with the punch—as you yourself can see, they always eventually go away.
Your observations on Mailer and his “novel” in Esquire amused me greatly.*MM I was tempted myself to write them a letter, applauding their decision to invade the periodical field heretofore occupied by True Confessions and Agony, but decided not to. Really, the best comment was by someone who said that it all read like Noel Coward trying to write in the style of Mickey Spillane. Horribly enough, another person I know who has seen further installments at Esquire says that the “book” gets progressively worse—which is both easy and hard to believe. Anyway, it is a disturbing sight to see the way Esquire is exploiting his paranoiac misery.
I hope you and your wife venture down this way before long. As I say, we’ll be here most of the time—so just let us know.
Bill
TO DONALD HARINGTON
January 15, 1964 Roxbury, CT
Dear Don:
I thought you might like to have a copy of my current favorite history book*NN (see quote on back). For me it was quite an eye-opener and I think it will become a classic, in spite of the critics who cried “rape” because of Elkins daring to call the Negro Sambo. Anyway, read it and see what you think.
—B.
TO ROBERT LOOMIS
February 24, 1964 Roxbury, CT
Dear Bob:
Here is a real dream I had last night: I was at Dunhill’s but the display booths were all empty and flyspecked. The salesman poked around in the back of the shop and finally he came back and said oh so ruefully: “Well I found a couple of old 10 cent White Owls for you.”
Actually it was a nightmare but doesn’t it have snob appeal?
XXX
B
TO JAMES AND GLORIA JONES
March 16, 1964*OO Monterey, CA
Swinging on the West Coast with Terry Southern.*PP Have done some rather impossible things such as having dinner in San Francisco with Shirley Temple.*QQ Love
Bill + Rose
TO JAMES JONES
March 25, 1964 Roxbury, CT
Dear James:
… I heard of your knee accident all the way out in San Francisco, of all places, from that columnist fellow Herb Caen who got the news, I believe, from Bill Saroyan who got it in turn from God knows who.*RR It must have been really very painful, and I hope it is no more serious than what you’ve described. Me, I stay off skis. I’ve been going up to Vermont with Red Warren and there Rose skis, or tries to, while I go snow-shoeing through the woods with Red. It’s at least great exercise, though I don’t recommend it for pure fun. Anyway, I hope that by now you are on the mend. Why don’t you take up something else for recreation? They say screwing is terrific.
Although our bought house on Martha’s Vineyard is involved in some kind of litigation—too boring to go into here—I think we will most certainly get our hands on it by the middle of June at the latest.*SS It is truly a fabulous place, and you and your gang are hereby tendered an invitation to come and stay as long as you like. The Vineyard is really the greatest place you can imagine in the summer—lots of boating and fishing, and swimming practically off the front porch. There is really nothing like a wide American beach, and much as I love France and Italy, a summer by the sea in either country is not my idea of bliss. The Vineyard is still wonderfully uncrowded, easy to get to (there are seven or eight flights daily from New York and Boston), and the people who go there just happen to be for the most part people I like. Lillian has bought a big boat—a cabin cruiser—and I will have to run it for her. There is a marvelous uninhabited island called Naushon we go to, with a great primitive cove, quite silent and still, which oddly enough is reminiscent of Tahiti, and there you can fish and swim or just lie in the sun and get drunk. Anyway, I think you and Moss and Kaylie would have a ball up there, so I implore you to make plans to join us up there in June and stay as long as you like. We will have more than enough room, inasmuch as our dwelling is supplied with a fancy little guest cot
tage with its own kitchen and everything, and we literally abut upon the little yacht club which will take the kids off our hands all day long. Just let us know when you plan to come.
I was in Washington briefly after the California trip and saw Dick Goodwin,*TT who sent his best to you all. At the moment it is a secret, but it will probably be out by the time you get this, namely, that Dick was asked by Johnson to come to the White House and write his speeches and act as general adviser. I have the feeling that Dick will be running the country yet—a kind of swarthy Harry Hopkins*UU —and we could be in worse hands.
I have a lot of funny jokes to tell you when you come over. The funniest joke of all is Mailer’s “novel” in Esquire;*VV someone aptly said that they hadn’t read anything so improbable since the old days of Spicy Detective.
I’m enclosing a love-letter which was here when I arrived back.*WW Love to all of you and stay in touch.
Bill
TO JAMES AND GLORIA JONES
April 25, 1964 Roxbury, CT
Dear James and Moss:
We are delighted to pieces that you are coming. Please send the candelabra and we will take it up to the Vineyard.
Would you also try to bring me a box of Havana cigars—Montecristos or Corona Coronas or Romeo y Julieta—since they are unobtainable here after Castro. You will have to smuggle them in but everyone has been doing it and if you get caught you won’t get more than 5 or 6 months in jail. Let us know when you come. Love, —B.
TO ROBERT PENN WARREN
July 19, 1964 Vineyard Haven, MA
Dear Red:
This might interest you.*XX The Sheriff mentioned here is Charlie Capps, who was my roommate for the year and a half I was at Davidson College. He was a bon vivant at 17 and one cold winter day we went to Charlotte, got drunk and found a motheaten South Carolina whore at a place called the Green Hotel. It was my first time but old hat to Charlie, who first got laid with a little colored girl when he was 12.
O tempore, O mores!
The Styrons purchased their home in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, in August 1964.
TO HOPE LERESCHE
September 5, 1964 Vineyard Haven, MA
Dear Mrs. Leresche:
Thank you very much for your letter. I will certainly be looking forward to receiving the Danish edition.
You may know by now that I had a visit recently from Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape.*YY He is a most impressive fellow and we got along together wonderfully. He read part of the new book of mine and registered a real kind of enthusiasm, adding of course that he was anxious to become my publisher, and would do every thing in his power to communicate his own excitement in England. As you know, I do very much want to get away from Hamilton. I recently got a curious message from someone at Hamilton—I forget the name, I think in charge of publicity—saying that while “going through their files” they had discovered to their great surprise that they were lacking autobiographical material on me and photographs. I didn’t take any action, but it didn’t occur to me until a few days later that since I was first published by Hamilton in 1951, and they had never asked me for such material before, it had taken them an awful long time to getting around to it. You may think me petty to be annoyed over a trifle like this, but I think it is something that no publisher who had really cared would do. At any rate, I want to get away from Hamilton and tie up with Cape, if this is possible, and if you think it is possible I will leave the rest up to you. Naturally, there is no great hurry on this. Indeed, it would probably be wiser to wait until this book is finished. However, I want to reiterate my great enthusiasm for Maschler. I actually felt he had understood my work, and that is more than I could ever say for Hamilton, who is terribly nice and all, but …
I’ll be interested in hearing what you have to say about all this. I’ll be up here on this island until around the middle of this month, but a letter either to here or Roxbury will be forwarded.
Sincerely,
And best wishes—W.S.
TO HAMISH HAMILTON
October 10, 1964*ZZ Roxbury, CT
Dear Jamie:
Hope Leresche in London just recently forwarded a letter to her from James Eastwell, which hardly seems even to be from Mr. Eastwell, inasmuch as it was signed by his typist. At any rate, Mrs. Leresche sent the letter on to me because it was an inquiry, wanting to know whether I would like to acquire some of the 700 copies of THE LONG MARCH which you have decided to dispose of as “remainders”. At the 1$. a copy which Mr. Eastwell says you expect to obtain, I calculate your total gain at a little less than a hundred dollars, which doesn’t seem to me to be a lot for a good book. Naturally there is not necessarily any opprobrium attached to the idea of remaindering, per se: stuck with an overstock of an expensive book (let us say, 6,000 copies of a $5 novel), publishers have even remaindered Nobel Prize winners. But it is not even the fact that you have decided to make a pitiful ninety-eight dollars off me which so disturbs me; it is the fact that nothing of mine that you have published ever seems to “go.”
I have for a long time now wondered if this failure is not due, quite simply, to the fact that my books do not suit your imprint or go well under it; and I feel very strongly a general lack of interest in my work and in its promotion. This summer, for instance, I received a letter from some other functionary whose name I don’t recollect, saying that he or she had been through their files recently and had discovered, to their surprise, that there was no biographical information on me available and no photographs. I suppose this person meant recent material and recent photographs (though I cannot recollect the firm ever having asked for photographs before); even so, I’m afraid that, however inadvertently, there was an awful belated tone to that letter, as if someone was just coming around to a kind of spasmodic interest in me.
With all due respect to the very real kindnesses paid me by yourself and good people like Roger Machell, I’m afraid I’ve never felt the actual surge of enthusiasm I’ve felt from my other publishers about my work; and this indifference has not been an imagined thing but has been a very real hurt to me—especially in the light of the more than friendly relations we have always had.
Now that you are going to remainder THE LONG MARCH, I feel overwhelmingly that I would like our connection to come to an end. I am a loss to you and, frankly, I should be most unhappy to think that I am faced with the same anxieties when my next book is ready to be published. I am therefore asking you to release me from my option and to leave me to be free when the time comes to find another publisher in England.†aa
Please understand the extreme difficulty and pain it has caused me to write this letter, and I hope you will accept the great respect I still hold for you.
Sincerely,
William Styron
PS: On reflection, I have decided to buy myself the 700 copies of THE LONG MARCH, and Hope Leresche & Steele will complete arrangements with your office for this.
TO JAMES AND GLORIA JONES
November, 1964 Mexico City, Mexico
GREAT NEWS ABOUT AMBROSE!†bb
Dear James + Moss:
Rose and I are living it up in the sin city of the Western Hemisphere—it shuts up tight at midnight. On to Yucatan with Lillian Hellman and other mutual pals.
Love,
Billy S.
TO HOPE LERESCHE
January 14, 1965 Roxbury, CT
Dear Mrs. Leresche:
I called John Dodds after receiving your letter, and he said that he would try to get the Harper’s article to you as soon as possible—either a copy of the typescript or, if available, tear sheets from the magazine.†cc The article is close to 10,000 words, which I hope is not too long for British or European magazines. I would not want to see it heavily abridged. I am quite proud of this essay, because it deals with a fascinating historical matter (Nat Turner’s revolt, of course) which no one has heard of except myself, who knows everything about it there is to know. At any rate, Harper’s is most enthusiastic about it, and I hope y
ou too will like it and be able to find publication for it over there.
As for the novel, there are 204 typewritten pages available, and I will try to get a copy to you very soon. All of the copies are now at various places, being read for magazines (one copy is in Chicago), reprint rights, movies, etc., but as soon as one becomes available (probably less than two weeks) John Dodds will send you one. I am beginning to have the faint suspicion that this book may be a little too “American” for English tastes (the whole thing is told from the point of view of a Negro slave in the year 1831), but we’ll see.
I am snowed in here in this subarctic region but I expect to warm up next week. I was invited down to Washington to attend the inauguration of President Johnson, which will be exciting but nothing like your Coronation. Rather boisterous and noisy, I’m afraid, and filled with drunk Texans in big hats. A far cry from J.F. Kennedy.
Best wishes and a happy New Year.
Sincerely,
Wm Styron
TO HOPE LERESCHE
January 21, 1965 Roxbury, CT
Dear Mrs. Leresche: Day before yesterday I was at the White House getting dressed for the Inaugural Do, when Bennett Cerf telephoned from New York all out of breath to say that New American Library—our best mass paperback house—had offered $100,000 for the rights to my coming novel. The combination of my surroundings and the amount made me a bit giddy, but it is true: does it sound as big in pounds, 28,000? Anyway, I wanted to send this news off to you as quickly as possible, as it obviously won’t hurt your negotiations in England. I am still somewhat benumbed, but rather intoxicated, too!
Selected Letters of William Styron Page 39
