Selected Letters of William Styron

by William Styron

  I see Widow-Maker is high on the paperback lists in N.Y. Thornton Wilder‡YY won the National Book Award; I guess us young squirts just don’t have the stuff.

  —À bientôt Bill

  TO MIKE MEWSHAW

  April 6, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Mike:

  I’m awful sorry not to have answered your kind letter about Nat Turner sooner—I appreciated your words enormously; I’ve been abominably busy of late, having had to go to Hollywood to “consult,” whatever that means, on the film version of the book (that is some scene) and then, recently to Milwaukee to look in on McCarthy at the Wisconsin primaries (I’m a delegate with Arthur Miller to the Conn. convention, both of us for McCarthy).‡ZZ

  I’m delighted you got the Fulbright and I’m sure that you will swing in Paris; it still is one of my favorite places, and I’ve never found it anti-American, really, at all; the French are just a bit individualistically chilly and aloof (although by no means all of them) and Americans want people to slobber all over them like dogs. I’ve made a note to write to Jim Jones about you and to make the proper introduction; I think you’ll like him and Gloria a lot. But since you aren’t leaving for France until next fall it may be best for you to refresh my memory on this matter later on this summer; certainly it’ll be fresher in his memory if I write to him about you more or less around the time you plan to arrive in Paris.

  My agent, like Donadio, is not taking on anyone new at the moment, but she may change her program this summer; I’ll let you know.§aa In the meantime, I’ll sniff the situation in New York and see if I can come up with some other agent for you.

  Nat has just passed 150,000 copies, which of course pleases me. I never thought it would do that good. I envy you the Va. weather, but it’ll be here soon too. My best to old Slim.

  PS: I’ve re-read your fine analysis of Nat and find it very insightful.

  Yrs ever

  Bill

  Also I’m sorry about not responding to the invitation to come to Va. this spring. Somehow I just lost track of it and all of a sudden spring was here and it was too late.

  TO HOPE LERESCHE

  April 18, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Hope:

  Thanks so much for the very informative letter and news of the nice amount of money coming in from all over.

  I really don’t know if I can make it to London, due to a crowded schedule over here. Just possibly I may be able to come to London between the seventh of May and the fourteenth, but I really can’t be more definite than that at the moment. The book over here has slipped from its #1 spot on the list but is still doing well and I think has passed 160,000 or thereabouts. There is a lot of agitation among the left-wing Negroes here, who have concluded that Nat Turner is distorted history and racist and all that; they’ve kicked up a minor tempest in Hollywood, threatening to boycott the film version and picket, but I think it will blow over. Martin Luther King read the book just before his death, and admired it very much. We are going to get an endorsement to that effect from his widow, which I think will pretty much squelch the opposition. A Negro playwright, Louis Peterson, is doing the screenplay and is off to a good start. I was out in Hollywood a few weeks ago and was much impressed by the director (with whom I did a rough treatment), Norman Jewison—his last film, In the Heat of the Night, you may have seen won the Academy Award.

  The Cape edition arrived safe and sound and is very handsome; my thanks. Also thanks for news of the varied publicity the book will be getting. I hope it will do well.

  Faithfully,

  Bill

  TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN

  April 19, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Professor:

  I am 6′0″, weigh a svelte 167#, and have a head size of 7 ¼″. I hope they outfit me in something fancy.§bb

  By June I will be able to show you an amazing book, published by Beacon Press, called William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Negro Writers Respond. I’ve read the galleys and it is one long hysterical polemic from beginning to end: I’m a racist, a distorter of history, a defamer of black people, a traducer of the heroic image of “our” Nat Turner. The whole thing is a wildly contradictory diatribe, damning me for making Nat too brutal, at the same time too timorous. The whole thing utterly failing to understand the purposes of literature. Incidentally, you might look up the current issue of the Nation for an exchange of letters between me and Herbert Aptheker, the Communist theologian, in regard to the question of Nat. I think I did a fairly good job of rebutting his dreary charges. The colored folk are on the verge of losing all the decent allies they ever had.

  I’ll be there to lunch after the Commencement and am looking forward eagerly to the whole week-end—as does Rose.

  Yours ever,

  Bill

  TO LOUIS D. RUBIN, JR.

  May 1, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Louis:

  A long time ago I might have gotten very upset by Gilman’s piece, but it is so obviously the work of a pompous literary politician rather than a critic that it left me fairly indifferent.§cc It is also so appallingly subliterate in terms of such simple things as grammar that it vitiated itself before it even got started. I think the worst thing about it, though, was its terrible naivete—that is, his allying himself with the Black Power people who are calling the book distorted, perverted, historically inaccurate, etc. He apparently does not have enough real critical competence to understand even the basic essentials about the inter-relationship of history and literature, the artist’s freedom to deal as he likes with historical matters, and so on. By Gilman’s implied criteria, a book like War and Peace would be an irresponsible fraud. But it is a poor piece of writing and the kind of thing that will necessarily rebound upon him sooner or later.

  It was good of you to trouble to write the letter, you made some excellent points, and if Gilman reads it—which I expect he will—I rather imagine he will be squirming. Thanks for sending me the copy.

  I’m looking forward to my trip to Durham on June 1 and to seeing you all.

  Best,

  Bill

  Styron was notified that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

  TO ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR.

  May 15, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Arthur:

  I see by today’s Times that Praeger and Dutton have agreed not to publish Solzhenitsyn’s book, so it looks as if that problem is taken care of.§dd

  I regret we missed (by a few minutes) getting together in Roxbury the other day but I’m looking forward to a tête-à-tête before too long. The Black Panthers are after me but Gene Genovese is going to cook their goose in a forthcoming N.Y. Review of Books piece.§ee

  As ever,

  Bill

  TO DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM§ff

  June 18, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Dr. Wertham:

  I have before me a transcript of a section of Newsfront, a television program on which you appeared on the night of June 5th, and during which you made several remarks about my novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner. I did not see this program but several people reported to me, in some chagrin and distress, that you said what the transcript does indeed verify. Your words, among others, were “Now all the intellectuals and reviewers, they praise this book The Confessions of Nat Turner—that’s an invitation for lynching and I have talked to many people about it who have read it. I have gone over it—this is—we teach the people to lynch. We tell them this is a good thing.”

  Ordinarily I would not respond to your words, nor to anything written or spoken about my book, but I found it especially disturbing in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination that you should choose to speak in this way about my work and link it—by implication at least—to the atmosphere of violence which surrounds us and which I deplore as vehemently as you do. From what you said, I cannot tell whether you have read The Confessions of Nat Turner or not—if not, I suggest that you do. But if you have read the book I find it even more upsetting that an authority of your reputation s
hould find within its pages “an invitation for lynching.” Inasmuch as no responsible literary critic (and this includes presumably the distinguished body that awarded the book the Pulitzer Prize) discovered any such incitement to violence in the novel, I find your charge reckless and without foundation.

  For years you have distinguished yourself by your sound and well-reasoned attacks on the proliferation of senseless violence in the mass media. I find it all the more painful, therefore, to have to deplore your totally unsubstantiated charge about a work of literature. There is some violence in The Confessions of Nat Turner but it is certainly but a single facet of the work as a whole and in no way dominates the book; nor is the violence purely gratuitous, any more than the violence is gratuitous in the works of Sophocles or of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans (indeed it is far less gratuitous than, let us say, some of Webster) or the novels of Dostoievski.

  I am as appalled as you are by the senseless violence on television and the movies, in comic books and other forms of the mass media. But I think that an authority of your distinction is completely overstepping the bounds of his influence, or at least of good judgment, in so facilely equating a book which has been universally judged in terms of the canons of art with that gutter pornography which does in truth comprise “an invitation for lynching.” If psychiatrists like yourself seemingly relinquish the desire or the ability—perhaps both—to discriminate between literature and trash and under the aegis of television, with its enormous influence, fall into the habit of damning literature for that strain of violence which has been an integral part of narrative art ever since Homer, then you run the risk of not only a woeful philistinism but the even greater danger of falling into the posture of advocating what should or should not be in a book. This is a danger as ominous as the violence you deplore.

  I knew Senator Kennedy and stood vigil beside his coffin in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He was an early and profound admirer of The Confessions of Nat Turner, and I am sure he would not have appreciated your totally unwarranted remarks about the book. It is largely because the remarks you made about the novel came during the grave and inflammatory hours following his death that I attach such significance to them, and write you now, asking that you elaborate upon or explain what you mean by this very serious charge. The spoken word is of course quite often not a very accurate means of communication, and it may be that the various people who heard you and spoke to me about it have misconstrued your remarks, just as I may have misread the rather disconnected transcript I have at hand. This constitutes all the more reason why I must request most seriously that you explain in just what fashion The Confessions of Nat Turner comprises an “invitation for lynching.”

  Very truly yours,

  William Styron

  TO JAMES AND GLORIA JONES

  June 19, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear James and Moss:

  … We have been thinking a lot about you during the recent troubles and figured that you had escaped harm, otherwise it would be in the newspapers.§gg

  I went out to Oregon and California to campaign for McCarthy with Arthur Miller, Cal Lowell and Jules Feiffer. We of course won in Oregon but then as soon as I got back here Kennedy was murdered. A ghastly time. I stood vigil at his coffin in St. Patrick’s cathedral (along with, of all people, Gen. Maxwell Taylor the super-hawk and Mortimer Caplin, the Director of the Internal Revenue Service; they both had their eye on me, I felt); and then went to the funeral mass the next day. It was a terrible time. I think the world has gone totally cuckoo.§hh

  We are very glad to hear that you are coming over. Give me a call as soon as you arrive; we will be in Vineyard Haven then, tel. 693-2535, also listed in Vineyard Haven information. Anytime you can come up for a visit will be perfect for me. Don’t fail to keep in touch. The U.S. + A. is in bad trouble and maybe no worse than anywhere else, so maybe you’ll find it pleasant this summer, even in Pottsville.§ii I hope so.

  We all send much love—

  Bill

  TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN

  June 25, 1968 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Professor:

  Before taking off for the Vineyard, I wanted to thank you (on Rose’s behalf too) for the splendid hospitality you and Roma offered us during our all-too-brief stay in Durms. We had a lovely time, your house is truly charming, and please tell Roma how much we appreciate all she did for us. It was good seeing the old gang again, smelling the Proustian scent of tobacco, and revisiting the old scenes.

  The days after our departure from Duke were pretty hectic, what with the Kennedy monstrosity and all that.§jj The day after it happened I got a call from George Plimpton (who had wrestled the gun out of the assassin’s hand) asking me to stand vigil by the coffin in St. Patrick’s, so I did (in heat hotter than that in Durham), an unbelievable scene with solemn and/or hysterical mourners filing by; the funeral the next day was also most impressive though it filled me with devastating gloom. What a weird and tragic country we live in.

  I hope our paths will intersect up here before too long. It was good seeing you again and meeting Roma at last. My very best to her, and Rose joins in sending warm greetings to you and all.

  As ever,

  Bill S., D. Lit.

  TO LARRY L. KING

  June 29, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

  Dear Larry,

  I thank you for your card about the crazy professor who was putting down my black boy on television. His name is Doctor Fredric Wertham—a self-professed expert on violence who has made a living for 20 years lambasting Comic books.§kk Several other people mentioned that program to me and I have registered a very stiff protest.

  I love your piece on Nashville in Harper’s.§ll I think you captured the whole scene beautifully, and I am sending the article to all my friends for whom country music is the cup of life.

  I hope things are not too rugged for you at the moment. I am thinking of you, and I trust that, in due time, we shall be able to lay hold of some wet goods with Willie and The Boys.

  I also belatedly read your piece on Faulkner—a first-rate job, I thought, enormously evocative, very touching, at the end especially.§mm I hope Holiday realizes how lucky they are to get an article as good as this.

  Take care of yourself. I hope to see you soon.

  All best wishes,

  Bill

  TO EUGENE GENOVESE§nn

  July 2, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

  Dear Gene:

  I got the review today and just wanted to send you a brief note to tell you that I think it’s absolutely brilliant. Although you pulverized them, you did it with a certain gentility that I admire and I send my heartiest bravos.

  I think it’s going to be an important essay over and above what it says about my book. You hit the nail on the head in the last two paragraphs, and your words to the effect that the book needs to be taken with profound seriousness is dead on target.

  I will have more to say to you later about this splendid review, and I cannot help but feel that Silvers will be enormously enthusiastic about the light that you have cast on the psyche of part of the contemporary black intelligentsia.

  Bravo for you, again. Hope to see you soon.

  Aguri,

  Bill

  TO MR. JIM WIGGINS

  July 30, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

  Dear Mr. Wiggins:

  Mr. Styron would like to thank you for your letter, and for your interest in obtaining a signed photograph of him.

  Unfortunately, it is not his practice to send out photographs of himself, and he hopes that you will understand that he cannot make an exception, at this time.

  In the meantime, you have his warmest regards, and again, his thanks.

  Most sincerely,

  Secretary to William Styron§oo

  TO JOHN UPDIKE

  August 13, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

  Dear John,

  Sorry not to have made it to the beach the other night. My enthusiasm for N.Y. alas tends towards zero, or below, and I have i
nformed Plimpton of our common reluctance. Hope to see you at the Friday night McCarthy Mini-Gala, or whatever it’s called. Yours, B.S.

  TO ROBERT PENN WARREN

  August 26, 1968 Essex Inn, Chicago, IL

  Dear Red:

  I enjoyed your letter, which I received before coming out here to the convention; I’m covering the ghastly event for The N.Y. Review of Books and have credentials and all that but am so appalled by the scene that by the time you get this I may have packed up and gone back to the Vineyard.§pp I came out here last Tuesday to be a “challenging” McCarthy delegate from Conn., presenting myself with 3 others before the Credentials Committee—all in unbelievably 95° heat and the whole try unsuccessful. Then I flew back for a few days to the Vineyard, thence on Saturday to Washington to fly in to Chicago (with Cal Lowell) on McCarthy’s plane. More travel than I ever thought I would do in a single week.

  This place is a raving lunatic asylum—thousands and thousands of people jammed into hotel lobbies and rooms and bars, the whole scene rimmed by more police in baby blue shirts than you could ever imagine and of course the hippies. Big demonstration just now outside my window, which overlooks the park in front of the Conrad Hilton, where most of the action is. A brutal, crazy scene really—America at its best and worst—and I hope I bear up under the assault. But good weather now.

  Good to hear about the progress on both of your novels and about the children. I’ll be back on the Vineyard around Thursday of this week and we’ll stay until the 14th of Sept., I believe. It will be lovely to see you again in Conn.

  Thanks for your kind words about my 10 black critics. Kindly keep an eye out for the next N.Y. Review of Books, which has a devastating review of the volume by Gene Genovese.

  Love to all and à bientôt

  Bill

  TO JAMES AND GLORIA JONES

  September 25, 1968 Tashkent, Uzbekistan, U.S.S.R.

  Dear James and Moss: Me and my wife are enjoying ourselves here in Central Asia. The Uzbek S.S.R. is a little like Oz, with a lady president, wild tribesmen in the streets, the city very clean and modern though, and better fruits and melons than France even. We have seen a lot of Yevtushenko and tomorrow go to Samarkand and then to Siberia (Lake Baikal), afterwards Moscow and Leningrad.§qq We are leaving Russia by way of Finland and will try to call you from Helsinki on Oct. 7th. Flying to Paris on Oct. 8th. Hope you don’t mind if me and my frau Rose stay with you for a few days.