Selected Letters of William Styron

by William Styron

  I’m glad your domestic life is thriving and that fatherhood is such a happy estate for you; it is something very special, and without it I would have felt quite foreshortened spiritually (despite the frequent hecticness). Also I’m pleased to hear about your various writing projects. I enjoyed reading that introduction to Writing and America, with its attention to Nat Turner. President Clinton has been vacationing on this island and I’ve seen quite a bit of him; in fact we had him to dinner. At one point, when Nat came up in conversation, he blurted “Surely I come quickly …” and you could have knocked me over with a broomstraw, hearing that line from the last part of the book. He then went on to tell me how he’d read Nat in 1969 and how it had been a “transformative” work for him; needless to say, I was tickled to get all this from the Prez or POTUS (“Pres. of the United States”) as he is designated by the Secret Service.

  I thought you might be interested in the enclosed journal, published by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Jim West’s biography is going to be published in the late winter of the coming year and I think it’s quite a good job. Needless to say, I have mixed feelings about being focused upon in such a way. I think it best that writers’ biographies appear not while they’re alive but gone to the great writers’ colony in the sky. I really dread all the attention the book is going to get, with all the attending bullshit. (“Mr. Styron has always been a somewhat problematical figure in modern American letters,” etc.)

  Best news at the moment is that my daughter Susanna has just finished directing (and written the script for) a movie based on my story “Shadrach,” starring Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell. It was filmed down in North Carolina, where I saw some of the production. I think it may turn out to be a terrific film.

  Best of luck to you on your writing. What pain it is! But also what joy eventually, when it turns out well. I’m sure you’ll prevail.

  All best to you & your fine family,

  Bill

  TO PHILIP ROTH

  November 16, 1997 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Philip,

  After I called you, several weeks ago (getting no answer) I learned from our pal Dick Widmark that you had gone back to N.Y.C., “to be among my people.”†III I do hope you are feeling more congenially situated in your own ethnic group than in this washed-out enclave of Wasp yokels. All October I was on the talk trail—Arkansas (will you believe it? Arkadelphia, home of Jim McDougal & Whitewater), Tennessee, Cincinnati and Boston, plus Richmond—making enough to pay for the new kitchen here in Roxbury. Big bucks.

  I had wanted to mention the loathsome du Plessix. Although she always irritated me I never quite shared your rage—that is, until I read an odious piece she wrote for The New Yorker following the demise of Diana.†JJJ You doubtless saw it: how she, du Plessix, having always eschewed the cult of celebrity to the point of taking People magazine to the garbage “with ice tongs,” found herself “bawling” over the loss of one who was a paradigm of all suffering women who had been repeatedly betrayed by cads, etc. etc. Even for du Plessix it was sickening, and when I read it I finally understood your, shall we say, animus and I realized that the woman is utterly lacking in both taste and shame.

  I hope we can discuss this and more savory matters in the near future and trust you’ll contact this web site when and if you return to the Hills. Stay in touch.

  Bill

  P.S. I’ve misplaced your N.Y. address and am sending this to Cornwall Bridge for forwarding.

  TO GAVIN COLOGNE-BROOKES

  [Unknown], 1997 Roxbury, CT

  Darkness Visible is in its 19th paperback (Vintage) printing.

  I get “you-saved-my-life” letters like this almost every day.†KKK

  This letter was handed to me by a very young woman at a party at a writers’ conference in Idaho, ironically at the house where Ernest Hemingway shot himself.

  TO ROBERT AND CLAIRE WHITE

  January 9, 1998 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Bobby & Claire,

  I’ve been reading Stanford White’s letters with a lot of pleasure.†LLL He was a wonderfully gifted writer and probably would have made a fine writer if he hadn’t turned to other fields. Architecture was much better appreciated than writing in those years so he plainly made the right choice.

  I thought you’d like to have this calendar.†MMM I am the pin-up boy for May, as you will see, even though Claire and I are June children.

  Have a Happy New Year.

  Willum

  TO PHILIP ROTH

  March, 1998 Roxbury, CT

  Philip: My father always said: Beware of Jews with crystals.†NNN

  BS

  TO EDGAR L. NETTLES†OOO

  May 24, 1998 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Mr. Nettles,

  I’m most appreciative for your generous letter with its many touchstones of memory for me. I remember “Miss Cosby” so well from sixth grade and hope you will give her my very best wishes after so many, many years. You might tell her that not too long ago, after I gave a talk at a college in Florida, I was approached by a lady who had been a colleague of hers at the Hilton School. This was Virginia Saunders, who I believe had taught me in third grade. So it has been rather wonderful to have contact with these most influential people in my past.

  Your memories of my father also touched me, and I thank you for sharing them. He was indeed an extraordinary man and one to whom I also owed a great deal. He supported me wholeheartedly in my struggles to become a writer, and I was tickled by your description of his presentation of “Nat Turner” to the barber. A moment like that was my spiritual payback for his faith in me.

  Please also tell “Miss Cosby” that like her, I have a vivid memory of being Marley’s Ghost in “A Christmas Carol.” I remember wearing white grease paint and my appearance (I guess I must have been about 12) scared the daylights out of the little 6-year-old tykes in the front row of the auditorium.

  Hilton Village, with its river and pier and sycamores, was a paradise for a kid. Thanks once again for helping me to summon up memories, and for your thoughtfulness in writing me.

  Sincerely,

  William Styron

  TO AMELIE AND BERNEI BURGUNDER

  July 13, 1999†PPP Vineyard Haven, MA

  Dear A&B: I appreciate greatly your gift of that perfectly beautiful linen shirt. Cotton I’ve got, wool I’ve got, but linen is a swank new addition to my summer wardrobe—here on the Vineyard which, according to New York magazine (which is my authority on all things) is a “center of high fashion.” Love, Bill

  TO JAMES L. W. WEST III

  August 10, 1999 Vineyard Haven, MA

  Jim:

  This is the eulogy I gave for Willie at the Methodist church in Yazoo City last Thursday.†QQQ It was even hotter than at Faulkner’s funeral in 1962, if that’s possible. Willie would have been amused that for the mourners the heat was a near-death experience.

  B.S.

  TO BOB BRUSTEIN

  February 11, 2000 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Bob,

  You must be insane. By now you should know that the only people who are given the Nobel Prize are large American Negro mammies and 87-year-old Salvadoran poets. But I must say it was terribly sweet of you to think of me in that way and to shoot off that letter to the weird trolls in Stockholm who handle such matters.

  In an indirect way your endorsement (in the profoundly unlikely event of my copping the prize) would very likely hasten the demise of America’s most famous playwright. For according to our friend Philip Roth, it is only the prospect of the Nobel Prize that keeps Arthur Miller alive October to October. Were the garland to descend on me, in this or any other year, my Roxbury neighbor—according to Philip—would not last another month.

  You’d have more than some of your snotty reviews to answer for.

  But I am grateful to you for the loving thought and send my love in return.

  Ever,

  Bill S.

  In the spring of 2000, Styron’s depression returned, m
uch more seriously than ever before. He ended up having shock treatments against his will and was contemplating suicide.

  TO EDWARD BUNKER

  June 14, 2000 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Eddie,

  That was a half insane idea of mine and of course one that would put you in jeopardy.†RRR Forgive me for the loony thought and I hope you still consider me

  Your devoted Brother

  Bill

  P.S. Do call me, though, I’m suffering.

  TO JAMES L. W. WEST III

  June 15, 2000 Roxbury, CT

  Jim, Read this after reading MS.†SSS

  Dear Jim,

  The depression makes it hard for me to write but I did want to tell you of the plans I had for ending the novel.

  The book is not unequivocally pro-Bomb. It ends with a confrontation between Paul and the Reverend and Isabel, in which Paul maintains that Truman could have been held culpable if the Japanese were on the verge of surrender. But since there is no evidence of this, Truman was perfectly justified in his decision. The novel ends on a note of reconciliation, with Paul asserting to his stepmother and the minister: Let History be the judge.

  B.S.

  TO EDWARD BUNKER

  June 16, 2000 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Eddie,

  I’ve gone quite daft with my depression—can hardly write a letter—but as a follow-up to my postcard/letter which you may or may not have received by now, I want to ask your forgiveness for suggesting to you that you partake in any such harebrained scheme.†TTT I value your friendship more than almost anything and now hope that you will pardon me for putting your own well-being in jeopardy.

  If you don’t answer I’ll certainly understand but hope you will call me sometime.

  Ever,

  Bill

  TO EDMOND MILLER

  January 30, 2001 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Ed,

  I must say it was brave and generous of you to travel all the way to Richmond and back to Wilmington in a major blizzard, all to participate in a black tie event, much of which must have been pretty boring.†UUU The governor of Virginia, incidentally—he of the Lay Down in Darkness line—was at my table, and allowed as how I was among the first to know in advance that he was to be chosen as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, I really felt I’d hit the Big Time.

  I do appreciate your concern for my health. I was still a little wobbly that evening, having been not long out of the hospital. But now after two more months I think I can safely say that I’m nearly 100% restored, and have gained back enough weight to be, at 170 pounds, just where I should have been for many years. It is a vile and detestable illness whose only saving grace is, as I’ve noted in print, that it is conquerable. I really feel fine.

  Aside from the egregious Gov. Gilmore I thought the evening wasn’t really too bad after all. I heard that most importantly the event raised a lot of money for the Library of Virginia. But beyond this it seemed to me the evening expressed some faith in literature, in the written word, and no one will quarrel with that.

  Thanks for your various kind remarks, which bring cheer to my heart. Stay well. Spring is right around the corner.

  Best, as ever,

  Bill S.

  TO BROOKE ALLEN

  April 29, 2001 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Brooke, One of Cynthia Ozick’s chief failings is simple pretentiousness and I think you did a fine job of exposing her on this ground.†VVV Thanks for sending me your review. I suppose I’m more irritated by her attacks on me than I should be.†WWW If there were any validity in her accusations about “Sophie’s Choice”—that it “corrupts” history by (among other absurd claims) trying to supplant the Jewish Anne Frank with the Polish Catholic Sophie—I’m sure the book would long ago have been exposed as a fraud or worse. But Ozick stands alone in her mewling complaint, refusing to permit any historical suffering that is not Jewish. Anyway, you’ve pointed out expertly those many places in which the empress is starkly unclothed. Thanks for the good work!

  Love, Bill

  TO JEFFREY GIBBS†XXX

  October 10, 2001 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Mr. Gibbs,

  I’m most grateful to you for your generous letter about Sophie’s Choice. It heartens me to get a letter like yours since I get discouraged from time to time about the future and value of fiction and about the hard job of writing; words like yours are like a good dose of adrenaline and allow me to take hope. Certain details you mention are especially pleasing to me—the pull and allure of great music, for instance. Without music I would have been unable to write a single serious line and I’m delighted that I may have helped cause your own renewed involvement with Bach and Beethoven.

  There is a continuity in literature. How gratifying it is to me to think that my work may have inspired you in some way to create your own. It’s important—essential I should say—that books, which are lifelines to the future, continue to be written and read. I hope you’ll persist in your own quest to explore, as you put it, the darkest side of humanity and that you will find the right way of expressing what you have to say. I’m touched to think that my work may have helped in that valuable process.

  Sincerely

  William Styron

  TO GAVIN COLOGNE-BROOKES

  February 11, 2002 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Gavin,

  We have indeed been out of touch too long—my fault—but I’m delighted to learn that you’re going to be in New York in March, and I’m sure we’ll be able to get together for a reunion. We could certainly at least have lunch or dinner and I’d like to think you may have time enough to come up here to Conn. for a visit of whatever length.

  At the time I received your earlier letter (Jan. 2001) I was recovering from a horrible recurrence of my chronic illness, the black dog, which sent me to the hospital, actually two hospitals, from June of 2000 until the following November. It was a sudden major depression (induced, I’m certain, paradoxically, by the malefic effect of an anti-depressant) which metamorphosed from a mental disorder to a generalized physical breakdown that nearly killed me. I lost over 40 pounds, developed pneumonia, had an eating disorder that caused me to be fed through an abdominal tube, and was bedridden for months. I’ll fill you in on the gorier details when I see you. Fascinating to say, however, I’ve made an almost complete recovery, gaining back just the right amount of poundage to put me at the optimum weight I should have had for years. But it was an incredible ordeal which, having taken me to the very brink, makes me now feel like a lucky Lazarus. I’ve resumed my usual schedule and that includes writing, giving talks, and making flights to such far-off destinations as the Caribbean and California. I’ve given readings this past year at Howard, Yale and Princeton.

  You wrote me about your memoir about traveling around the U.S. in a bus, something you also talked to me about sometime ago. I wonder if it’s in such shape that you’d like me to read it. Now that I’m in good physical condition I’d very much like to take a look at it so if you’ll bring it along on your N.Y. visit it would give me great pleasure to give it a reading.

  It’s not quite true that (at least in my case) a prophet is not without honor in his own country. The enclosed photos were taken at an upscale housing project in progress in my hometown of Newport News.†YYY The developer has named the community Port Warwick—after, of course, the town in Lie Down in Darkness and Styron Square is the project’s focus with other thoroughfares named Loftis Avenue and Nat Turner Boulevard. In addition, I was asked to give names to the dozen or so streets, avenues and squares and so we have (all named after U.S. literary figures) such squares as Emily Dickinson and William Faulkner, streets named after Eugene O’Neill and James Baldwin, along with Herman Melville and Walt Whitman Boulevards. I’m sure it’s unique in America and very exciting to think of the genuine nod made to culture instead of the banal Woodbine Street and Mayflower Avenues.

  I’m certainly looking forward to seeing you in March, Gavin, so do stay in touch about such mat
ters as where you will be and how we can contact each other. It will be great to see you again.

  My best to you and your growing family.

  As ever,

  Bill

  TO READERS†ZZZ

  Roxbury, CT

  I hope that readers of Darkness Visible—past, present and future—will not be discouraged by the manner of my dying. The battle I waged against this vile disease in 1985 was a successful one that brought me 15 years of contented life, but the illness finally won the war.

  Everyone must keep up the struggle, for it is always likely that you will win the battle and nearly a certainty you will win the war.

  To all of you, sufferers and non-sufferers alike, I send my abiding love.

  William Styron

  To be made public at my death and published in all subsequent editions of Darkness Visible.

  * This manuscript does not survive. Styron probably submitted “Where the Spirit Is,” eventually published in the January 1944 issue of the magazine.

  † Elizabeth Buxton (1900–69) married William C. Styron in October 1941, becoming Styron’s stepmother.

  ‡ The original stage production of Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring. Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman was eventually made into a film starring Paul Lukas and Bette Davis.

  § Thomas Wolfe (1900–38), author of Look Homeward, Angel, was a major early influence on Styron’s writing.

  ‖ Styron quotes John Dos Passos, “The Camera Eye (21),” The 42nd Parallel.

  a The Northern Neck of Virginia lies between the Potomac River on the north and the Rappahannock on the south. Randolph Chowning was a friend from Christchurch.

  b “Where the Spirit Is.”

  c Bill, Sr., worked as a mechanical draftsman in the Newport News shipyards.