A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates

by Blake Bailey

  “a little heavy in the leg.”: The phrase was used to describe Sears’s fictional alter ego Holly Parsons in UT.

  “it hurt to listen”: Int. Joseph Mohbat.

  as a matter of principle it rankled: Int. Noreen McGuire.

  “When I’m writing, I’m writing”: Int. Jack Rosenthal.

  a stock anecdote in Yates’s repertoire: Int. E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., Carolyn Gaiser.

  “After searching for months”: “Periscope,” Newsweek, September 16, 1963, 16.

  Was this Richard Yates the writer: Int. Dan Wakefield.

  “suave, expensive and quiet restaurant”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.

  Yates shook hands … ran out of cigarettes: Int. Wendy Sears Grassi, Joseph Mohbat.

  “and just about that time the president”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.

  “Richard Yates, the novelist … did not like”: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1978), 876.

  “Never look for political ideas”: UT notes.

  “glad it happened”: Wendy Sears recounts this exchange in her letter to RY, c. June 1964.

  “this makes [my husband]”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, August 14, 1964.

  “There are of course a number of elements”: McCall to RY, January 30, 1964.

  “I’m working like a bastard”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.

  A representative artifact: “QWERTYUIOP,” Esquire, October 1966, 98.

  during a boozy night with Styron: Styron to RY, January 12, 1965.

  “you work all day and carouse”: Lawrence to RY, March 3, 1964.

  “Yates was pleasant enough”: Int. Richard Frede.

  Charlie was now working: Sheila Yates to RY, July 15, 1964.

  “I’ll put a dime”: Grace Schulman to RY, July 15, 1964.

  “rich, waspy”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.

  “The damn place [MacDowell]”: RY to the Schulmans, August 8, 1964.

  “Brendan Behan drank”: Wendy Sears to RY, August 18, 1964.

  “There’s a good writer who goes”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.

  Chapter Ten A New Yorker Discovers the Middle West: 1964–1966

  Background on the Iowa Writers Workshop: Seems Like Old Times: Iowa Writers Workshop Golden Jubilee, ed. Ed Dinger (Iowa City: 1986), hereafter cited as SLOT; The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers Workshop, ed. Tom Grimes (New York: Hyperion, 1999), hereafter cited as Workshop; John Hess, “Where Have All the Writers Gone? To Iowa City, That’s Where,” Holiday (June 1970), 60–68.

  “The business of teaching”: Venant, “A Fresh Twist in the Road.”

  “I must admit I’m a little leery”: RY to Cassill, February 7, 1963.

  “few places interesting to eat”: Cassill to RY, February 25, 1964.

  His car … caught fire: Tom Gatten, Workshop, 731.

  “I found myself talking”: Int. William Kittredge.

  “Turn at the sign”: Int. Loree Wilson Rackstraw.

  cartoon of a sad daddy: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.

  “I think we all wanted”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 211.

  “What’s this … club tie?”: Int. Robin Metz.

  “sublime, rugged presence”: Luke Wallin, SLOT, 66.

  “rhetorical style … ‘Flowering Judas’”: Int. Loree Wilson Rackstraw.

  “I’m going to the Airliner”: Int. James Crumley.

  “Now that is fucking good writing!”: Int. Murray Moulding.

  “Now, if that’s Daisy talking”: Int. Robert Lacy.

  trashing of All the King’s Men: Int. James Crumley.

  “Oh c’mon, you don’t really mean that!”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.

  “smelly and shy”: Int. Dan Childress.

  “Yates had no doubt”: Robert Lehrman, Workshop, 746.

  Mark Dintenfass was startled: Int. Mark Dintenfass, Robert Lehrman.

  “Dick demonstrated the keenest”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 29.

  “They’re rushing you”: Int. John Casey.

  “I hope this won’t … sore”: RY to DeWitt Henry, May 13, 1968.

  “I simply can’t imagine”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.

  “Hm, did you really”: Int. William Keough.

  “You motherfuckers”: Int. William Kittredge.

  “Milch was a slasher”: Int. Robin Metz.

  “That many writers”: Int. Seymour Epstein.

  “Andre wanted … tough guy”: Int. Peggy Rambach.

  “Most of the clowns here”: RY to Miller Williams, October 3, 1964.

  “Getting a letter from Richard Yates”: Dubus to RY, July 1, 1970.

  “Richard Yates is one of our great writers”: Andre Dubus, “A Salute to Mister Yates, Black Warrior Review 15, no. 2 (Spring 1989), 160.

  “God, how we loved that song!”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 217.

  “If that goddamned movie”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.

  “hug [him] to pieces”: Wendy Sears to RY, October 26, 1964.

  “Steve Salinger sneaked in”: Jonathan Penner, Workshop, 724.

  “I don’t think I’m at all cut out”: RY to McCall, November 1, 1964, BU-MM.

  “Dick saw more in me”: Int. Lyn Lacy.

  “He talked of prospects”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.

  “I resigned from Knopf”: Lawrence to RY, November 7, 1964.

  “Sam’s attitude … deplorable”: McCall to RY, November 19, 1964.

  “I know apologies are a bore”: RY to the Schulmans, January 10, 1965.

  “people don’t stop caring”: Grace Schulman to RY, March 4, 1965.

  “lonesome as hell”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.

  “a crash program”: RY to the Schulmans, January 10, 1965.

  “[T]he ‘teaching’ routine”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.

  “tinkered and brooded and fussed”: Ploughshares, 74.

  “Verlin Cassill’s verdict”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.

  “What will you do?”: Int. Robin Metz.

  “a cherry when I got married”: Dubus to RY, February 2, 1967.

  “I’ve wanted to publish you”: Robert Gottlieb to RY, February 15, 1965.

  “Was Sam ever useful”: McCall to RY, March 22, 1965.

  “mustn’t worry”: McCall to RY, March 4, 1965.

  “making notes and … spooky”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.

  “If calling me when … panic”: McCall to RY, May 7, 1965.

  Yates scribbled on his bill: found among RY’s papers.

  “ridiculous amounts of money”: RY to Schulmans, July 11, 1965.

  “Hitler’s car”: Int. Frances Doel. As a patriotic vet, RY deplored his having bought the Führer’s infamous “people’s car.”

  “grubby white edifice”: DP, 210.

  “the Goddamn movies”: Int. Frances Doel.

  “Guess what, hey”: RY to Wendy Sears, July 2, 1965, BU-RY.

  “[W]hatever kind of place”: RY to Schulmans, July 11, 1965.

  “[Corman] turns out to be”: Ibid.

  “I poke around trying”: RY to Robert and Dot Parker, July 24, 1965.

  “funny Hollywood story”: RY to Schulmans, July 11, 1965.

  “friendly but reserved”: Int. Roger Corman.

  “There’s really not much”: Catherine Downing to RY, September 12, 1975.

  “West Hollywood Sheriff’s Office”: Discarded draft of DP, BU-RY.

  Bill Reardon, who caught a flight: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.

  “In the bughouse”: Int. Frances Doel.

  “We have had a wonderful”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 22, 1965.

  “the right thing”: Bowen to RY, September 13, 1965.

  “spread any unfortunate”: Marc Jaffe to RY, August 30, 1965.

  “The fact of talent”: Rust Hills to RY, August 27, 1965.

  “he is not my doctor”: RY to McCall, October 6, 1965, BU-
MM.

  “the kind of place … suicide”: Int. Frances Doel.

  “People found it very warm”: Rust Hills to RY, August 27, 1965.

  “There are several good things”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.

  “fine well-focused script”: Dubus to RY, February 10, 1966.

  “This is your third breakdown”: Sheila Yates to RY, September 29, 1965.

  “He’s a very, very touchy”: RY to DeWitt Henry, July 24, 1972.

  “never seen such a change”: RY to Cassill, March 23, 1966.

  “I’m John Gregory Dunne”: Letter to author from Carolyn Gaiser.

  “you are one of the very few”: Joan Didion to RY, September 13, 1970.

  hourly tormented … Portis: Int. Murray Moulding.

  “Haven’t done any more wrestling”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.

  “Is just ‘functioning’”: Quoted in Dubus to RY, February 25, 1966.

  “I’m feeling pretty jaunty”: RY to Cassill, March 23, 1966.

  “Not an unhappy experience”: Marc Jaffe to RY, June 1, 1966.

  “[Yates] has been in Hollywood”: Cassill to Carolyn Kizer, c. May 1966.

  “take the curse off”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.

  “Is this some kind of AA thing?”: Int. Jerry Schulman.

  “The purpose of this letter”: Craige ——— to RY, May 28, 1966.

  “[The story] is all tricked out”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.

  Wolper … fired Yates: RY wrote to Frances Doel (September 7, 1966), “It’s [i.e., a $10,000 grant] the same amount I lost in being fired from the Remagen Bridge flick.” The details of RY’s dismissal are unknown.

  “I wouldn’t want to try it”: Contemporary Authors, 1981, 536.

  “We are delighted”: Bourjaily to RY, June 7, 1966.

  “Still hate [Hollywood]”: RY to Cassill, March 23, 1966.

  “Forgive me … but I called”: Frances Doel to RY, July 15, 1966.

  “brilliant,” an “emotional genius”: Carole ——— to RY, c. June 1970.

  Chapter Eleven A Natural Girl: 1966–1968

  “Dick’s helplessness”: Int. Mark Costello.

  “get [his] brains … focus”: RY to Frances Doel, September 7, 1966.

  “If we stick together”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, September 15, 1966.

  “bowled over”: Int. Martha Speer.

  “I’m sorry your friend”: Martha Speer to RY, September, 1966.

  “traumatic and cowardly”: Carole ——— to RY, c. June 1970.

  “I was afraid to face”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.

  “As an occasional palindromist”: Roger Angell to RY, October 3, 1966.

  “one of the best books”: Vonnegut wrote this blurb for the 1971 Dell reprint of RR, and it has appeared on perhaps every edition since.

  “a very unpopular lecture”: Int. Kurt Vonnegut.

  “From Coover I learned”: Kittredge, SLOT, 66.

  “Well, I’m just a dumb guy”: Int. Mark Dintenfass.

  “a seething mix”: Robert Lehrman, Workshop, 745.

  “faggots” and worse: Int. Robert Lehrman.

  “in the past four or five”: RY to Cassill, April 2, 1967.

  “Good work to you”: Dubus to RY, February 28, 1967.

  “Dick, guess what we’re doing?”: Int. Joseph Mohbat.

  “We would be prepared”: Lawrence to RY, September 16, 1966.

  “I do know that the pressures”: McCall to RY, April 5, 1967.

  “repay the outstanding”: Lawrence to RY, January 6, 1968.

  “In the end I told Sam”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.

  “lugubrious” … “roaring drunk”: Int. Gordon Lish.

  “clear impression”: Int. Peter Davidson.

  “The Workshop … incestuous”: Int. William Murray.

  “Where’s the pencil pusher?”: Ibid.

  “[He was] clearly upset”: Robert Lehrman, Workshop, 746.

  “I thought ‘this is life’”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.

  “No chance of finishing”: RY to Cassill, April 2, 1967.

  “I hope you’re not sorry”: Sheila Yates to RY, July 9, 1967.

  “about the sex lives of graduate”: RY to Dewitt Henry, May 13, 1968.

  “I have so many daughters”: Int. Grace Schulman.

  “She’s twenty years younger”: RY to Cassill, January 7, 1968.

  “We wanted … happier life”: Lehrman, Workshop, 746.

  Chapter Twelve A Special Providence: 1968–1969

  “chummy, bubbly, tolerant”: Int. Martha Speer.

  “wiped out with admiration”: RY to E. B. Prettyman, February 23, 1968.

  “Straight ahead: don’t look right”: Int. Martha Speer.

  “sick, in shock”: Int. Fred Rodgers Jr.

  “Your brother killed”: Int. Louise Rodgers.

  “more hopeful now”: RY to Prettyman, May 9, 1968.

  “hideous loss”: RY to Prettyman, August 4, 1968.

  “that scares the shit”: RY to Cassill, December 1, 1968.

  “[The novel] may not … good”: RY to Prettyman, February 20, 1969.

  “idle, boozy”: RY to Robert Lehrman, June 10, 1969.

  “very high on [his] book”: McCall to RY, June 11, 1969.

  “moving and sensitive”: McCall enclosed Rosenthal’s letter with hers of September 4, 1969.

  “because it is much harder”: Carole ——— to RY, c. June 1970.

  “What kind of guy … Bennington?”: Int. William Keough.

  “With time on my hands”: Sharon Yates to RY, December 7, 1968.

  “dropping [his] pants in Macy’s”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.

  “I imagine you are now”: Vonnegut to RY, September 24, 1969.

  “It is a beautiful book”: Joan Didion to RY, October 14, 1969.

  HOPE YOU SAW: Styron to RY, October 27, 1969.

  “I remember how many times”: Dubus to RY, November 12, 1969.

  “What do Alice Prentice’s dreams”: Robin Metz to RY, November 25, 1969.

  “a lot of people … much of it”: RY to Prettyman, December 14, 1969.

  Reviews of A Special Providence: Joyce Carol Oates, The Nation, November 10, 1969; John Thompson, Harper’s, November 1969; Elizabeth Dalton, New York Times Book Review, December 14, 1969.

  “the true enemies of the novel”: Quoted in Ronald Baugham, “Richard Yates,” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook (Detroit: Gale, 1992), 301.

  “the two terrible traps”: Ploughshares, 70.

  considered omitting it: RYAW, 59.

  “better and easier”: RY to Prettyman, December 14, 1969.

  “Let’s see”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 34.

  Chapter Thirteen Fun with a Stranger: 1970–1974

  “But you must not brood”: McCall to RY, January 21, 1970.

  “most desirous of establishing”: Howard Gotlieb to RY, April 14, 1970.

  “the added disadvantage”: Ploughshares, 74.

  “I’ve sort of decided”: RY to DeWitt Henry, December 13, 1967.

  “require the same kind”: Contemporary Authors, 1981, 534.

  “had it in for him.”: Int. Jack Leggett.

  “slinking around with a secret”: Int. Martha Speer.

  “Martha seemed a nurse”: Int. William Harrison.

  “A problem has come up”: William Murray to RY, June 15, 1970.

  “80% of the writing faculty”: Hayes B. Jacobs to RY, July 6, 1970.

  “progressively, irredeemably crazy”: Ploughshares, 73.

  “Hollywood writers”: Int. Jayne Anne Phillips.

  “I recall trying to say”: RY to John A. Williams, October 26, 1970.

  “the ‘book’ might be in the form”: Ibid.

  “the mediocre … soldiers”: Williams to RY, November 5, 1970.

  “about the hideous whim”: RY to Williams, early 1971.

  “Do you know … out of print”: Clark, “T
he Best I Can Wish You,” 40.

  “All the time I praise”: Vonnegut to RY, September 14, 1970.

  “deep” into his new novel: RY to DeWitt Henry, May 7, 1971.

  “There’s a great deal of interest”: Bruce Cutler to RY, June 22, 1971.

  “dream up an original”: McCall to RY, October 27, 1971.

  “break [his] heart”: Quoted in McCall to RY, November 9, 1971.

  “in something of a muddle”: RY to the Schulmans, November 23, 1971.

  “Say, Geoff, tell me”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 33.

  “I felt like a teenybopper”: Int. Ellen Wilbur.

  “I seem to recall … clown”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, April 9, 1972.

  “fragmentary, diffuse”: DeWitt Henry to RY, April 12, 1972.

  “chances [were] very good”: David Milch to RY, June 27, 1972.

  “must be beautiful”: Gina Berriault to the Yateses, July 14, 1972.

  “Believe it or not”: RY to DeWitt Henry, July 24, 1972.

  “A popular writer, a writer”: from Henry’s transcription of original interview, found among RY’s papers.

  “cogent and back-to-work”: Int. DeWitt Henry.

  “in all its carefully-edited”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.

  “I’ve just finished reading”: Lawrence to RY, November 13, 1972.

  “So who knows?”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.

  “devilishly hard”: Hayes Jacobs to RY, February 13, 1973.

  Various drafts of RY’s résumé were found among his papers.

  “a lot of commitment”: Arthur Roth to RY, January 30, 1973.

  Yates’s review of The Morning After: New York Times Books Review, January 28, 1973, 6.

  “putting the story through”: McCall to RY, February 20, 1973.

  “Dick—I’m doing … trust me”: Gordon Lish to RY, February 22, 1973.

  “Your performance was an appalling”: Lish to RY, February 28, 1973.

  “I am your daughter”: Monica Yates to RY, March 5, 1973.

  Martha prepared a list of symptoms: found among RY’s papers.

  “Those monthly payments”: RYAW, 59.

  “How much do you need”: Int. Dan Wakefield.

  “at his best he’s a solid”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, October 26, 1978.

  Yates would mimic him: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.

  “become … whiskey-head”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, July 22, 1973.

  “Three thousand articles”: E-mail to author from John P. Lowens.

  “taking his enormous success”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, July 22, 1973.