A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates
Page 76
“What’s most important … right”: Lawrence to RY, February 7, 1974.
“lovable Irish alcoholic”: RYAW, 29.
“Trouble with me and my friends”: Dubus to RY, July 12, 1976.
“Women have been oblique”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.
Chapter Fourteen Disturbing the Peace: 1974–1976
“that loneliness shit”: Dubus to RY, June 18, 1974.
“It always made me pleased”: Loree Rackstraw to RY, February 11, 1975.
“PERSONAL RECORD”: found among RY’s papers.
“Whatever you do”: Int. Mitch Douglas.
“Yates was absolutely nonfunctional”: Int. Dr. George Hecht.
“What little I’ve accomplished”: The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ed. Andrew Turnbull (New York: Dell, 1963), 96.
“the desolate wastes”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 21.
“It may be an old one”: Lawrence to RY, September 14, 1974.
“I think about you often”: Martha Speer to RY, September 10, 1974.
“[M]y mind just wants things”: Martha Speer to RY, November 20, 1974.
“Jesus Christ,” he’d gasp: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“We should approach”: Ted Maass to Lawrence, January 24, 1975.
“You and I were the only”: Int. Marjorie Owens.
“call girls, dope addicts”: Quoted in Natalie Bowen to RY, February 22, 1965. As a matter of odd coincidence, Bowen dated Krim briefly in the mid-sixties.
“Oh, I just give everybody an A”: E-mail to author from Geoffrey Clark.
“Oh, bullshit!” he sneered: John Gilgun to RY, February 25, 1972.
“Where’s my mail?!”: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“envious but scornful”: Letter to author from Loree Rackstraw.
“My mother … Dutch Act”: Krim to RY, November 7, 1975.
“Richard Yates has regained”: Quoted in Lawrence to RY, June 7, 1975, UM-SL.
“the best novel [he’d] read”: George Garrett to RY, August 30, 1975.
“I think it’s okay”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, August 26, 1975.
“Things I regret”: RY to Joseph and Nancy Mohbat, September 15, 1975.
Reviews of Disturbing the Peace: Gene Lyons, New York Times Book Review, October 5, 1975; Anatole Broyard, New York Times, September 9, 1975; William Pritchard, Hudson Review, Spring 1976; Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek, September 15, 1975.
“that literary work … achievement”: Dwight MacDonald to RY, February 20, 1976.
“Oh, what the hell … $2,000”: RYAW, 30.
“in the home stretch”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, December 8, 1975.
“about that second-rate”: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“The tenants were on rent-strike”: Int. John P. Lowens.
“This is not a rush book!”: Delacorte office memorandum from Lucy Hebard to John Carter, found among RY’s papers.
“pay and pay and pay”: Fitzgerald to Hemingway, September 9, 1929, Letters of FSF, 333.
“As I fled down the street”: RYAW, 30.
“whiskery old bullshit artist”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 30.
“When do I see the head honcho?”: Int. William Pritchard.
“Went … sweaty business”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, April 26, 1976.
“tepid” … “climbing all over”: Ibid.
“Three guesses how”: Streitfeld, “The Great Unknown,” 28.
Details of RY’s fire are mostly derived from interviews with his daughters.
Russell soaked the manuscript: Int. Franklin Russell.
“Aren’t you celebrating”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“You look fabulous in green”: Int. Joan Norris.
“I’m looking for a girl”: Int. Galen Williams.
asked Ruth to pick up a broom: Int. Ann McGovern.
“ennobling brotherhood”: Arthur Roth to RY, September 21, 1976.
“My father spent years in Northport”: Ibid.
“The abandonment of Yates, tied”: E-mail to author from Franklin Russell.
“the most intensely dramatic”: Arthur Roth to RY, September 21, 1976.
“I was surprised and disappointed”: Grace Schulman to Arthur Roth, August 18, 1976, papers of G. Schulman.
Chapter Fifteen Out with the Old: 1976–1978
“ugly and humiliating”: Quoted in Arthur Roth to RY, September 21, 1976.
“You know several people”: Lawrence to RY, August 7, 1976, UM-SL.
“dashed it off in eleven months”: RYAW, 21.
“Ask me about The Easter Parade”: Quoted in Galen Williams to RY, July 6, 1976.
“we murmured together”: Cassill to RY, July 17, 1976.
“You write so damn well!”: Michael Arlen to RY, September 23, 1976.
Reviews of The Easter Parade: A. G. Mojtabai, New York Times Book Review, September 19, 1976; Ross Feld, New Republic, October 9, 1976; Richard Todd, Atlantic, October 1976; Anatole Broyard, New York Times, September 7, 1976.
“If I were you … Bermuda”: Int. Richard Levine.
“Henri Troyat, the biographer”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 212.
yogurt … “great discoveries”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“Dick’s glass”: Int. Jennifer Hetzel Genest.
only times … “rowdy”: Int. Michael Brodigan.
Yates referred to her as a personage: Int. DeWitt Henry.
“I’m not calling back just now”: Penelope Mortimer to RY, undated.
Yates had a fascination … answering machine: “Please call any time if you feel like it, either to talk to me or the machine (you’re good at that),” Mortimer to RY, January 20, 1977.
“it’s a lot like a lot of Updike”: Mortimer to RY, undated.
“Two scared people”: Ibid.
“exceptionally courteous” author: Int. Lynn Meyer.
“I was impressed … persevered”: Int. Madison Smartt Bell.
a party was given for Penelope Mortimer: Int. Sayre Sheldon.
“Please will you understand”: Mortimer to RY, c. June 1977.
“He couldn’t grasp”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.
“Imagine going to California”: Int. William Keough.
“I have gotten the impression”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.
“Does an apple tree give skirts”: Martha Speer to RY, April 20, 1977.
“I was so pleased”: Contemporary Authors, 1981, 535.
“Thanks for the invitation”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, November 7, 1977.
“As soon as I finish [a story]”: Monica Yates to RY, undated.
“She was the one … crush on”: Int. Susan Braudy.
“What’s that over your head”: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“I was told at a very early age”: E-mail to author from Gina Yates.
“I am planning to make”: Bonnie Lucas to RY, December 13, 1977.
“gentle passion”: Tommie Cotter to RY, June 5, 1978.
“salvation not mere pussy”: Dubus to RY, February 25, 1974.
“You’ve heard me say”: Quoted in Dubus to RY, August 22, 1973.
“For fifteen years”: RYAW, 45.
“There are many things … thank you”: Mary Robison to RY, undated.
he’d been “used”: Int. Robin Metz.
“I’ve loved you for a decade”: Robison to RY, July 20, 1986.
“soft-edged and idealized”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“It’s this combination”: Krim to RY, January 17, 1978.
“various stages of partial”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, April 16, 1978.
“A Good School is magnificent”: Lawrence to RY, February 19, 1978, UM-SL.
“the mellow Yates”: Krim to RY, September 24, 1978.
“so moving and so perfect”: Hannah Green to Seymour Lawrence, October 15, 1978.
“I’m moved by a blessed irony”: Cassill to Lawrence, undated.
“The best free advertising”: Lawrence to RY, June 11, 1978, UM-SL
.
Reviews of A Good School: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, December 8, 1978; Julian Moynahan, New York Times Book Review, November 12, 1978; “Briefly Noted,” The New Yorker, September 4, 1978; Jonathan Penner, New Republic, November 4, 1978; John Skow, Time, August 21, 1978; Nicholas Guild, Washington Post, September 10, 1978; Thomas R. Edward, New York Review of Books, November 23, 1978.
“If writing were baseball”: Jerome Klinkowitz, The New American Novel of Manners: The Fiction of Richard Yates, Dan Wakefield, and Thomas McGuane (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986).
“complex, generous voice”: Stewart O’Nan, “The Lost World of Richard Yates,” Boston Review, October/November 1999, 45.
“I want to reassure you”: Lawrence to RY, December 17, 1978, UM-SL.
“Since reading your book”: Richard E. T. Hunter to RY, February 19, 1979.
wrote … mollifying letter: E-mail to author from Geoffrey Clark.
“She knows that I also read”: Mary Nickerson to RY, undated.
accepted an invitation: Int. Mary Nickerson, Ann Wright Jones.
Chapter Sixteen Young Hearts Crying: 1979–1984
“Since then I’ve read all the novels”: Laura ——— to Margaret Blackstone, June 20, 1979.
“I’m the one … stalking you”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“[I worried] your friend Mary”: Laura ——— to RY, undated.
“Dick was bombed”: Int. Booghie Salassi.
“too academic”: Lawrence to RY, March 5, 1979, UM-SL.
“Nobody’s eyes light up”: RY to Booghie Salassi, December 29, 1979 (unmailed).
“I wanted to tell you”: Raymond Carver to RY, September 17, 1979.
“a few traces of roach shit”: RY to Joseph Mohbat, September 23, 1979.
“horrified” … “guide him about”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 36.
“I think this … last foray”: RY to Joseph Mohbat, September 23, 1979.
“Notes Toward an Understanding of Laura M—”: found among RY’s papers.
“She’s offered ample assurance”: RY to Booghie Salassi, December 29, 1979 (unmailed).
“Ahh, mind your own”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.
“You guys … grownup clothes?”: Int. James Crumley.
“I just love your work”: Int. John Casey.
“He was a wonderful source of solace”: RYAW, 53.
one nurse reported seeing: Int. Ivan Gold.
“The mere presence of sweet”: papers of Wendy Sears Grassi.
“That was … literary parties”: Lawrence to RY, November 25, 1980, UM-SL.
“a homosexual novel in disguise”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, October 26, 1978.
often given a “snitty” lecture: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“All I want … goddamned New Yorker!”: Int. William Keough.
“John fucking Cheever”: E-mail to author from Joseph Mohbat.
“I don’t know if you usually”: RY to McCall, September 7, 1979, ICM files.
“This is written with admirable”: Quoted in McCall to RY, September 25, 1979.
“magnificent … perceptive”: Lawrence to RY, December 30, 1980, UM-SL.
“false and hollow”: Roger Angell to Mitch Douglas, February 23, 1981.
“This didn’t come close”: Angell to Douglas, February 26, 1981.
“I know these rejections”: Douglas to RY, March 6, 1981.
find Angell’s letters … shaky voice: Int. Robin Metz.
“Dick drew me into labor”: RYAW, 37.
“Ivy League wino”: Int. George Garrett.
“What does your character”: Elizabeth Cox, “Meet Richard Yates,” Pif (www.pifmagazine.com), February 4, 2001.
“I don’t watch out for Dick”: Int. Loree Rackstraw.
Reviews of Liars in Love: James Atlas, Atlantic, November 1981; Robert Wilson, Washington Post, November 29, 1981; Robert Harris, Saturday Review of Literature, November 1981; Peter LaSalle, America, January 30, 1982; Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, October 15, 1981; Robert Towers, New York Times Book Review, November 1, 1981.
“Liars in Love … highly praised books”: Lawrence to RY, November 16, 1981, UM-SL.
He sat in the silent lecture hall: Int. Shaun O’Connell, Chet Frederick.
“There aren’t many books”: Int. Leslie Epstein.
“Oh, it’s just a mix”: Int. Jon Garelick.
“I want to write porn movies”: Int. Natalie Baturka.
“He was the finest reader”: Int. Melanie Rae Thon.
“Goddamn it, Rosen”: Int. Ken Rosen.
“Am I a monster?”: Int. Richard Levine.
“By God, I’m sending her to Harvard”: Int. Dan Wakefield.
“I think he’s wonderful”: Int. Kurt Vonnegut.
“On impulse [I] hoped”: Gloria Vanderbilt to RY, June 8, 1983.
“Scared, perhaps, a little”: Vanderbilt to RY, June 27, 1983.
“could have talked on and on”: Vanderbilt to RY, November 28, 1983.
“Ahh that’s ridiculous!”: Int. Wendy Sears Grassi.
“More than two decades … publication”: Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, April 25, 1983, C15.
“It’s nice that Barrett Prettyman”: RY to Lawrence, June 30, 1984, UM-SL.
“The people at Dutton”: Lawrence to RY, August 30, 1984, UM-SL.
“That’s great,” Yates replied: RYAW, 25.
“I think Young Hearts Crying”: Lawrence to RY, August 30, 1984, UM-SL.
“one of America’s least famous”: “The Right Thing,” Esquire, August 1984.
Reviews of Young Hearts Crying: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, October 15, 1984; Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, October 7, 1984; Brian Stonehill, Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1984; Jay Cocks, Time, October 15, 1984; Anatole Broyard, New York Times Book Review, October 28, 1984.
“At a time when a wider public”: Letter to The New York Times Book Review, January 6, 1985.
“Anatole assassination”: Cassill to RY, November 2, 1984.
“I hope you’re being corrupted”: Broyard to RY, April 12, 1962.
“Anatole died as he lived”: Lawrence to RY, October 16, 1990, UM-SL.
“One day around Christmas”: “A Clef,” papers of Robert Parker.
“a very strange telephone conversation”: Prettyman to RY, February 12, 1985.
“As you probably know”: RY to Prettyman, May 15, 1986.
Chapter Seventeen No Pain Whatsoever: 1985–1988
“His short-tempered, fragmented ravings”: DeWitt Henry, Arrivals, unpublished ms., papers of DeWitt Henry.
That night at the armory: DeWitt Henry kindly provided me with an audiotape of this event.
“depleting [Yates] mentally”: Mitch Douglas to Jackie Farber, August 21, 1985, ICM files.
“I will respect your wishes”: Douglas to Monica Yates, January 13, 1986, ICM files.
“Since breaking off with you”: RY to Douglas, March 13, 1986, ICM files.
“I didn’t want to meet him or anybody”: Int. Larry David.
“Look, I’m an alcoholic”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“busy in the best sense”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
“It’s a small novel”: RYAW, 36.
“may help take the edge”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
“You are one hell of a good writer”: Vonnegut to RY, June 14, 1986.
Reviews of Cold Spring Harbor: Elaine Kendall, Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1986; Howard Frank Mosher, Washington Post, September 28, 1986; Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, September 27, 1986; Lowry Pei, New York Times Book Review, October 5, 1986.
“See and show both of these people”: “Notes on The Getaway/Revolutionary Road,” BU-RY.
“stubborn and difficult”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
“the best novel I know … writing”: “R. V. Cassill’s Clem Anderson,” Ploughshares 14, nos. 2–3 (1988), 189.
“Spent most of the day
”: RY to Barbara Beury, May 17, 1961.
“Nine’s not so bad, is it?”: RYAW, 36.
“Do you have to go”: Raymond Abbott, “Richard Yates,” unpublished ms., papers of Raymond Abbott.
“He kept up a brilliant”: Martin Jukovsky, “Richard Yates—A Meeting,” www.channell.com/users/martyj/yates.html.
“charm[ing] the audience”: “The Friends of Andre Dubus,” Boston Globe, February 20, 1987.
“the world … throat”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
Chapter Eighteen A Cheer for Realized Men: 1988–1992
postmodern Brady Bunch: The two treatment ideas given in the text are to the best of Monica Yates Shapiro’s recollection.
“I remember Milch well”: Vonnegut to RY, July 13, 1988.
“That little shit!”: Int. Robin Metz.
“was the kind of place … law”: Streitfeld, “Book Report,” X15.
“Things to Do”: Streitfeld, “The Great Unknown,” 30.
“There’s just no whore”: Ibid., 28.
“Why has surrealism been chosen”: Memo from RY to Ned Leavitt, papers of E. Barrett Prettyman Jr.
“proposal for a screenplay”: found among RY’s papers.
“huge fans and would like to develop”: from William Morris Agency memo to Irene Webb, May 24, 1989.
asked the young Don Lee: Int. Don Lee.
“want[ed] to give her stability”: Int. James Ragan.
a “disaster”: Int. Noreen McGuire.
“Seymour Krim was a champion”: RY to Bruce Ricker, September 9, 1989, papers of Bruce Ricker.
“return visit”: Venant, “View staff pays a return visit,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1989.
“a labor of love”: Int. Susan Braudy.
“The book was first given”: Susan Braudy to RY, c. December 1989.
“I’m delighted … ‘Easter Parade’”: Woody Allen to Braudy, December 4, 1989.
“Woody Allen [had] highly”: Bruce Ricker to Dianne Wiest, January 11, 1990.
“damn near dead”: Int. Kathy Starbuck.
“trashed the Strode House”: E-mail to author from J. R. Jones.
those who begged to differ “were screwed”: Int. Dan Childress.
“That’s the understatement”: Quoted in Featherstone, “November 7, 1992,” 150.
“I wish I had a little girl”: Int. Tony Earley.
“What’s that got to do”: E-mail to author from J. R. Jones.
called one student “a pantywaist”: Int. Nikki Schmidt.