Selected Letters of William Styron (28 page)

At any rate, both Rose and I are looking forward to seeing you when you come back to Rome, and hope you’ll consider Ravello.

Best,

Bill

P.S. Matthiessen was here for a couple of days after you left, very smug in his W.C.T.U. kick, I must say, but he’ll probably outlive us all by two decades.

T
O
R
OBERT
L
OOMIS

March 16, 1953 Rome, Italy

Dear Bob,

I wrote to Sigrid for Mac Hyman’s address, and I’m writing you for it, too. Not that she’d fail to send it, but just in case that she didn’t know his address, while you might. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any news of old Mac; I hope he’s not torturing himself as usual and this time will come to grips with the unsettling problem of living in the big city, and writing.

Your last letter was very amusing, especially the strange sort of Old Will–Rare Ben Jonson business that’s going on at that place I seem never to have heard of: what’s it called, the White Horse?
^‡Q
It sounds perfectly horrible, especially with that fine team of Raoul Beaujolais and Harry Eimerl. To tell you truth, I think the whole lot of them, including and especially Leslie Flatt Belker, are a bunch of literary dead-beats. It’s a miracle to me that with Raoul Beaujolais running things
Discovery
ever got out at all and I thank E. McKee for insisting that he send me galley proofs of my story, for if I hadn’t gone over them carefully, the piece, with its swarms of mistakes and typos, would have read like a Swedish Army manual. As it is, the thing has at least five errors. Thanks for the reviews, incidentally; the book certainly doesn’t look as if it’ll compete with Marilyn Monroe in popularity. Speaking of this dreadful rash of magazines, you probably know from John that that horrible ass Don M. Wolfe is up to his old tricks again. I’ve been burning up the mails with protestations and cries, but apparently all is lost, and this
Cross Currents
, or whatever it’s called, especially in its introduction, with its picture of Sigrid and me in
blue jeans and boondockers, bravely hammering at our typewriters, is as fearsome as the yearbook of Elon College. I’d love to hear Handel on the subject; according to Elizabeth both he and John are frothing at the mouth.

Rome has been dark and rainy and I’ve been utterly paralyzed and unable to write a line. It’s no great spiritual crisis or anything like that; it’s just a damnably annoying inability to get passionate enough or excited enough about anything to want to sit down and do anything about it. So I’m perfectly in sympathy with you when you mention retyping chapter heads and character lists; I haven’t been able even to do that, but am praying that the advent of spring will give me strength. The maid here points her finger at me and giggles, every day calling me
uomo vecchio
, which means old man; I think that she thinks that with my sallow skin and melancholy attitude, I’m not long for this world. It’s probably simply too much spaghetti. But the social life is still pretty entertaining: last week I drove down to Ravello to shop for a villa for this summer. A wonderful place. I ran into Truman C., who is writing the script for a movie which is being shot there. Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, and Zsa Zsa Gabor all over the place, looking very wan and dispirited, as if they all wished they were a million miles from the wops and back in the pool at Palm Springs. Truman makes, he was quick to inform me, $500 a week, and is rooming with John Huston, though I must say that combo leads to spinechilling speculations. I found a villa, incidentally, with a private grove of lemon trees, a couple of servants whose obsequiousness would make Uncle Remus look like a Prussian, and with more rooms than I can count. I certainly wish it were possible for you and Gloria, John, Mandel, and the whole crew to come over and spend the summer.

I trust that everything is going O.K. at Rinehart and that you are staying reasonably sober. Mrs. Luce is undoubtedly going to cut off my pipeline to the embassy whiskey supply, but I can make do, if I have to, with the good Chianti. Best to all, and give me the latest news when you get a chance.

Yrs In the Bond. Bill

T
O
M
AXWELL
G
EISMAR

March 24, 1953 Rome, Italy

Dear Max:

I got word just recently from my friends in Paris that you had done a job on
Discovery
in
The Nation
.
^‡R
I hope you had a good word to say for my story, because the Geismar-
Nation
combination is certainly one in which a writer wants a bit of praise. I wonder if you would do me a favor and send me a clipping of that review, if there’s one easily available. That story took me a couple of months last summer in Paris to write, and when it was done I certainly felt that I had gotten something off my chest. I don’t think
Discovery
, from the copy I’ve seen, will win too many honors, but my story was much too long and too heavily laden with 4-letter words to be published elsewhere. All in all, though, I can’t complain because I suppose these pocketbook ventures have pretty wide readership.

Since finishing that story, unhappily, I’ve done practically nothing and this fact seems to be making neurotic inroads upon my personality. (I used to snicker when I read about the anguish writers had whenever they found themselves bone-dry, but I snicker no longer.) It’s hell the way these days go by with nothing accomplished and, seemingly, with nothing to anticipate in the future. I am as inspiration-less as a newt. And yet there’s something in me which absolutely refuses to allow myself to sit down and turn out some sort of automatic drivel. Nothing is more tedious in this world than to read anything that’s second-rate, and practically all second-rate stuff (and there’s so much of it) comes, it seems to me, from a writer writing something without having anything particular to say, feeling that perhaps if he isn’t constantly in print he won’t become rich and famous. Of course, a lot of second-rate stuff comes merely from second-rate writers. At any rate, here I am high and dry in Italy, sweating it out; maybe you have a few words of psychiatric advice, gleaned from your many researches among the diseases of writers.

Otherwise, all is fine, and Italy is blossoming out all over with spring. It’s really a great land, and my stay here has been enhanced by a lot of travel, all of it in a little Austin which I bought, which has squeaky brakes.
The Academy itself, of course, is frightful, being populated by myopic archaeologists, bone-pickers, and other spinsters, but it’s a convenient headquarters and they do a nice job on my laundry. This summer I’m renting a villa down in Ravello, which is a place of fantastic beauty, and then I suppose I’ll head back to the States next fall—in order to be able to keep in sociological touch with Eisenhower land. By that time I’ll probably have such a tan that I’ll be excluded under the McCarran act.

I really would like to see that
Nation
piece, Max, and any advice you might have about total paralysis would be greatly valued. Meanwhile, here’s hoping that all goes well with you, and Ann, to whom also I send warmest greetings.

Bill Styron

P.S. I hope you won’t let my remark about critics, in
The Paris Review
, disaffect you. I love the good ones.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

Spring, 1953
^‡S
Paris, France

I am the one on the right eating a sandwich and that is Barbara on the left with bubble-gum on her chin.

Bill

And we’re looking down on all the Parisians and laughing

Bobbie

And Paris in the spring is toujours gai, just like they say

Bobbie and Bill
^‡T

T
O
W
ILLIAM
C. S
TYRON
, S
R
.

April 8, 1953 Rome, Italy

Dear Pop,

I am enclosing two items which may be of interest to you: (a) a clipping from last week’s
Newsweek
, which you may or may not have seen (I’ve asked E. McKee, incidentally, to send you a copy of
The Paris Review
) and (b) a recent picture taken at a party.
^‡U
Reading from left to right the characters are Samuel Barber, the famous American composer who is visiting here; young Elliott Braxton, who came to Rome and is now gone, but with whom I had long talks about Newport News and vicinity; a young lady named Mrs. Marge Allen who with her husband lives here in Rome; yours truly, who somehow here looks sick and disheveled, but who is actually the picture of health and whose sour appearance in the photograph can only be blamed upon the light and bad Italian gin; another composer, Alexei Haieff, who just won the N.Y. Critics’ Award for the best musical composition of 1952; a young lady from Baltimore named Rose Burgunder, accent on the second syllable; and Tom Guinzburg, a good friend who is the managing editor of
The Paris Review
and whose father owns the Viking Press.
^‡V

I think it will probably interest you further that I am going to get myself married to the girl named Rose, second from right. I won’t go into a lot of sentimental double-talk about how I think she’s the most wonderful girl in the world—because I do—but suffice it to say that she’s the girl from whose presence I get the greatest sense of well-being and fulfillment that I’ve ever had, and for whom I have the greatest affection, and I’m happy to think that you will see why, when you meet her. I imagine we will get married sometime in May, here in Rome. Incidental to this, I wonder if it would be possible for you to prevail upon Aunt Edith to send
me, by registered air express, that fine engagement ring which, I gather, reposes in some safe-deposit box up in Uniontown. I remember your having often mentioned this to me, and you know of course that I would be greatly honored to be able to give it to Rose. I would appreciate it, and be greatly indebted to you, if you could arrange this as soon as possible.
^‡W

Needless to say, I’m delighted at the fact that you have a European trip in prospect, and am looking forward to being able to extend you and Elizabeth the hospitality of Ravello. Just let me know in advance your itinerary and all that, so that I’ll be able to stock up on gas coupons and drive you both around this miraculous land. It’s a trip, I’m sure, which you won’t regret.

No further news. I wrote to Mrs. Ferguson and received a nice note in reply from Isobel. My writing project at the moment seems to be confined to an article for a symposium in
The Nation
, on “What I Believe,” to appear later this spring.
^‡X
It’s a stern order, that sort of thing, to state one’s philosophy in “25 words or less.” Perhaps, though, it will give me the impetus for another long short story which has been slowly germinating in the back of my mind.

Best to all, and write soon.

Your son,

Bill

P.S. “LDID” has been accepted for translation in the German, which makes 7 languages in all.

T
O
J
OHN
P. M
ARQUAND
, J
R
.

April 17, 1953 Rome, Italy

Dear Jack:

I received your telegram, and I must say that Rose and I feel that there would be nothing more delightful than to play Byron with you for a while,
and we were especially intrigued by the line which said a special tour was being arranged, or would be arranged, “in our honor,” which conjured up visions of open, bullet-proof sedans, police escorts, and jonquils being thrown into our faces by a frantic populace. It would indeed be nice. But we have talked this thing over and have decided that in view of the fact that we will probably be getting married within the next few weeks, and that Rose’s brother and wife are expected at any moment, it would put a strain on our nervous resources to come, at least my nervous resources, already depleted by a soggy, constant drunkenness brought on in part by the prospect of marriage, by insomnia, by clots, and by a general spiritual enervation resulting from the realization that already, going on 28, I am a wash-up as a writer and fit only to do the “Recent & Readable” part of the book section in
Time
. In other words, I will be going through a crisis this spring and although I don’t doubt that Greece is an excellent place to weather such a storm, I hope you can understand my position. I hope also, by the way, that when you finish diddling your Greek lady-in-waiting you will come back to Rome in time to take part in the shoddy ceremony which is due to be enacted in the city hall. That will be some time toward the end of this month, no doubt, or the first week or so in May.

Meanwhile Guinzburg has gathered his clots together and has gone back to Paris after a long stay here—which he alternated between the Academy and the Condons. He was the picture of health as he took off for Nice; I still haven’t gotten my tire.

None of the charter subscribers have received copies of
The Paris Review
and are kicking like hell. I don’t know who’s responsible for this fuck-up. Did you see the big spread on the rag two weeks ago in
Newsweek
?

The Matthiessens have given birth to a big manchild named Luke. We talked to them on the phone and they said it was as easy as pie. They’ve decided to come to Ravello in June. Why don’t you, too?

You’ve been selling quite handsomely, according to the
Times
bestseller list—this you no doubt know. I never got above No. 7, but of course I had that prick Salinger as competition. Pretty soon you’ll have more money than Bing Crosby. Lots of people reading it in Rome, according to the Lion Bookshop.

Irwin Shaw is living here, ensconced in the most hideous apartment in Parioli. He promises me a wedding shindig, so you’d better be here for the blowout.

In the meantime most of the creeps have crept away from the academy for their spring bone-hunt, leaving it clean except for a couple of seedy art historians and myself, who is struggling manfully with his destiny, and who, along with Rose, is looking forward to seeing you again sometime soon.