Selected Letters of William Styron (45 page)

As for the book itself, the advance stuff about it is really very fine. I’m on the cover of the
Saturday Review
and the accompanying review by Granville Hicks is as lovely as you could wish.
^qq
The A.P. review is excellent, also Edmund Fuller in, I think, the
Chicago Tribune
. I don’t know yet about any of the really major reviews (
Times
,
Trib
, etc.) but I’ve got my fingers crossed; meanwhile, I’ve been inundated by letters from people who have read the book in advance, and all of them are mad for the thing—Lael Wertenbaker, for instance, wrote me from Hawaii, saying it was the finest she’d ever read, etc. I think it’s going to be big.

I’m as sorry as you that our European contact has to be business mainly, but when we get back to Roxbury we shall all relax. The kids had a wonderful time in Ravello–Sambuco, as did we, and they send their love. Rose does too, and I, and let me hear from you soon.

Bill

T
O
M
AXWELL
G
EISMAR

June 20, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear Max:

Well, I received the lovely review of
STHOF
and it certainly did a lot to take the curse off the terrific lambasting I’ve received of late. I couldn’t have asked for a more keen and sensible appraisal of what I was trying to do in the book. Perhaps someday I will be an honored, instead of a dishonored, author; I’ll probably write my memoirs, and you may be sure that there will be a chapter on Max Geismar, who was about the only one to keep the faith. Your paragraph about my being a “Russian” writer was especially
good, I thought, but the whole thing was good, unassailable, fine, and I am grateful to you for it.

The reviews were really appalling, weren’t they?
Time
and
The New Yorker
I could ignore (though even they revealed themselves in the amount of space they took to flail me) but all I could think about that silly prick Mizener was that he was angry because I had not written “The Golden Bowl.”
^rr
The others were just impossible; Hutchens obtuse, Prescott an hysterical old woman (though it will probably sell books) and 99% of the major reviews stupid, uncomprehending or just plain silly. Ironically, all the major Chicago and West Coast reviews were fantastic raves, and I suppose I should masochistically say that these people are soft, or bought, or something, but so many of them, like yours, were simply so intelligent, so well thought-out, hit upon so many things in the book that the others missed, that I cannot help but think that the major literary injustice and imbalance in America is the complete reliance put upon the four or five major N.Y. media. Well, as my friend George Mandel wrote—fuck them all.

It turns out that Mailer is a false prophet. He said that I wrote a
phony
big book and I would be “made” in the mass media the most important writer of my generation. In reality, I wrote just what he shuddered to think I would do—a true book—and now I shall have to become the most important writer by the hard route—by living down all the cheap but powerful
Time–New Yorker
shit, and by having
S.T.H.O.F
. achieve its reputation in the same way “Darkness” did—slowly but steadily and with the immeasurable help of M. Geismar. I’m certain to be even more written off by the academics as a total loss (most of them won’t even read the book) but so what? All of the really important writers have been attacked in this way. As someone wrote me, people like Mizener simply do not believe that men die of hideous diseases or kill one another, so in the long reaction their point of view is of no importance whatever. The book is going to be with
us for a long, long time—this I know as much as I have known anything in my life.

So many thanks again, Max, and write me a letter soon.

As ever,

Bill

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

June 23, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear Pop:

Well, a prophet has never had much honor in his own land.

About three weeks ago, just before
STHOF
was published, I received a letter from a man named Prof. Maurice Edgar Coindreau. A Frenchman, he has taught French at Princeton for over 30 years, and for a very long time has been chief literary advisor to Gallimard, which is the largest and most influential French publishing house. He is also probably the best-known and most respected translator of American books, having done all of Faulkner and Hemingway and Steinbeck, and having been enormously important in introducing these writers to the French public. In other words, he is a man of great intelligence and stature. In his letter to me he said this: “Your new novel is one of the most powerful books I have read in years. It is not only beautifully put together, with an uncanny sense of unbearable suspense, but the psychological analysis is as keen as it is fascinating. This book will stand as a masterpiece of modern American fiction.” Coindreau is going to translate the book into French—though I should add that at the time he wrote the letter he had no professional connection with the book, and his sentiments may be taken as totally objective.

I only mention this because I wanted you to know that, though
STHOF
has been lambasted in a way few novels ever have, I am utterly certain that Coindreau’s opinion (and the opinion of others like him) will eventually win out. As a very fine poet I know, Louis Simpson, wrote me: “Of course, this adverse reaction is a sign that you are marked out to be one of the few important writers of the age. There has not been a major novelist of this century who has not been at some point attacked in a similar way. The
violence of the attack is in itself an indication of the vitality and truth in the book.” I could go on and on in describing similar reactions from people whose opinion I respect, but I think that probably you can see how, after a lot of initial gloom which I frankly confess bugged me for more than a few days, I am now completely confident in the stature of the book: it will endure beyond a doubt. And my gloom has become cheer.

Either way, the attack on the book has certainly sent people running to the bookstores. I have been getting elated messages from Bennett Cerf, who tells me that at last report sales are already over 20,000 copies, with re-orders running to as many as 467 a day. It will be a curious irony to see this book, so roundly damned by the middlebrow press, bought by the thousands by people who were told to stay away. So it turns out that the old saw is right: the truth really hurts. And when a Prescott belabors that truth his shrill cries of shock and pain may cause more people to seek out the truth than if he had kept his silly mouth shut. It may take some time for the truth in this book to sink in, but I know that it will eventually make its profound mark as well as I know anything in my life.

Meanwhile, Rome is sunny, hot, and great fun for all of us, especially our little tadpoles. July 1 we are taking a house up in Ansedonia, near Orbetello, and in August we are going to the Dolomites, then to Havre and home by way of Switzerland and Paris. We shall certainly look forward to seeing you in Roxbury in September.

Incidentally, I don’t know if you knew that
STHOF
was a selection of the Book Find Club and that Max Geismar wrote a fine review in their magazine. Have you seen it?

Buona fortuna

Bill

T
O
D
ONALD
H
ARINGTON
^ss

June 30, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear Mr. Harington,

It was good to get your excellent, complex, and most understanding letter.
^tt
It came at a time when I had had a surfeit of abusive or stupid or malicious reviews, or all three, and it indeed shored up my flagging spirits to know that at least one reader understood what I was trying to do in the book. No book of any stature, to my knowledge, was ever lambasted so thoroughly and hysterically, and I am at a loss to explain the fury of the assault, unless it was a matter of a sort of
By Love Possessed
^uu
in reverse, or unless, as you point out, I cut so deep into the consciousness of Prescott, Malcolm, Mizener and their small ilk that screams of outrage were the only possible result. I’m inclined to think it is the latter, and I’m glad you believe so too. Receiving a letter like yours, I am made to believe that there are other intelligent and life-sized human beings around who will eventually appreciate the book; without having received it, I might have been more doubtful, and I am very grateful to you for taking the time and the trouble to express your feelings at such rich length. Fortunately, the eventual value and influence of a book does not rest upon the opinions of
mean-spirited little people getting, as you so aptly put it, their “sweet detumescent revenge.” Its value rests in the understanding of people like yourself, and I appreciate the warmth and good-will which impelled you to write me.

Sincerely,

William Styron.

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

July 22, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear John:

I read the news of your father’s death in the Rome paper, and also several people sent me clippings from the U.S.; and I did want you to know how sorry I am. He was a grand old guy and I know you will miss him. But how fine to go, when you go, in your sleep—which is what, after all, our little lives are surrounded with. No distress, no horrors, no degrading pain—just sleep. He deserved it, and all that one now can say is that we are indeed sad to see him go. Rose told me to tell you how sorry she is, too, and also my father, who was a great fan of his. No matter how one rationalizes it, it is a horrible wrench, and all the fatuities—time cures all wounds, etc.—are of little help. But anyway, I did want you to know that we were thinking of you all this time.

We are leaving Rome, mercifully before the Olympics, on August 7
^th
and going to Bolzano, Switzerland, Paris and London before coming back to the land of the big PX in mid-September. I will be rather happy to get back and try to resume my somewhat splintered writing career after the most grisly reviews since “The Passing of the Third Floor Back” and “Tall Grows the Eel-grass” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
^vv
I did get one good review, however, in Amarillo, Texas, and I cherish it like an amulet, and someday, if you ask, I may show it to you. How is your book going? I hope you are
persevering, since some one among us
must
eventually get across to the bastards.

Rose sends all her best to you and Sue, as do I. And say hello to Lillian; with love to all of you—B.S.

P.S. It looks as if your friend and mine, the Irishman from Palm Beach, is going to make it.
^ww

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

Summer, 1960 Klosters, Switzerland

Dear one + John

Got your letter here in the celebrated Klosters, where we are living it up with Irwin and his group, including “Pete” Viertel and “Deb” Kerr, “Art” Buchwald, “God” Liberawn, “Vera” Zorina and a host of lesser lights like ourselves. We will be back in the middle of Sept. and are anxious to see the waning summer on the Vineyard and catch some last sailfishing. We leave tomorrow for Paris via Basel and then will be in England for 10 days, including a trip to Dublin with Philip Roth + frau. I am already exhausted at the prospect. In case you communicate, our address is Hotel Washington, Curzon St., London W.1. Love + see you soon.

Bill

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

August 24, 1960 Ireland

Dear JP:

Received your letter in London and indeed enjoyed it and am looking forward to seeing you all (as is Rose) when we return. Your note to
The New Yorker
kid was a gasser, to use a Humes-ism, and I greatly appreciate
it. Dublin is a crashing horror of a city, with the shade of Joyce inundated by a spinechilling amalgam of S.S. Kresge, hamburgers, Pat Boone, atrocious food, ugly girls, malnourished men, and the Son of Tarzan at the corner flickers. We are here with Phil Roth and proceed to Wales tomorrow, which I suspect will be just as gruesome. See you soon and love to Suay.

B.S.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

October 8, 1960 Roxbury, CT

Dear Doctor:

Your note of October 4 was really very confusing to me, since I never received the cable you mentioned. Knowing Italy as I do, not receiving the cable is not surprising; most of the telegrams and such I ever sent from Rome either never arrived or arrived late. However, I still can’t understand your letter, and I don’t know what you mean when you say that in time I will forgive you, you hope. Not that there is anything for which I should forgive you, but there is nothing that I would not forgive you—you know that. I have the feeling that you were upset that I have not written you—and for that, of course, I hope you can forgive me. I can only offer in simple explanation the fact (and I mean this) that the last letter you sent me, from Florence (which I received in Paris), I stupidly and infamously lost, so that I did not know your address; you mentioned something about coming back in October, which seemed a short time, and I knew I would contact you then. If this is the reason for your (to me) enigmatic and forever lost cable, I do hope you will forgive me and understand. If there is another reason, I trust that somehow you will make it all clear to me when you return—or before.

Most cryptic in your letter was your remark that you should have added something about
the critics be damned
. Naturally, I can’t understand what context this comment was offered in, but universally speaking I couldn’t agree with you more. Writers shouldn’t read critics but invariably do, and now I have been clobbered all around the country with such passion and venom that my mind is numb. In critical print, I am a slob, worse
than a failure; and yesterday there came to me a horrible little magazine called
Critique
, from the Univ. of Minn., with three essays on me and three on Saul Bellow (he gets straight A’s) which rakes me over the coals in a way that would make your toes curl up. I am a cheap Hollywood sellout, vicious, sexy, titillating, altogether on the level of Mickey Spillane
^xx
and Grace Metalious.
^yy
And so now I know who the enemy is: it is the Academy, the same Academy which took the life of Fenton,
^zz
whom I never knew, but who wrote about the only good thing about
STHOF
that I’ve received. I don’t know, doctor, sometimes it hardly seems worthwhile, but long ago it was you who taught me something very real about the meaning of fortitude, so I shall damn the critics with you and keep on writing. One amusing footnote: critics be damned, I am still admired in the innerest of sanctums. I have been invited to give something called the Dinsmore Trust Lecture in Philosophical Theology at the Yale University Divinity School—subject, Good and Evil in Contemporary Literature. There is rugged irony in this.