Selected Letters of William Styron (57 page)

My most profound thanks again for your hospitality. Keep in touch and never give up the faith.

Ever yours,         

Bill
(not
Mr.) Styron

T
O
D
ONALD
H
ARINGTON

June 7, 1966 Roxbury, CT

Dear Don:

It is of course dandy that old John D. gave you all that dough, but the interesting mysteries behind the donation might give you another kind of charge.
^†PP

What happened is this. Along about March something, the Rockefeller boys wrote me asking if I would nominate some worthy writer for an unspecified amount of loot. Naturally I thought of you and wrote a hymn of praise, also recommending at the same time (get this) Malcolm Cowley, whom I had just seen and who asked me if I would recommend him for the thing inasmuch as he was putting together a volume of his own poetry. (Cowley didn’t get a grant.) They also asked for another reference and I put down the name of Loomis, and he sent a very nice letter about you.

Well sir, I forgot about the whole thing (or put it out of my mind, as you have to do with these Tom Swifts and their Enormous Trust Funds) until two weekends ago. For some reason I wasn’t violently optimistic about your chances mainly because I knew there was a lot of politicking and logrolling and inside operating in a thing like this, and also because I knew that you would simply have, with an incredible gravy-train endowment like this, an enormous amount of competition—every little scribbler who had wrote out a third-rate short story from Maine to Oregon trying to get his mitts on some of that dough. On the other hand, I knew who the judges were, all friends or at least acquaintances of mine: Robert “Cal” Lowell, Robert Penn “Red” Warren, Saul “Saul” Bellow, and Stanley
“Stan” Kunitz.
^†QQ
I figured that they were all stout-hearted and wise men and might know a good thing when they saw it.

However, as I say, I put it out of my mind. Then two weekends ago there came to visit at my country home here in the green Litchfield hills my good friend “Cal” Lowell and his wife the Boss-Lady intellectual of New York, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Hardwick. Well, “Cal” and I were chewing the fat one night about various things—Russian poetry, John Donne, mortality, pussy, literature as a Way of Life and so on, and we got onto Southern fiction. “Cal” and I agreed that the Jewboys had done a good job recently fiction-wise, but “Cal” also averred that by no means should Southern writing be sold short yet (as so many of the Jewboy critics, among them Alfred “Al” Kazin and Norman “Slim” Podhoretz, seem anxious to do) and used as an example to back up his claim a novel he had just read for the Rockefeller Committee called
THE CHERRY PIT
by a young Arkansan named, as he recollected, Harington. It was a terrific novel, he had thought, and not only that the other members of the committee—“Red” and “Saul” and “Stan”—had thought it terrific too. Did I know the book? As a matter of fact, the committee had all thought so highly of the novel that it had been among their first five choices—high praise considering the fact that there were 20 grants in all and that the committee had winnowed these 20 finalists from a field which had been close to 200 writers and poets. So that is how I learned that the choo-choo would be coming up to Putney.

This little episode is simply intended to illustrate a great 18
^th
-century truth, namely, that excellence will in the end find its reward and that though fate may at the outset deal harshly with a good book like
PIT
it will not be put down forever but like a glittering fish will pop to surface, puffing and flopping and a little out of breath, a little behind the big slick commercial blowfish and carp, but dazzling those rare wise watchful Izaak Waltons waiting patiently on the bank.
^†RR
What I have described to you should (even if it cannot totally erase from your spirit the memory of the “non-reception” of your “non-book,” as you put it with justifiable bitterness) make you aware of how really impressive (in the direct, transitive meaning of the word—to impress) your talent was in that book, and how
it shone through to people it was worth shining through to, and how you should go on to
THE FINE ARKANSAS GENTLEMAN
with confidence and faith in your gifts. And of course that $7,200 U.S. don’t hurt much either.

So that is the saga of D. Harington and the Rockefellers. It should make you rest easier in the cool of the evening.

Yours in Nelson and Winthrop’s sweet name,

Irving Howe                        

T
O
R
OBERT
P
ENN
W
ARREN

June 30, 1966 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear Folks

This is a memento of our party at Willie Morris’ last spring, in case you haven’t seen it.
^†SS
It was published in
The Texas Observer
, Austin. We are all happily ensconced at the beach and I am trying to get the book finished this summer in my snappy little studio behind the big house, a kind of slave quarters I should say. We miss seeing you but at the same time envy your sweet situation on the Île. Do you see any of the nudists? Please inform, as I am tired of reading
Playboy
for edification. All sorts of people are here this summer: Goodwin has a house next door, and of course Lillian is here, “Dean” Brustein, Phil Roth, Jules Feiffer and even, God help us, John Updike, who is arriving soon.
^†TT
I think I’ll move to Nantucket or
Port-Cros where the literary gumbo isn’t quite so thick. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Bennett and Phyllis
^†UU
are due to arrive next month in Frank Sinatra’s jet—with Frank. You need not mention our acquaintance if you so choose.

Love, B.

T
O
J
AMES
J
ONES

September 3, 1966 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear James: I thought you might like to know that
ETERNITY
, along with
DARKNESS
, was included in a book called
100 Great American Novels
, a kind of book of synopses subtitled “The masterpieces of American fiction in one portable volume,” published by New American Library.
^†VV
It also has Melville, Hawthorne, Papa and Faulkner. This means that for 95¢ the students can now avoid reading our work. I am sending you some plastic bottle stoppers by separate mail. Unfortunately, I could only find four. Goodwin did steal those cigars, and is on my shitlist forever.
WIDOW-MAKER
just arrived and I’m looking forward to a good read after Labor Day when the creeps depart.

Love to Moss and Kids.

—B

P.S. I’ll be back in Rox. Sept. 15
^th

T
O
D
ONALD
H
ARINGTON

September 12, 1966 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear Don:

I wanted to drop you a note before I return to Rox., which will be this coming Thursday. I hope we’ll be able to get together this fall. I also hope your Pike-Arrington chronicle proceeds apace. I have had very good work this summer, despite social distractions; in fact it has been the best
summer
for writing I can remember, having written exactly 100 pages from the point the book broke off when you were reading it. For me, prodigal proflicity. I have only now to develop the relationship between Nat and Margaret Whitehead and so the insurrection itself (which I’m going to make fairly brief, in order to tone down all the bloodshed) and I’ll be practically done. So if God is willing (and He told me He would be willing if I was good) I will have the whole thing done late this fall or early winter. It has near about killed me, and I’m beginning to feel as black as Stokely Carmichael.

Thanks for the leads on the various historical volumes.
^†WW
I have read all but James’s
THE OLD DOMINION
, which I think, however, I will eschew until I finish writing this book. By now I’ve got the whole thing so firmly fixed in my head that I’m a little leery of any further outside influence.

Good news about your selling a piece to Esquire.
^†XX
I’ll be looking forward to it. It is still a very good podium upon which to establish your further presence to the great reading public—far better, say, than
Playboy
or one of those jerkoff magazines. The orgasmic reception of
GILES GOAT-BOY
is an example of our present-day fashion for unreadability (I was happy however to see a reviewer in
The New Republic
call it a “750
page snooze”) and more of your stuff in print will help redress the balance.
^†YY

Take care of yourself and keep Vermont green.

Yrs in the name of Unohoo,

B.S.            

Speaking of Unohoo, I finally saw the St. Matthew movie and thought it remarkably effective.
^†ZZ

T
O
R
OBERT
P
ENN
W
ARREN

September 19, 1966 Roxbury, CT

Monsieur Robert Penn Warren

I was about ready to call Albert to see if he had your new address when, behold, your letter came with all of its pleasant description of sun and sea and Gabriel & Rosanna nautical activity. My envy of you at the moment is so intense that my back teeth ache—as once I heard Jim Jones describe his emotions when jarred by the sight of a particularly Bikini-unclad blonde by the pool at Biarritz. The south of France is still all magic for me in my recollections, and you make it all too real to be quite bearable. We all had a great summer at the Vineyard—much too social as usual, but fine nonetheless. As you no doubt know, it was otherwise a typically insane summer in the American commonwealth what with several particularly untidy mass murders and Lyndon amok at the mouth, the more intolerable hypocrisy about Vietnam, but somehow we struggled through cheerfully and are now back here in the pleasant late summer awaiting the birth of Leo or Irving or whatever the hell our next born will be called. Your god-daughter is opting for the name Myron, which in full context will be euphonious at least.

Don’t worry about our being left out as dedicatees to that fine poem in
Encounter
. I have been shafted so many times by the English that I can
only assume that it is simply another example of their assiness. No matter. The poem you sent, “Internal Injuries,” is just wonderful, I think. All that close, almost unbearably intense observation, that terrible urban stink and clutter, combined with your usual wrenching historical grab at the whole tragedy. I think especially of touches like zinnias down South being called nigger-flowers, and the “nigger, nigger burning bright” verses, the plane overhead, the subtle irony of being run over by a spick. And the whole scene is wonderfully summed up in the 7
^th
section—“We love you, we truly do”—; it’s a
truly
fine piece of sustained emotion. I have read the poem several times now and it grows on each re-reading which I believe is the acid test.

I am planning to make my escape from here once Rose can abandon offspring #4 temporarily and once the book is finally done, which should simultaneously be sometime early next year. So haul out the Pernod and stand by. I had a very, very good summer in terms of writing—got over 100 pages done cold and to my satisfaction, and am now headed in toward that final bloody climax that I’ve had to circle around for so long during the rest of the book. But it is coming along well still, and steadily, and I foresee no real blocks or difficulties. I am beginning, after this immersion in negritude, to feel almost as black as Stokely Carmichael.
Partisan Review
is running a short excerpt in their next issue and I’ll send it to you; the piece is so much a little vignette (unlike anything else in the book) that I think you might like reading it even though I suspect you (like me) are not too hot on reading excerpts.
^‡aa

Give Eleanor and the kids a big embrace from all of us here, including your god-daughter who in shiny boot and snap-brimmed patent leather cap, combined with shorter skirt, is suddenly the disgrace of Litchfield County. Stay in touch and toast the sea for us now and then, and the mountains, and France.

À bientôt,

Bill      

T
O
C. V
ANN
W
OODWARD

September 25, 1966 Roxbury, CT

Dear Vann:

I thought your dissertation on Messrs. Genovese and Aptheker was just great, and I thank you for sending it to me.
^‡bb
It was wide-ranging and witty and plain ordinary engrossing, and I wish I had been there when you gave the talk, in order to see the reaction among the brethren. One really startlingly original insight—to me, at least—was the proliferation of black leaders, like Carmichael, coming from places like Trinidad and the historical ground and responsibility for this, and why their point of view really doesn’t work here in the U.S. I’ve been brooding over something like this for a long time, especially after reading Red Warren’s piece on Carmichael,
^‡cc
but totally missed the historical reason, which you’ve now made clear. I think this is an enormously important point, and I do hope you elaborate on it, in a loud voice, soon.

Let us talk more before long. I think Rose has a plan going to get you all up here early in October. Maybe she’s been in touch already, but if not she will. Yesterday reached p. 500 in the true and authentic revelations of the life of Hon. Nathaniel Turner, Bart., so am feeling rather heady. I had a real good summer’s work and am fairly confident I can polish off the rest (another 50–75 pages or so) by early winter.

See you soon,

Bill      

T
O
J
AMES
J
ONES

October 2, 1966 Roxbury, CT

Dear James:

An unspeakable case of the influenza shits, from which I still haven’t fully recovered, allowed me ample time off from
Nat Turner
and enough of a jaundiced point of view to read
WIDOW-MAKER
with both the leisure and detachment I wanted and needed. I finished it yesterday, quite wrung out and excited, and decided to write you now and without delay, while it was all still fresh in my mind. I presume of course that my opinion is wished-for, if not exactly asked for, else you wouldn’t have strained Delacorte’s budget to the extent of the $2.76 it took to send it to me by the post. Don Fine must be sweating over
that
item.
^‡dd