Selected Letters of William Styron (64 page)

How go things in Durms? Rose joins in sending fond regards to you and Roma.

As ever,

B.S.

T
O
W
ILLIE
M
ORRIS

December, 1968
^§uu
Roxbury, CT

Naturally, Willie, it has occurred to me that you also “as a leader, are in a position to know and recommend exceptional individuals.” Should this
politician come your way, I would indeed appreciate your writing me in for, say, oh, Governor of the Virgin Islands, a federal post.

Thanks,

Bill

T
O
Y
ALE
W. R
ICHMOND
^§vv

December 13, 1968 Roxbury, CT

Dear Mr. Richmond:

Thank you for sending me the Aptheker review of
The Confessions of Nat Turner
from “Literaturnaya Gazetta.” I have shown the piece to a friend of mine who knows Russian, and although she did not break down the essay in detail she told me enough about it to make it clear that this was a translation of an attack on the book published here some months ago. If you have followed the controversy surrounding the book—which you doubtless have—you may realize that it is an almost totally illogical and propagandistic attack, and although I am sorry that the article had to be published so prominently in the Soviet Union I am really terribly weary of the whole matter and put my trust in the belief that the work will ultimately survive such slanders. Too bad that Russian readers have not been able to read (at least in translation) the piece in the September 12, 1968 issue of
The New York Review of Books
by Prof. Eugene Genovese—a Marxist who is also a much better historian than Aptheker—which very cleanly and reasonably demolishes all the incredible charges which have been laid against
Nat Turner
. Anyway, thank you again for sending the piece along. And needless to say I would be grateful to you if you would be so kind as to send me anything of a similar nature on the subject which might come to your attention.

Sincerely,

William Styron

Styron began work on his never-finished novel
, The Way of the Warrior,
in 1969
.

T
O
J
AMES AND
G
LORIA
J
ONES

April 1
6
, 1969 Roxbury, CT

Dear James and Moss:

I had a particularly fine time with you all in Paris and I thank you bottomlessly for—once again—putting up with horny Uncle Bill. I had a minor crise at Orly with Annie
^§ww
when I ran into that Swedish girl (Jessie’s friend) who suggested that when I come back to Paris “we do something together,” whatever that means. Like John Marquand suggested, I’d better cut it off, and hang around the post office like those old geezers in baseball caps. I’ve tried saltpeter but it just makes my balls itch.

I’m enclosing this excellent piece from the new
Atlantic
.
^§xx
It’s what some of us have been thinking and saying for a long time and it’s fascinating that such an article could come from a Marine Corps general.

I’ve seen quite a bit of Henry Hyde
^§yy
who sends his best. Do try to come over here this summer and be
my
guest. I’ll furnish all the hash.

Love from everybody,

Bill      

T
O
L
ILLIAN
H
ELLMAN

June 5, 1969 Roxbury, CT

Dear Lil,

I finished reading
An Unfinished Woman
early yesterday.
^§zz
I read it slowly: for some reason it was a book one could not simply breeze through, despite the clarity and ease (and wit) of the style, and I want to say how moved and how impressed I was by all the life, love, joy, pain, and honest truth you have compressed into those eloquent pages. Usually an account like this, anecdotal in nature, ends up being just that: a series of anecdotes which may or may not be memorable. But through some artful process—the art, I should hasten to say, of a fine story-teller—you have made of the remembrance an illuminating and coherent whole, full of wonderful resonances. It is all beautifully proportioned and balanced and the tone is just right—ironic without being cynical and with a detachment that is never once undermined by your honest concern for all the people—decent, indecent and in between—whose paths crossed yours during those crazy years.

Your sense of place is as obviously vivid and exact as is your ability to recapture a person. I was as much at home with your fine portraits of Liveright and Hemingway and various minor Spaniards and Russians (none of whom of course I knew), and with Hammett and Dottie Parker (whom I knew a little) and with Raya and Helena and Elena (whom I knew more) as I was instantly at home with your lovely evocative scenes of Pleasantville and Southern California (though lovely is not the word, you did it up as nightmarishly as Pep West
^§AA
) and Spain during that war … where it is a wonder you didn’t lay your bones.
^§BB
Your sketch of Madjanek, for instance,
is superb precisely for the very reason that you saw fit to leave so much of its horror out. But there is also so much of the book that is truly slyly hilarious and wisely and deliciously
knowledgeable
about all the poor fucked-up people who pass our way, without ever once being
knowing
, which is a different, lesser thing.

My congratulations and love for such a good-spirited, compassionate, exhilarating book.

Bill

T
O
J
AMES AND
G
LORIA
J
ONES

June 8, 1969 Roxbury, CT

Dear James + Moss:

… Everything O.K. here. Henry Hyde just made me $500,000 in RCA stock by way of Random House so I thank you for putting us together. Now all I have to figure out is how to get out of hock to Henry.

I hate to spring another stranger on you—but this guy is very nice. Name is Richard Yates, wrote a fine first novel called
Revolutionary Road
several years ago and is an all-round swell cat.
^§CC
He and his wife will probably turn up in Paris in July and if you’re there I hope you’ll give them a drink if they call you. Though I imagine you’ll be in the provinces. He has been teaching in the writing program at the Univ. of Iowa.

Love to all
    
Bill

Life is a big put-on. I am beginning to detest almost everything—
especially
(continued in next letter)
^§DD

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

September 28, 1969 Roxbury, CT

Dear Professor:

I finally got around to reading the essays in the
South Atlantic Quarterly
and while, like you, I wonder why they bothered to publish them for the edification of all 35 of the quarterly’s readers, I found them innocuous enough.
^§EE
Actually, the most favorable one was by the Duke history professor; it was a poor essay in every respect—rudimentary and badly written—but for the most part was on my side. Too bad he didn’t make a little better sense. The one by Nash Burger (lately of
The N.Y. Times Book Review
) was rather pathetic, putting me down in the most ignorant and clumsy way, saying that I betrayed the nobleness of the Old South and comparing me most unfavorably with Stark Young and
So Red the Rose
.
^§FF
The nastiest of the three was by the English teacher at, I believe, Hunter College. But I have belatedly discovered that there are certain people on the fringes of literature and the arts who react like a maddened alligator to anyone who is at all successful, and this fellow betrayed himself from the beginning by a terrible lurking envy. Such characters almost always give themselves away in a review by frantically summoning up critics who have also attacked the work at hand—in this case he quoted Richard Gilman and Stanley Kauffmann—and the final effect was one of ineptitude and irrational thinking, and I’m sure he did himself and the
SAQ
more harm than he did me. Besides, I am by now probably the most adept writer in America at dodging brickbats, and so the essays caused me very little bother.

I was of course very flattered at your proposal that a collection—with you at the helm—be made of my letters. But after the soberest thought I’ve come to believe that there is something embarrassing and even inappropriate about letters being published while their author is still alive. Certainly I have heard of very few precedents—if any—of volumes of letters of writers being done while the writer is still kicking and, in my
case, if I can permit myself a hope, still possessed of enough stamina to go along for a few decades more.

The brief note you wrote me later made me think that you too had had second thoughts about this matter. Certainly the idea is an interesting one, and there may indeed be quite a few readers who have cared for my work who would be intrigued by reading some of these early epistles. But there is something really awfully private about any kind of letter. The death of a person certainly renders that privacy no longer so inviolate (even so I notice that Mencken, for instance, has forbidden certain of his letters to be published until 1991), and when the worms have gotten after me I really don’t care too much whether anything I wrote in a letter is revealed. Meanwhile, I’d just prefer them to yellow nicely at Duke and to ultimately be a pasture for some graduate student—probably black, female, and filled with vengeance.

Teddy Kennedy appeared on my lawn up at the Vineyard last Saturday—you could have knocked me over with a splinter from the Chappaquiddick bridge. He had sailed over with wife Joan from Hyannis and simply popped in for a 2-hour visit then disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. Surprisingly, he looked in fantastic good shape, and I could not avoid feeling that he would be Our Man for sure in 1972—except for that incident.

My step-mother died three weeks ago, and my father is coming up here for a long visit. Says he is rooted in Newport News and doesn’t want to live with us permanently. He took her death with amazing strong spirit.

Hope all goes well with you, and that glaucoma you mentioned is well under control. Rose joins in sending our best to Roma and yourself.

As ever,

B.S.

T
O
H
ARRY
L
EVIN
^§GG

December 9, 1969 Roxbury, CT

Dear Harry:

Thank you for sending me your fascinating study on what I suppose has become the non-novel novel. Your reference to
Nat Turner
was greatly appreciated, since after all the brickbats I have received from the black brethren it is good to see your straightforward appreciation of the book as a novel rather than propaganda or anti-Negro or whatever. As always, your insights were subtle, astute and eloquent. My thanks again and I hope we can have an evening together before too long.

Sincerely,

Bill

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

February 5, 1970 Roxbury, CT

Dear Professor:

I did indeed receive the Mac Hyman letters and thought it was a truly fine and fascinating book—as Max Steele said, it does read like a novel. I also read Guy’s excellent review in the
Times
and thought he acquitted himself very gracefully. I’ve lent my copy to Arthur Miller, who’s very taken by Mac and his letters.

Best—Bill

T
O
L
OUIS
D. R
UBIN
, J
R
.

May 11, 1970 Roxbury, CT

Dear Louis:

I have only one or two reservations about George Core’s essay on
Nat Turner
, which I think is the best single piece that has been written on the book.
^§HH
You might be interested in knowing that
Nat
has received the Howells Medal (given once every 5 years) of the American Academy of Arts & Letters.
^§II
Faulkner & Eudora Welty won it, so the South still struggles along.

Best,

Bill

Styron received the Howells Medal for Fiction on May 26, 1970, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

December 3, 1970 Roxbury, CT

Dear Professor:

Those were really masterful photographs you did of Rose and me. It is true that I lack objectivity about this matter but the comments we have received from detached observers have been unanimously glowing. Thank
you so much for sending them up here. If I haven’t aged too much by then I intend to put the one of me on my next book jacket.

We still talk of the lovely time we had with you and Roma in Quebec. Everything from the weather to the people was superlative. It’s odd how, as soon as we departed, all hell seemed to break loose in that tranquil appearing country. I hope I can visit you all again up there sometime. My memories of Magog are very warm.

In a weak moment I told the Archive boys that I would appear at the next W. Blackburn festival in the spring. I’ve been asked also to say a few sage words at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., so I’ve timed the two together—Randolph Macon on April 14
^th
, Dooks on the 15
^th
. I trust you will allow me to buy you and Roma a sumptuous dinner at the Little Acorn. I will be looking forward to this jaunt, not the least because it is still winter here at that time of year and it will be nice to smell the Carolina spring.

My father, as you may have heard, is planning at the age of 81 to take unto himself a wife; the ceremony is slated for Goldsboro in the middle of January.
^§JJ
She—who is 76—calls him “Dynamite” and he refers to her as “this girl I’ve been seeing.” If there’s any way I can pop over from Goldsboro I’ll do so and let you know beforehand.