Selected Letters of William Styron (74 page)

May 3, 1977 Roxbury, CT

Dear Willie:

Jim and Gloria told Rose and me the other night about your mother, and I wanted to say (for both of us) how sorry I am. It is, I know, a terrible wrench to suffer and I am thinking of you—all the more, I’m afraid, because my own poor old daddy seems to be failing badly, losing practically all of his memory, and all I can do is help him go to the toilet to do the peepee and stand there cursing God as he dribbles. Who thought up this idea of the end of life anyway? My daddy never fails to remember Willie Morris though, which is something.

I’ll be seeing you at the Matthiessen-Guinzburg-Styron 50
^th
party soon (I’m 66 but it doesn’t matter).

Thinking of you,

Bill

T
O
H
ERBERT
M
ITGANG
^ddd

June 17, 1977 Roxbury, CT

Dear Mr. Mitgang:

I am sure that you were never at a party with James Jones or myself, and I am also willing to believe that you don’t have a shovel. I’m sorry that you didn’t see that these references were metaphorical.

Contrary to the reaction you received about your obituary report, most of the readers I canvassed did not really think your piece was either fair or
respectful. This had less to do with the so-called facts, which in general you set down with accuracy, but with a certain tone and lack of balance which invaded the piece and left most of the people I know who read it with a bad taste in the mouth. Just one example would suffice; it has to do with Jones’s life-style which you so gratuitously emphasized throughout at the expense of his work. I am speaking of the brief passage where you deal with Hemingway and Jones.
^eee
There because of your emphasis and tone the reader is left with the distinct impression that it was pure and idealistic for Hemingway to
abstain
from writing movie scripts and somehow rather venal for Jones
to do so
(although of course many fine writers including Faulkner and Fitzgerald pursued this way of making money). There are many other places in which this kind of animus, whether unconscious or not, comes leaking out, and despite your disclaimer to the contrary many readers noticed it.

Certainly no one expected any writer for the
Times
to compose a eulogy, nor do I think that the piece was really composed in a spirit of ill-will. Maybe you just had a bad day. But my own feeling, reflected in a consensus of practically everyone I have talked to, is that you did Jones a disservice.

W.S.

T
O
E
LIZABETH
H
ARDWICK

September 30, 1977 Roxbury, CT

Dear Lizzie:

I was unable to get to the memorial for Cal at the American Palace Theatre—I heard it was fine—but I did come to Boston for that ceremony.
^fff
I was quite awed by it even though I think that Cal would understand why for me—a Virginia boy brought up “low church”—all that incense smelled of popery. But it was, as they said, majestic.

I can’t tell you, though, how I will cherish that trip we made to Russia together. Cal’s face in repose at that table was so moving as the Fiedenenkos and Cousinses yammered away. And that walk through Red Square at night and the lousy salami sandwiches, and Cal’s sweet, sardonic resignation. Just to have been with him in a place like that during his last month or so—and with you—is something I will always treasure. I wish I had had the chance to tell him that after that drunken party at Vog’s dacha in Penedelkino, Yevtushenko and I got a couple of bottles of champagne and went out in the moonlight and sat until dawn at Pasternak’s grave. I think Cal would have relished that, but the next morning I was so hungover that I barely made it on the Aeroflot Flying Fortress to London.

Oh well, Lizzie, what can you say? A wonderful man. Wonderful memories. I hope to see you before long.

Much love,

Bill      

T
O
S
TUART
W
RIGHT
^ggg

September 30, 1977 Roxbury, CT

Dear Col. Wright:

Thanks for your letter with its agreeable surprises. I am sending the copy of
In the Clap Shack
back to you, signed, by separate mail. I appreciate
the handsome photos, also the clipping from Bell Wiley’s book.
^hhh
It is most illuminating, especially since it is true that the general impression one gets of that war is of life without erotic joys. Wiley sets the record straight.

As for publishing something of mine, I am taking the liberty of sending your letter on to a professor at Virginia Tech who knows all my work and who has done a bibliography of my so-called “oeuvre.”
ⁱⁱⁱ
He is very bright and engaging and may have some good ideas for you. I imagine you will be hearing from him soon. I hope something develops.

Thanks again.

With kindest regards,

Wm Styron    

Maj-Gen CSA

T
O
S
TUART
W
RIGHT

October 12, 1977 Roxbury, CT

Dear Col. Wright:

I hope that by now you’ve been in touch (or he with you) with Jim West at Va. Tech. It seems that he knows of a thing (unpublished) which I had forgotten—a spoken tribute, rather brief in length, to Robert Penn Warren which I gave several winters ago in New York City.
^jjj
I think it might be just right for your series. The MS is with my papers at Duke, and Jim will ferret it out if you decide that you want it.

Appreciate the Forsyth Co. book.
^kkk
I used to know a lot of Winston-Salem boys when I was at Davidson, but I’ve lost touch with them. I also spent a very frustrated night at the Zinzendorf Hotel. I’d come up to visit a W-S. girl who, in the fashion of the time, rejected me, and I had to pass the night at the hotel listening through those thin walls to the most impassioned erotic activity one can imagine. That is my forlorn memory of Winston-Salem.

I will be here Xmas and will look forward to your generous gift.

Best regards,

Wm Styron C.S.A.

T
O
S
TUART
W
RIGHT

November 12, 1977 Roxbury, CT

Dear Col:

I think perhaps the piece should be called “Admiral Robert Penn Warren and the Snows of Winter”—(“a tribute by William Styron”—if you so wish). I don’t think there is any further permission needed from Duke. I already signed a release sent to me by Jim West. I think there should be a note to the effect that it was a speech given by me at the Lotos Club, N.Y.C. (4/10/75) and there should be somewhere a copyright © by William Styron, with the year.

Herewith also a snapshot. It was taken at Luxor, Egypt, in March 1967 (by my wife Rose). There is no other photo I can lay my hands on but I think it’s right nice anyway. The personae (l. to r.) are Red Warren, behind him (partly hidden) his wife Eleanor Clark, his daughter Rosanna, his son Gabriel (foreground), my daughter Susanna, me, my daughter Polly.

I hope all this is satisfactory. I am eagerly looking forward to the final product. Incidentally, I’m sure I can get Red to co-autograph the pamphlet
with me if you would like it—certainly any number up to 250 or so. Let me know.

Yours in the rebel cause.

W.S.    

Gen. C.S.A., etc.

P.S. The piece is hardly literature, I see upon re-reading, but certainly nice enough as a speech before some assembled drunks.

William Clark Styron, Sr., died in Southbury, Connecticut, on August 10, 1978
.

T
O
W
ILLIE
M
ORRIS

August 11, 1978 Roxbury, CT

Dear Willie:

I thought you would want to know that my dear old father died Thursday night, in peace and no pain. In a little over a month he would have been 89, so with three good wives and rich life behind him there is sadness but no grief. He was really fond of you and I think he remembered that plane ride from N.C. with as much wonderment as you and I did.

See you soon,

Bill        

T
O
D
ANNY
R
OBB
^lll

September 21, 1978 Roxbury, CT

Dear Danny:

I had a great teacher at Duke University, who sent me on my way as a writer. Go to a good school and have the luck to find a teacher who cares: that is my advice.

Sincerely

William Styron

P.S. Also, it doesn’t hurt to do an enormous amount of
reading
.

T
O
R
OXBURY
Z
ONING
B
OARD

September 23, 1978 Roxbury, CT

Gentlemen:

I would like to build a wall in front of my property on Rucum Road in Roxbury.
^mmm
The wall would extend the full length of my property, approximately 300 feet, and would be a maximum eight feet in height. The bottom four feet or thereabouts would be of stone, which in turn would be surmounted by approximately four feet of wooden palings. It would be attractively built. The reason for this wall is to effectively shut out the noise and sight of traffic from my house and studio, both of which are built very close to the road. During most of my residence in Roxbury for the past twenty-four years Rucum Road has been a quiet and peaceful street. In the last two or three years, however, the road has become one of the busiest in town, largely due to the establishment of the housing development at the top of Rucum Hill.

I am a writer who works at home and whose livelihood depends literally on reasonable peace and quiet. The new influx of traffic with its nearly
endless stream of cars, trucks and construction equipment causes at times distraction and noise which I find nearly intolerable. A wall with its necessary height of eight feet would, I am almost certain, provide an effective barrier against this intrusion and allow my family and me the quiet and privacy we need. The proposed wall would satisfy all reasonable aesthetic requirement and would prove to be no traffic hazard whatever. I respectfully request that the Zoning Board accede to this proposition.

Very truly yours,

William Styron

T
O
P
ETER
M
ATTHIESSEN

December 24, 1978 Roxbury, CT

Dear Peter: I’m sorry not to have been able to get together with you last week (or week before) but have been in a kind of delirium finishing
Sophie
which has removed all of me except my tonsils—and even they are going. Am off to Venezuela until Jan. 15 and trust we will all get together soon after that. I’m finishing
Snow Leopard
and it is plainly a masterpiece.
ⁿⁿⁿ
After my recuperation a few drinks will be in order. Keep in mind the idle delights of Salt Cay.

Love to Maria, Porter
^ooo

T
O
B
ERTHA
K
RANTZ
^ppp

January 4, 1979
^qqq
Spice Island Inn, Grenada

Dear Bert:

Hope this gets to you in time for the printer. Otherwise I’ll fix it in galleys.

Last line of book should now read (p. 889):

“This was not judgment day—only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.”
^rrr

Off to the Orinoco tomorrow.
^sss
See you mid-month or thereabouts.

Fond regards,

Bill S.

T
O
S
USANNA
S
TYRON

March 21, 1979 Roxbury, CT

Dear #1 Susanna:

I so much enjoyed getting your letter about
Sophie
. I had hoped that you would like it—you were a sort of “pilot” for the book—and the fact that it got to you, as they say, means a whole lot to me. As you must know by now I am a slow creator but I put an enormous amount of thought and energy into the work. Taking so long in a sense increases the risk—suppose it’s a Bomb after all those years? suicide time!—and although I hate to admit it I am rather anxious to know whether the book works on all the various levels I’ve sought. Your reaction (and there are not as yet many people who have read it) makes me think that I might have succeeded in the way I wanted to, and your words made me happy. One of the many things I cherish in you, my #1 daughter, is your common-sense sensibility—this is really a higher form of critical acumen than most professional critics
possess—and when you tell me that the book affected you in the way it did, I know that you are being honest with me as well as being a first-rate critic (what Va. Woolf cherished as “the common reader”), and that pleases me immensely. I’m even glad that you had to look up a few words in the dictionary—shows I’m still keeping you on your toes.

I had an interesting thing happen the other night in regard to the book—or I should say two interesting things. This was when your mother and I were down at the Warrens in Fairfield, right after coming back from Salt Cay (about which more in a minute). There was an English editor there named Tom Rosenthal, who had very much wanted
Sophie
for his own firm, Secker and Warburg, and with whom I had been in correspondence. By this time he knew he could not have the book, having been out-bid by Cape, but was very good-natured about the loss. Of course he had read the galleys and the fact that, after having lost in the bidding, he could still rave to Red Warren about the book seemed to me to endorse the worth of the book more than anything. What he told Red in my presence was simply this (a) it was one of the finest novels he had ever read and (b) it was far and away the best work yet written about the Holocaust, better than any Jew (and he himself was Jewish) had remotely approached. This of course made me feel very good, even though he added as an aside that certain Jews in the U.S. were likely to hate the book. Which brings me to this—