There is a guy I grew up with in Virginia, my age, who is a surgeon in the Army at, I believe, Orleans. His name is Leon Edwards, he’s very well read and bright, most simpatico, and I think you would get along very well with him. He’s only been in France six or eight months, I think he’s a major now, and he’s only in the Army because they’ve footed the bill for his surgical training ever since he left Harvard. Anyway, I’ve taken the liberty of telling him to get in touch with you. Ordinarily I wouldn’t sic strangers on you but this guy is, I think, someone rather special—his wife’s fine too—and I hope you get together. I expect he’ll be in France for another year at least.
Love to all your gang, and let me hear from you if you come over to this continent by way of New York or vicinity.
Love,
B.
Ps: Schwartz’s Calliope record has come through, and they did a fine job, very handsome too.*uu You should be getting yours soon.
TO JOHN DODDS
May 8, 1963 Roxbury, CT
Dear John:
I know full well that in California the accent is on youth, and the most callow stripling is granted powers which in a saner, sager age were reserved only for the mature; nonetheless, I think that for these Hollywood lawyers to expect the signatures of my children is a bit much—and probably even illegal. Susanna, just turned eight, could manage some sort of ragged scrawl, I guess, but I have grave doubts about Polly, who if you give her a six by eight sheet of cardboard can get a semblance of her first name down in orange crayon, but the orthography of “Styron” is still beyond her. As for old Tom, now three, he can make a splendid runny mess with a melting Popsicle, but I’m afraid that the manipulation of anything so complicated as a fountain pen exceeds his present capabilities. Kindly convey to Henry Jaffe Enterprises, Inc., this information, stressing the fact that though they are Connecticut children, and consequently retarded by California standards, their father is all the more determined not to submit them to such a ludicrous ordeal. And that is that.
I can make hardly more sense of the second letter about sending notices and payments to a specified address. Will you try to figure this out, and let me know what kind of letter they want me to sign.
All the best,
Bill
TO JAMES JONES
June 6, 1963 Roxbury, CT
Dear James: Perhaps the following communication won’t interest you in the slightest, but I thought I’d tell you nonetheless.
This afternoon I got a phone call from Gay Talese (the N.Y. Times fellow who rents me my N.Y. apartment, and who writes a lot for Esquire); his tone was of high dudgeon and outrage.*vv He told me that he had gotten an advance look at the forthcoming July issue of Esquire, which has our interview, also another nobly-conceived dissection of his fellow writers by Mailer.*ww Apparently this time Mailer has stooped to an all-time low, even for one who has been flopping around in the gutter as long as Norman. The Thin Red Line according to Talese comes off relatively clean and unspattered: you are no longer “the world’s worst writer of prose,” or something like that, and the book in the end is highly praised, if most grudgingly. The bulk of Mailer’s hatred is reserved for me. An all-out, slavering attack on Set This House on Fire: but Talese said the thing that bugged and horrified him the most was the personal venom, which has to do with both you and me. I am paraphrasing Talese’s paraphrase of the article, but the gist is this: during the time Norman lived up here in Connecticut, and we saw something of each other, I spent a great deal of time ridiculing Some Came Running, running the book down in general and poking fun at it. Well, maybe I did. I was quite nervous about you in those days—not knowing you, for one thing—and besides being exceedingly envious of someone who had muscled through with such prodigious energy that second-novel barrier. My wife Rose, the wife, who is so honest about such matters, is not at all sure: she distinctly recalls Mailer’s hatred and envy of you (she has always been one of the greatest fans of Running) and remembers a two-hour argument with Mailer in the kitchen … in which she defended the book vainly against Mailer’s snarls and sneers. All this, if I’m not mistaken, took place during the time before I got to know you at all well, and after Mailer had written you whatever swinish thing it was he wrote you, and was still in a dreadful stew about you.
I had not intended to make this letter even this long. I want to make a couple of points though. My wife Rose, the student of human nature (and by God she really is), has always felt that Mailer’s pent-up homosexuality has always been directed at you, you being the cock-object, or maybe he likes to take it up the ass, who knows; anyway, I believe this is true and I also believe now that the real reason for him having written me that dreadful letter five years ago was that you and I were becoming friends, and he was insanely jealous. This is awful stuff to talk about, but we are dealing with a lunatic. At any rate I’m convinced that this jealousy, combined with a bitter envy of both of our talents, has been at the root of his hatred.
Talese said that, to him at least, the article looked like a foolish attempt to break up a friendship, and that the whole thing looked especially grotesque in the light of our mutual interview in the same issue. Also, according to him, what seemed to bug Mailer was the reference in The Thin Red Line to “Styron’s Acres,” hence his loathsome little faggoty reference to the time many years ago when we sat around “Styron’s Acres” ridiculing Running.
All I wanted this letter to do is to take some of the curse off reading such foulness in print, cold, for the first time, as you will when you get a copy of the magazine. My feelings about Mailer are too low to have him demean me into a position of having to protest my enormous admiration for your talent and great affection for yourself. So, love to you and Moss and my young mistress Kaylie.
B.
PS: I am having to prove, through endless documentation, to some God damned Swiss insurance company that the God damned Mercedes really lives no longer in France, but gradually we are straightening the matter out.
TO LEW ALLEN
June 11, 1963 Roxbury, CT
Dear Lewie: I write you this after midnight, in the grisly first hour of my 38th year, though I’m not asking you to sympathize with me. Actually, all I wanted to say was that I thought Flies a simply splendid movie. I saw it when Al showed it to the Rumsey kids and was deeply affected by it. I’ll wait until I see you next to blurt out all the details of my enthusiasm, but I do think you really did yourself and Golding and everyone who cares for good films proud.*xx I’ll never forget that touching Piggy, and that kids’ choir singing the Kyrie is an absolute triumph. Other things, too, which I’ll talk to you about, but meanwhile it was swell and I also hope you make beaucoup $$$$$$.
—Wm.
TO RUST HILLS
June 11, 1963 Roxbury, CT
Dear Rust,
About a week ago, quite a few days subsequent to my talk with Byron Dobell*yy about doing a popular music column for Esquire, I had a conversation with a girl at the University of Connecticut, who lives near here and who had taken copious notes on Mailer’s speech up there a month or more ago. The first part of this speech is in Esquire this month; according to this student, the piece in Esquire—which I read—is a literal transcription of what Mailer read at Storrs, and therefore it is logical to assume that the second part will be more or less a literal copy, too: at least I am going on this assumption. Having spoken at the University myself a few weeks after Mailer, I was hardly left ignorant of the substance of this speech/article. I know he attacks Set This House on Fire with great gusto and style, all of which rather pleased and tickled me, inasmuch as at least part of the book is an assault on everything Mailer represents. (The French, I might add, have been the first to point this out, for although they don’t know Mailer from Adam they know all too well and from deadly experience the effects of his perennial philosophy, and that is why I know—from far right to far left—they have dug the book.) So I needed no more proof than that Mailer had leveled an onslaught against the book
to reinforce my feeling that I had hit him where he lived. Therefore, although it is never really pleasant to have your work attacked, from whatever source, I could not really feel unhappy that Mailer was lambasting the book, and could even welcome his sneers.
Until I had talked to this student, however, I had not realized that the article carries a lot of disgusting and poisonous baggage about myself, and “Styron’s Acres,” and Jim Jones—all written, so far as I can gather from the girl’s notes, in Mailer’s most engaging Westbrook Pegler cum Joe McCarthy style, and serving no other effect than to try and humiliate and disgrace me personally and to undermine my friendship with Jones. I have not read the article as yet, so perhaps I am off base; the girl, however, who is a combination of fresh young naivete and stony shrewdness, said: “He sounded like a vicious little faggot.”*zz
You may wonder where this prolix introduction is leading. At first I must admit that my indignation at Esquire was quite intense, but it quickly wore off. My respect for free speech—and all the pious banalities attending thereupon—is so great that my initial reaction, which was and in a way still is one of revulsion, was tempered by a kind of grudging admiration that Esquire should allow a convicted wife-stabber and, to my mind, moral imbecile so captiously and naggingly to lucubrate on the conduct of others. I intend no reply to Mailer, personal or in print, for unless I am mistaken or have been misled, Mailer is now spinning out the kind of rope whereby men hang themselves. Nor do I have any final complaint against Esquire, which I don’t think I need say has my considerable respect. But the fact is that I simply cannot write for a magazine, and retain my self-esteem, when I am exposed to this kind of personal abuse and viciousness. Therefore, I wish you would let it be known, with all good-will possible, that I will not be available as a contributor so long as Mailer is writing for Esquire. I’m sorry that this happened just at the moment when the project that Byron Dobell and I were working out seemed so interesting and exciting; but I suspect it won’t be forever.
I’ve written you this, instead of someone else at Esquire, only because I feel that I know you well enough that I could lay these matters on the line. I think you will understand because I think, if you were in my position, you would do the same thing.
All the best to you and Penny,
Yours,
Bill
P.S. Just by way of respect to Esquire, perhaps you’d pass the following copy of the letter I got today to Arnold or other interested parties at the Magazine.—B
PPS: The “divided verdict” allows one jury to determine guilt; but another jury is allowed to examine the prisoner’s background, mentality, etc. in order to fix sentences. Much freer of prejudice.
TO ROBERT PENN WARREN
July 19, 1963 Roxbury, CT
Dear Red: Just a line to let you know that I have made very good use of the Visit of Lafayette to the seminary material which you got them to send me from Lexington.*AA It fits in superbly: I’ve used two entire poems, changing Lafayette to Governor Floyd of Va. visiting a similar seminary in Nat Turner country, and I’m indeed very happy that you sent it my way.
Have been thinking about FLOOD.*BB It has a real resonance; the fact that it still lingers in my mind so powerfully convinces me how really splendidly effective the work is. I hope the final re-writing is coming along. We’re off to the Vineyard Aug. 1. Hope to see you before long. Love to Eleanor and the kids.—B
TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN
August 7, 1963 Box 948, Edgartown, MA
Dear Professor:
I have stopped smoking (well into my second week) and only now have attained enough self-command to be able to pick up a pen and write a letter.*CC Actually, it is not as horrible as I thought it might be and don’t give it a second thought except once in a while trying to work and when socializing at night. It surely is time: eating is once again a delight with the taste buds restored.
Shocking about Mac.*DD I received your telegram and send belated thanks. For a while I thought I might try to make the funeral but was so near to completing a part of the new book that it seemed a prodigious wrench and I figured Mac would have understood. At any rate, I suppose like everyone I was stunned. It is just not the right age or time to go.
We are in Edgartown this year rather than Vineyard Haven, but with a similar house + view of the water. While in my non-smoking trauma I have taken a vacation from work but expect to get back to business soon. Two hundred pages done on Nat Turner, and I think they are good. We’ll be here until Sept 15th. If you can see your way clear to spending some time with us we’d be delighted as always.
Ever yours,
B.S.
TO JAMES JONES
August 22, 1963 Edgartown, MA
Dear James:
We’re up here again on the Vineyard, and will be here until September 15th. I wish you and Moss could have seen it last year, as by American standards it is quite a wonderful place to spend a summer. Broad beaches, lousy food (at least dining out) but the best fishing on the East Coast—yesterday I caught 15 bluefish in less than three hours. There is a rather pleasant bunch up here, most of whom you know, I think: Lillian Hellman, the Marquands, Mike Nichols and his new wife, who is quite a dish.*EE Well, maybe you’ll make it up here next summer. Not Dalmatia, but not half bad.
You may have seen the enclosed Esquire thing from the most recent issue but I’m sending it anyway. What I’m now really finally convinced about is that, aside from the faggot thing about you in terms of me that he has, he is quite simply obsessed about the fact that I made him a minor figure in SET THIS HOUSE, and a rather nasty figure at that.*FF Otherwise I cannot figure his obsessive desire to run down the book as he does—in this desperate, clawing way which goes a lot further than simply aggressive criticism. I think if you read the enclosed closely you’ll see what I mean. Well anyway, as you say, he is a teapot tempest, and none of this really matters save for the irritation it causes one like an irrepressible flea. I’ll certainly be looking forward to your Comments from a Penitent Novelist, where I’m sure you have slapped the flea down.
I’ll also be looking forward to the childhood and youth pieces which you’re doing. I’ve thought of doing the same thing*GG myself after I’m done with the present book. It makes a good change of pace, I think, and certainly a lot of the best writers have felt the same—Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Balzac, and God knows who else. As for me at the moment, I’ve finished a big hunk of the book—somewhere between a half and a third—and I’ve got that nice feeling one gets when a real hunk is finished. I’ve also stopped smoking, it’s been a month yesterday; it was getting at my goddam throat in the most horrible way—an inflammation which probably won’t be fully cleared up for several months, and the doctor told me to stop or ELSE. It seems that they’ve discovered conclusively that, among other horrors, smoking eventually destroys the cilia which are the little hairs in the nasopharyngal area that inhibit the entry of bacteria and microorganisms. When these cilia are gone your throat is simply a wreck—as mine is now—and almost everyone suffering from this condition runs a low-grade infection. Fortunately the cilia seem to regenerate themselves after a matter of months, and one gets back into shape but in the meantime: Défense de Fumer … I might say, however, to my really astonishing surprise the cessation of smoking is far less an ordeal than I had thought. After a month (only the first couple of days are at all tough) one has only a vague desire for a butt after breakfast and a somewhat stronger desire late at night when everybody else is smoking. But I think it is far easier to stop than any addicted smoker really thinks it is—not completely easy, but easy nonetheless, and I’m just telling you this in case something might force you into stopping sometime.
There’s a fair-to-excellent chance that we might make the Paris scene late in the fall. I’m homesick in a sentimental way for the place, as I’ve always been. We’ll let you know when and if we come. Meanwhile, take care, and great love to all your gang from us.
B.
TO BERTON ROUECH?
?*HH
August 30, 1963 Edgartown, MA
Dear Berton:
I very much enjoyed reading your article on déjà vu in The New Yorker. Just by coincidence and at about the same time I was reading C.G. Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections which was published this year and which on p. 254 has a remarkable description of the phenomenon which Jung experienced traveling in Kenya in 1925. He sees a Negro on a cliff, with a spear, and this reminds him of some prior experience, etc. It all obviously ties in with Jung’s theories of “The Collective Unconscious” and I thought you might be interested in case you haven’t seen it already.
Saluti,
B.S.
TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN
December 18, 1963 Roxbury, CT
Dear Professore:
Just a Yuletide greeting. The season, however, is still somehow touched by melancholy, and one of the abiding wonders to me is the powerful hold Kennedy had on one’s imagination.
Here is an instructive anecdote. Exactly two weeks to the day before Kennedy was murdered, Rose and I were in New York and were invited to a party which the President was to attend.*II Rose and I were late-comers, which is to say that we were invited in rather an impromptu fashion, at the last moment, and were not dressed in fancy evening clothes like the others, but had on our casual country duds. We arrived late, a little bit before midnight, and as we descended the stairs of this very elegant Fifth Avenue duplex, the first person I saw, out of the entire crowd of 75 or more, was the President, talking to some girl and laughing heartily at what I guess was a joke. Perhaps it was the informal way I was dressed, but anyway it was my intention at that moment to sidle past Kennedy and take up as inconspicuous a position as possible—after all, though I had met him a couple of times and though I had spent an afternoon with him and Jackie a long summer ago, I couldn’t claim even what might be called a casual acquaintance. But as I tried to maneuver myself and Rose out of the way, I caught his eye, or he caught my eye, or something; at any rate, he bore down upon us like long lost friends. “How did they get you here?” he said. (I’m quoting exactly.) “They had a hard enough time getting me here!” I didn’t know quite what he meant by this, until upon quick reflection I realized that the crowd assembled wasn’t quite his style—a mass of rather idiotic show people, not the amusing ones, but the boring ones, and in the distance I could see Porfirio Rubirosa, with whom Kennedy could have had nothing in common at all.