Love, Bill
or get a hotel room if you’re complet
TO PUBLISHER, THE BEACON PRESS
October 22, 1968 Roxbury, CT
Dear Sir:
I returned from a long trip abroad to discover that Beacon Press—in an advertisement for William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond in both The New Republic and The New York Review of Books—has used the following line: “Black critics reply to Styron’s bestseller with rage and contempt for its racist bias, factual distortion, and the increase in mistrust it has engendered.”
While it may be legitimate to express sentiments like these in a critical essay or essays, it is quite another matter when such a statement is employed without corroboration in a public advertisement, worded so as to leave the distinct impression that the accusation is true. At the very least it violates all ethical standards of book advertising; in actuality it is a scandalous falsehood.
This is to notify you that if in the future any such advertisement is repeated in any manner whatever in public print I shall not hesitate to prosecute Beacon Press for libel to the fullest extent of which I am capable.
Yours truly,
William Styron
Unless I can receive some immediate assurance that this advertisement with its present wording will not be repeated in the future, I will have to take steps to make sure that I am protected from such unfair misrepresentation.
TO ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR.
November 11, 1968 Roxbury, CT
Dear Arthur: Thanks for the clip from the Pilot. I had read Thomas Merton’s piece—a disgraceful display of white liberal guilt and piety.§rr I have sent that clipping and your fine nationalism essay to the archives at Duke University, which is accumulating a mass of material about the “controversy” that in volume almost approaches the to-do over The Origin of Species.
As ever, Bill
TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN
November 14, 1968 Roxbury, CT
Dear Professor:
Under separate cover I’m sending you a tape recording of an interview I did last summer (by telephone from the Vineyard) with Mike Wallace for his CBS network radio show—the other participant being my perpetual bête noire, the nigra actor Ossie Davis.§ss I never heard the original show or the tape but it was broadcast and thought it might be an interesting if aural contribution to the bibliography over the Nat Turner controversy, which still continues, and which, as someone has said, has approached in volume and passion the uproar over The Origin of Species.
A bug laid me low after coming back from Russia but not enough to prevent me from going, last week, to New Orleans, where with Vann Woodward, R. P. Warren + Ralph Ellison, I was on a panel before 1,500 members of the Southern Historical Assoc.§tt I was also heckled, as usual, by Black Power representatives—imagine!—in New Orleans—but acquitted myself with restrained rage. Am now holed in here for a while to do the piece on Russia for The N.Y. Review.
How go things in Durms? Rose joins in sending fond regards to you and Roma.
As ever,
B.S.
TO WILLIE MORRIS
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
TO YALE W. RICHMOND§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.
TO JAMES AND GLORIA JONES
April 16, 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
TO LILLIAN HELLMAN
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
TO JAMES AND GLORIA JONES
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
TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN
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.
TO HARRY LEVIN§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
TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN
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
TO LOUIS D. RUBIN, JR.
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.
TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN
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 14th, Dooks on the 15th. 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.
Meanwhile, blessed thanks again for the fine pictures and best love to Roma.
As ever,
Bill
TO JIM AND GLORIA JONES
February 2, 1971 Roxbury, CT
Dear Jim and Moss:
This joke stationery was given to me at Christmas by Le Roi Jones.§KK We are announcing our engagement on Valentine’s Day.
It seems that everyone has received an advance copy of Jim’s book but me.
§LL Why am I out in the cold. I read the fine excerpts in Esquire and Harper’s and thought it truly fine stuff, Jim—some of your best writing with a technically controlled narrative drive. It’s so good I guess I’ll have to finish it even if I have to buy a copy.…
My work has been going O.K. but unspeakably slow as usual. I wish I could unplug the dam. But I do rather like what I’ve done so far and that’s a consolation.
I really miss Paris. This is the longest I’ve been away from there (nearly 2 years) since 1958. Tell Annie I miss her too.
There’s a whole long essay in a literary magazine called “Against Styron.”§MM I guess I’ve arrived at last.
Don’t ever accept an invitation to be judge of the National Book Award. Since we turned down “Love Story” I’ve heard about nothing else—a whole editorial in The Washington Post damning the judges, especially me.§NN What a fucking country we live in. Connecticut is about to institute a state income tax (up to ¼ of the federal tax) so I guess I’ll be moving over there soon.
Give my best to all the creeps.
Love,
Bill
TO DONALD GALLINGER§OO
February 10, 1971 Roxbury, CT
Dear Mr. Gallinger—
Many thanks for your very warm and thoughtful letter. I wish I could answer your questions in detail but it has always been my practice to let that be the work of the critics, who are always eager to explain a writer’s work. In regard to Nat Turner, however, I will say that the Negroes’ reaction was racist: a writer, black or white, must be able to write about any human being of whatever color.
Sincerely
Wm Styron
TO C. VANN WOODWARD