Willie, stay in touch. I miss you a lot and I’ll be looking forward to an early reunion. Your old friend,
Bill
Tell Dean how wonderful I thought her kids were (also her).
TO EDWARD BUNKER
April 1, 1984 Roxbury, CT
Dear Eddie:
Once again, it has not been for lack of trying that I haven’t gotten in touch with you. I guess I’m the helpless product of the telephone age, and when I call a dozen times and get no answer I figure you’re incommunicado. I should know better, and place more reliance on the written word.
Anyway, I did want to say that I deeply lament the loss of your friend. My heart ached when you wrote me the news (a time I tried to call you) and I know how it hurt you, because I know how it would hurt me (and will someday); who was it said that a dog “is a tragedy waiting to happen”? The buggers—they get under your skin in a certain way. They aren’t our species, but somehow the love we feel for them is a confirmation of our link with Nature. We certainly feel the loss of a good dog more keenly than the loss of a mediocre human being—which again has to do with our mysterious connection with the natural order. I grieve with you and join in an affectionate goodbye to old Dusty.
I’m delighted that your work is pounding away so well and look forward to reading the fruits. I think that it is wise of you to want to get this one off your back first. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make some good bucks to clear the way for the other work—I can name you at least ten fine writers who have done this, not starting with, but including, Faulkner.
Christ, writing is a horrible row to hoe. I’m coming along—well, I think—but each line is so tough, and the completion seems such a distant and impossible thing, that I can understand Conrad saying that there was hardly a day that he approached his writing desk without wanting to burst into tears. I’ll get it done somehow, but I feel such envy for those guys who can just pour it out like some bodily fluid—semen, I guess, or shit, depending on how honest or good they are.
Let’s get together in the month of April—sometime and someplace without fail. We have things to talk over and it would be great to see you again after so long.
Regards as always,
Bill
P.S. I’ll tell you about my evening at the White House with Mitterrand as dinner partner.
TO MATTIE RUSSELL
May 24, 1984*hhh Roxbury, CT
Dear Mattie: I am sending these letters to you as a curiosity—a rather sad one. The correspondent is a young man named Jerry Marcus of Queens, N.Y. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve received hundreds of these letters, written to me over the past 6 or 7 years. I never read them because they are incredibly long-winded and the handwriting is terrible. I never answer but the letters have been coming almost every week—as if I were a confessor to whom he was spilling his entire life. I send these to you merely as an example of what writers are sometimes exposed to. Sorry not to have seen you at grad. Best, B.S.
TO ROBERT LOOMIS
February 22, 1985 Roxbury, CT
Dear Bob:
I just wanted to set down a few random reflections on the manuscript which you may want to tuck away for future reference. By the time the book is done I may have altered my feelings some, but I rather doubt it.
I’m afraid I feel very much as you expressed yourself as feeling on the phone. Just as you said something to the effect that this was the first time you felt you had to express a major criticism (naturally, I am not quoting you accurately)—this time in regard to the first part of the book—so I feel just as strongly, also for the first time, that your editorial sensibility has allowed you to miss the essential solidity and thrust and importance of that part of the work. I have discarded a great deal of earlier material, and struggled very hard to find this book’s architectural integrity; it is essential to that integrity that the central part of the work be framed by these two longish journal sections.
So far as I could tell you missed seeing the basic rightness of this first section. I actually did not intend it to have the same kind of swift “authority” of the rest of the book. It is admittedly slow, deliberative, contemplative, introspective; it is the diary of a young man close to a nervous breakdown because of fear. If it does not engage the reader in a quickly unfolding tale I could not care less; however, I do believe that within its tension—the night problem, the swim, the forced march, the scene with the shrink, etc. I regret that you didn’t seem to recognize the great deal of careful writing that made this a cohesive whole. On reflection, I have not been able to agree at all with your feeling that Stingo reacts in an unconvincing way to the Captain. Also, contrary to your view, I feel that the foreshadowing is done the way it should be done, dropping the right hints concerning the future.
This is not to say that I think the section is by any means perfect. You were correct, I think, in feeling that the music store scene with Mozart strikes a jarring note after the Beethoven in the swimming scene. I’ve felt that that episode was extraneous and distracting anyway (as is the little paragraph about reading Proust) and these will be cut out.
Recently I read the long title piece of Ed Doctorow’s LIVES OF THE POETS, as I imagine you have.*iii I admired it enormously—a static, reflective, almost monotonously self-absorbed work that has great power. His work and mine couldn’t be more different, but in certain ways I’ve strived in this section for a similar effect of irony, humor and desperation. I think I have achieved it and I’m just sorry that you apparently have not been able to perceive what I think I have successfully achieved. Of course, I could be wrong—everyone is deluded from time to time—but it is absolutely essential; it will stand just as it is, and while as always I am sure you are such a good editor—it will remain in this form as the beginning of the book. (As I think I told you, similar journal entries—though not as lengthy—will end the book, after the Bomb has fallen and the marines, as they actually did, go to Nagasaki.)
After all this is said, I am glad that you liked the way the central narrative moved. It is coming along smoothly and I think I’ll have a finished MS sooner than you might think.
I wouldn’t have written at such length if I still didn’t think you were the best editor in the business. I suppose the making of books wouldn’t be nearly so interesting if there weren’t occasionally obdurately held points of view like mine, but I did want to get it down for the record, in addition to expressing my continued admiration and respect.
In Duke’s name
Bill
PS How is Mrs. Yorke?
TO LOUIS D. RUBIN, JR.
June 18, 1985 Vineyard Haven, MA
Dear Louis:
I had meant to write you long before this about Teacher—a fine idea, I think—but suddenly realized with dismay (and a sense of apology) that I had let a long time pass.*jjj Forgive me the lapse, but I think the real reason I didn’t respond was my inability to come up with a suitable subject, hard as I might try. The sad fact is that I can’t remember any teachers who commanded my respect or devotion in the years before college and William Blackburn. The Commonwealth of Virginia, you may recollect—and I am fond of pointing out—ranked 48th in education during the years of my upbringing, also during the ascendancy of Harry Byrd who put what little money the state had into a highway system to get tourists safely to Jamestown and Williamsburg.
Most of my teachers (mainly female, of course) were therefore of limited quality—many of them simply ignoramuses. There was a Miss Thorpe who taught Music Appreciation and mangled the names of all the great composers (Dworack, Saint-Sayens, Hayden), a Miss Pitts who was a decent sort and tried to teach me Latin in a totally incomprehensible Tidewater accent, an ogrish male math teacher in his 50s named “Coach” Kriegler whose interests were obviously in football; and, most memorably, the eponymously named Miss Ball, a real looker who I’m still convinced, in full view of the class, aroused herself (I’m sure unconsciously, after all this was the 1930s) by pressin
g her groin against the corner of her desk. All of my teachers seemed to be characters out of Kings Row, with the mentality of Ronald Reagan.*kkk
I’m sorry to send you this depressing report—so belatedly—but that is the real and honest reason I don’t think myself qualified for your excellent venture. I wish you good luck on it, though, and would love to read the final essays.
Hope all goes well with you.
All best,
Bill
P.S. In case you’re interested, there will be a 12,000 word excerpt from my new book in the August issue of Esquire.*lll
TO PHILIP CAPUTO*mmm
October 6, 1985 Roxbury, CT
Dear Phil:
I’ve read your piece and this is just a brief note to tell you that I think it is just fine—poised, sensitive, intelligent, with a nice undertone that I can only describe as abrasively witty. Very nice indeed. I take no exception to anything and feel you were (despite worries) quite discreet. Naturally, I’ve lost your phone number, or left it on the Vineyard, so do call me when you get a chance and let me express my feelings more directly and in detail.
All best,
Bill
Roxbury: 203-354-5939
Styron admitted himself to Yale–New Haven Hospital for suicidal depression on December 14, 1985.
TO PETER MATTHIESSEN
December 16, 1985 Roxbury, CT
Dear Peter:
I’ve gone through a rough time.*nnn I hope you’ll remember me with love and tenderness. I wish I’d taken your way to peace and goodness. Please remember me with a little of that zen goodness, too. I’ve always loved you and Maria.
Love
Porter
TO MIA FARROW
February 21, 1986 Roxbury, CT
Dear Mia:
I’ve been out on the street for a while and am feeling very good once more. I will miss your cheery voice on the telephone, which was one of the few tolerable features of my detention. Except for the superb hospital cuisine (crabmeat au gratin, broiled snapper en papillote) it is one feature I will miss very much. You were a dear to think of me. My head and soul have been put back into working order—perhaps better than before, for whatever that’s worth—and I divide my time between work and the new indoor-outdoor jacuzzi, very Finnish in this brisk weather. Come over sometime and try it out. You were wonderful in Hannah, which is the first movie I saw after I was sprung. I hope I see you before too long, not just the great sound of your voice wishing me well.
Love
Bill
TO PHILIP CAPUTO
April 5, 1986 Roxbury, CT
Dear Phil:
I tried to call you recently but discovered that the number you gave me in your letter had been “changed to an unpublished number.” I appreciate very much your letter of March 10, its encouragement and good will and faith. I went through an extremely grim period between early December and early February but I’m happy to say that I’ve pulled out of it nicely and am in the process of finishing the job of putting myself back together. Depression is a horrible and mysterious malady; the only good thing to be said about my form of the illness is that such depressions almost always resolve themselves for the better, even after forcing one to the very edge of the abyss.
I’m sorry about the fate—at least up until now—of your truly excellent article. There is a great deal of truth to the fact that I’ve abandoned the book I told you about; however, it’s really not so much abandonment as extreme alteration. It’s much too complicated to go into here but the gist of what I want to say is that I’ve completely reconstructed the novel—to a degree that would make what I told you quite erroneous—although I fully intend to retain the section that was in Esquire. Naturally I’d like to see the article published—in Esquire or elsewhere—and naturally, too, it would require a certain amount of rewriting in view of my change of plans for the book. But in case you still want to do the piece, and I gather you do, I’d be glad to talk to you about the changes that would be necessary to make. Maybe you’d want to discuss this by phone, if so, please call me here in Roxbury, where I’ll be until early June.
Let me say again how grateful I am to you for your letter. Corny as it may appear, it seems that only a marine can be truly aware of another marine’s suffering; you gave me a nice jolt of good cheer. Thanks from the depths, I’m pleased and proud of your friendship. Do write or call.
Yours ever
Bill S.
TO DONALD HARINGTON
April 13, 1986 Morne Trulah, St. Lucia
Dear Don: I am writing this from the isle of St. Lucia, a beautiful, rather less well-known speck, 40 miles long, about halfway down the Antillean chain, just south of Martinique. I’ve been to these islands many times but this is my first visit to St. Lucia, and the weather is perfect this time of the year. I’m leaving in a few days so I’ll probably mail this from New York.
Part of my visit has been recuperation. Your letter (along with your address) passed away from me last summer, disappearing as my life almost did, and that is why I never answered your kind words about the piece in Esquire.*ooo I didn’t quite realize it at the time but I was being swallowed up in a fearsome mental illness known as depression—“the black dog,” as Churchill called the relatively mild version that seized him from time to time. Mine progressed very slowly albeit inexorably through summer and fall until in mid-December I was hospitalized at Yale–New Haven with about as serious a form of the malady as it’s possible to get. I was there for nearly seven weeks.
I’m happy to report that I’m close to fully recovered. Depression in fortunate cases (the majority, really) seems to be self-limiting and runs its course until the victim comes out the other end of his nightmare more or less intact. In the meantime, however, it’s Auschwitz time in the heart of the soul—a form of madness I wouldn’t wish upon a literary critic. They give you drugs and a rather innocuous and simple-minded type of psychotherapy, but the real curative is rest and time. Depression—aside from crushing any joy whatever—destroys the health by destroying sleep, appetite, libido and all the other things that make life worth living. It’s a long way back but (and I hope it doesn’t sound trite) one is somehow made stronger by the crucible of the experience. I’ve begun writing again during the past four weeks (depression also wrecks the intellect, for a long time I was incapable of reading a daily newspaper) and feel very close to normal. Hallelujah, I say every morning now, because for many mornings last winter, I didn’t think I’d last the day.
I would be very pleased indeed to read your lost cities of Arkansas book and also let you know my reaction.*ppp Do send a copy of the galleys to Roxbury, where I’ll be in a few days. It sounds like just the kind of book I’d love to sink my teeth into, and you’ll certainly get my response which I’m virtually certain will be positive knowing your feeling about Arkansas and the depth of your empathy.
If I’m lucky and can husband my new-found strength, I’ll finish that Marine Corps book within a couple of years and ask you for your blessings on it, along with that of Jesus.
Yours,
Bill
TO PHILIP CAPUTO
July 4, 1986 Vineyard Haven, MA
Dear Phil:
Life down there with all that fishing seems so idyllic that I’ve got half a mind to chuck this Vineyard scene and come to Key West. But I do imagine that the heat is a little intimidating at the moment, so if I do take you up on your suggestion and come, I’ll doubtless do it in the fall. Anyway, it was good to hear from you. The Statue of Liberty event which I’ve been following on TV seems such a gross piece of commercialism that it makes one lose the vestiges of one’s patriotism. A wonderful Alabama lady,*qqq age 84, who lives up here in the summer quite rightly and indignantly asked why the TV coverage of the Liberty show couldn’t have been government sponsored, with no beer commercials. The gov’t, she also said rightly, should have paid for the restoration of the statue instead of having Lee Iacocca hustle the project. It would have cost the taxpayer
s ¼ the cost of a ballistic missile.
All my depression has disappeared, even the vagrant shadows that were hanging around when I saw you, and I’m well into a revised version of the book along the lines I spoke to you about. I feel good about the new version, and work is slow as usual, but fairly steady.
I’m pleased that you and Esquire are pleased about the article.*rrr I’ve reread the Xerox of the piece which you sent me and I’m sure your revisions will fit in well. In the draft that I’ve read I only have two or three small items that I’m concerned about and which, as a favor, I wish you’d eliminate in the final version. I think when I was getting deep into my illness I may have mentioned them to you but much of that time is fuzzy to me so at risk of repetition I’ll mention them again. On p. 26 there is my criticism of William Gass which I wish you’d get rid of.*sss I do feel that way but I honestly don’t think there’s any need to alienate a fellow writer in print. Also, I wish you’d tone down my observations about academics. “Creeps” they are—many of them—but that’s too strong a word for me to want to be quoted as calling them. Finally, in the last few paragraphs I’m not too happy about that very ambiguous reference to “skullduggery.” I don’t want to suggest that either of us censor what I might have told you in a perhaps indiscreet moment but I’m not happy with the way that remark stands at the moment.
How goes your work at the moment? Well, I hope. In the next life I’m going to have a Pontiac dealership instead of writing novels. I’ve been reading a lot more recently about the Vietnam war. Bill Broyles’ book on his return to Vietnam (Brothers in Arms) is quite remarkable, I think, as a retrospective document by a combat veteran.*ttt Have you read it? Also, I just finished another good but depressing (pardon the word) chronicle about Vietnam vets, Payback by Joe Klein. I imagine you’ve read it; as a matter of fact, Klein uses a quote from A Rumor of War as an epigraph to one of the book’s sections. I’m trying to get a line on some work dealing with the most badly wounded survivors of the war. Do you know of any such book? There’s an enormous amount already written on the psychological damage (I’ve just read Wounds of War by a psychiatrist, Herbert Hendin) but if you could suggest anything in particular about physical casualties, I’d like to know.*uuu I suspect you can understand my reason for wanting this kind of information, since as I told you a horrible wounded Marine figures centrally in the version—the new version—of my book.