I didn’t read this (letter, ha!) very carefully—I never do—but somewhere I notice he mentions you. He always talks a lot about writers, mainly Jewish writers.
I wish he would write you instead of me.
I’ll trade him for your dwarf.
Here is a joke: What’s 6 miles long, green and has an asshole every 3 feet?
Ans: The St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
See you on the 11th.
—BS.
TO CARLOS FUENTES
April 24, 1988 Roxbury, CT
Love and congratulations on your great honor.*MMM Sorry unable to be with you. Will see you soon in New York to celebrate.
Bill and Rose
William Styron was awarded the MacDowell Medal for outstanding contribution to the arts in the summer of 1988.
TO PHILIP CAPUTO
August 7, 1988 Vineyard Haven, MA
Dear Phil:
John Hersey told me that he thought that if I write you at your old Key West address it would be forwarded to you—I hope this reaches you. Several things have impelled me to write you after such a long silence on my part. I tried to get in touch with you by phone a number of times a long while ago but misplaced your number and couldn’t find it since you were unlisted. Then one thing or another kept stalling my writing you. I’m a very poor correspondent. Anyway, talking with John was a pleasure, since we spoke about you, and I also had a call not too long ago from Margot Kidder*NNN—a knockout lady, incidentally—who said she had seen you in Key West. Furthermore, Rose belatedly passed on an announcement of your wedding—for which warm congratulations—and to this must be added the coup de grâce: I gather you are going to be living in Connecticut. At least, that was the word I got from John. If this is true I hope it means that we will be neighbors. At any rate, I’m delighted by your new domestic condition and hope that it is true that you are becoming a Connecticut Yankee, then we can hoist a glass or two. I use the word glass advisedly since ever since my mental meltdown, which you wrote about, I have limited my drinking to 2 or three glasses of wine in the evening, never more, and have not had a drop of the hard stuff since at least the time since I last saw you. Amazing—I never thought there would be a day when I didn’t have my ritual jolts of Cutty Sark at eventide, but there it is and I don’t miss the jolts at all.
I also wanted to tell you, with vast belatedness, that I read Indian Country with great excitement and admiration. It really contains some of the very best and most penetrating writing, in my opinion, and I hope that if we have some sort of reunion in Connecticut I’ll be able to elaborate at greater length on your achievement.
My own writing has been somewhat spasmodic but I’m proceeding apace, trying to finish a piece based on a trip Carlos Fuentes and I took to Nicaragua, and also I’m midway in a grand exposé of what it’s like to suffer from melancholia. The fiction is churning slowly and may turn out to be something I’m proud of if I can get it set solidly on the rails of my imagination—or what’s left of it in this demented era.
I hope you receive this and also receive renewed expressions of my highest esteem, as the French say when signing off.
Yours,
Bill S.
TO STUART WRIGHT
October 6, 1988*OOO Roxbury, CT
Dear Stuart,
Although I can’t prove it, I have good reason to suspect that you stole the diary which you recently returned to me at my request. When Jim West visited you, you told him that I had either given you the diary or had sold it to you—you couldn’t remember which. Your obscurity in this matter taxes my credulity, and my belief is further stretched by the bill of sale you enclosed from the House of Books. I find it virtually impossible that this particular rare book dealer, which I recall having had a high reputation, would have come into possession of anything so intimate as a boyhood diary, written by a well-known contemporary author, without having notified the author and authenticated the item, and I received no such notification.
But although I think you stole the diary let us for a moment, purely for the sake of discussion, assume that you had gotten hold of it from the House of Books or—since the bill of sale does not assign the diary directly to you—from someone else who did. To me it is appalling that you would have visited me so many times without ever once mentioning that you had this book in your possession. A person with your expertise in manuscripts and rare books would surely have known that a boyhood diary is something that does not normally appear on the market and that its very presence there makes it suspect. You must have known that I would have been curious as to its whereabouts. Therefore even in the unlikely event that you had obtained the book by honest means, your failure to mention it to me—or, more honorably to restore it to me—is indefensible and a despicable breach of trust.
You spoke rather patronizingly, when you returned the diary, of my having been a good and generous friend to you, as if by returning it you were doing me a favor. I can only say that my sentiments could not be less reciprocal and that I regret ever having let you into my house.
William Styron
TO WILLIE MORRIS
November 16, 1988 Roxbury, CT
Dear Willie,
Dean and Larry sent me the news clips about the premiere of Good Old Boy, and I must say I was delighted and envious.*PPP I want you to know that the event has inspired me to try to teach my new little black lab, Dinah, to drive. There are quite a few dogs in the neighborhood that drive but they are used to automatic. Dinah is going to be the first dog in Litchfield County, Conn., to drive stick shift. Anyway, I wish I’d been there and I hope I get a cassette.
Your buddy,
Stingo
TO PHILLIP HORNE*QQQ
December 6, 1988 Roxbury, CT
Dear Mr. Horne,
I was very pleased and also quite touched to receive your long and generous letter concerning my work and my father—they are both, as you point out so correctly, intertwined. I was also happy to receive the pictorial history of N.C. State. All of the book was engrossing but naturally I was especially captured by the parts having to do with the period circa 1910 when my father was there. They filled me with a curious nostalgia—if you can feel nostalgia for something or some time that you yourself did not personally experience. But, then, I am often prompted to live imaginatively in my father’s past rather than my own. I was moved by your perceptions regarding my relationship with him; it was very complex and, indeed as you say, devoted though not without its prickly aspects—that would be quite natural, also, I’m sure. But in general I was quite bowled over and greatly impressed by your reflections on paternal relationships, N.C. State past and present, the Va.-N.C. border country, Nat Turner, your reading of my work and all sorts of other lively topics. It did me a great deal of good to read your letter. I was in rather sour spirits on the day it came, and the honesty and feeling of your words did a great deal to buoy me up.
I’m quite fascinated by your idea of somehow memorializing my father at State. Naturally I have no objections at all, but the idea of your melting some of those hard corporate hearts at Tenneco fills me with both awe and trepidation. But if you think you can pull it off you certainly have both my approval and blessing. I looked at the face of my father in that yearbook page which you so kindly sent me and thought how tickled he would really be—deep down, in spite of his natural inclination toward self-effacement—and so I wish you well. It is with some astonishment that I record here the fact that next October 1st will be his 100th anniversary.
Certainly I’d be happy to talk over anything further that you have in mind (including having you show up here with ham in hand, or arms) and I’d be very well disposed to a meeting. Probably the best time for me (and I imagine for you) would be after the Holiday horrors are over and (for me) sometime after January 10th when I’m planning to return from a short trip to the Caribbean. Why don’t you mark a tentative time to call me here—(203) 354-5939—though of course I’d welcome a call or letter, really, at any
time. Meanwhile, please believe me when I say that your letter meant a great deal to me, and I’m grateful for it.
Sincerely
William Styron
TO WILLIE MORRIS
February 9, 1989 Roxbury, CT
Dear Willie,
All the folks around here—family and friends—did indeed adore “Good Ole Boy.” It is utterly charming and you should be proud that the folks in Tinsel Town did such a loving and warm job of transferring your words to the screen. Thanks for sending it. I am off to California for a short while to see Susanna and am taking the cassette you so kindly sent to show to her stepson Tavish, age 10.
My black lab pup Dinah leaps and bounds in the air like a god-dam gazelle. I wish you could see her, I believe she may be as unique as that grotesque tree-clenching bulldog from South Carolina. I don’t know whether I sent you the enclosed flyer from last summer—The MacDowell Medal has been given to such figures as Robert Frost, Edmund Wilson, Miss Hellman, Mailer and Updike. Norman M., who was on the jury, confided to me recently that I nosed out Saul Bellow for the honor, which made me believe that us Southern Presbyterians are coming back into our own.
Rose joins in love.
Stingo
TO WILLIE MORRIS
July 1, 1989*RRR Vineyard Haven, MA
Dear Willie, I saw on page 3 of The Southern Register something I consider to be the final apotheosis: pictures of you, me and “Knuckles” Kazin all in an intimate lunch. I’ve re-read your Geographic piece on Faulkner’s Mississippi with great appreciation and this reminds me that I’ll be seeing you in August.*SSS Don’t know exactly when I’ll arrive but I do hope to spend an extra day or two—probably before the 3d. My friend François (“Frank”) Mitterrand has invited me to “be at his side” in Paris on Bastille Day, July 14, so I’m goin’ and will bring you back some hog-jowl pâté.
See you soon. Your buddy,
Stingo.
TO JAMES WEST
October 21, 1989 Roxbury, CT
Dear Jim,
The main reason it’s taken me quite some time to write you is that for a week recently I was legally blind. Not to sound melodramatic, really, but the cataract in my left eye (the worst one) got rapidly more opaque and I was seeing things as a blur. To complicate matters, the drops I was taking to dilate my pupils, and which greatly helped my vision, were prohibited for several weeks before the operation last Wednesday, and so for many days I was groping my way around, able to see large objects and able to perambulate, but pretty much of a washout when it came to either reading or writing. The operation, however, was a complete and rather astounding success. There is a world-class eye clinic in, of all places, Waterbury, Conn., about 10 miles from here, and I had it done there. I’d been told how remarkable the procedure was, and how dramatically successful it was supposed to be—but I had to have it to truly believe it. It was a painless operation which took less than 20 minutes, after which I wore a patch over the eye overnight and came back to the clinic the next day for the “unveiling.” Since that moment I’ve been able to see like a healthy ten-year-old. I have a brand new permanent lens made of plastic that allows me to see objects as I haven’t seen them in the several years since the cataract began to act up. Colors are especially amazing—particularly reds and browns, and I’ve been able to perceive this autumn foliage with breathtaking freshness. I really feel as if I’ve been reborn. I may do the other eye in a few months—it may be that this new eye will compensate adequately enough, at least for a while, so that I can delay the other operation. At any rate, I feel greatly unburdened and sing hallelujahs for the science of ophthalmology.
Before the operation my sight was so bad that it actually prevented my reading a speech in Richmond whither I’d gone to address a huge flock of Va. English teachers at the Hotel Jefferson. Even though I’d had the speech (the essay I wrote on my grandmother) blown up to Cyclopean size I was unable to see it well enough to read, so I spoke impromptu and answered questions, which seems to satisfy them well enough. Not long before that I was in Norfolk at Old Dominion University, where there was a huge crowd, assembled largely I suspect because I was the prodigal hometown boy returned to his native hearth. I’m enclosing an interview I did before the gathering, which you may find interesting. There is a reference to depression toward the end, which reminded me to tell you that the Vanity Fair article has been postponed until December, ostensibly because at the magazine they are so enthusiastic about the piece that they want to make it a special feature.*TTT Christmastime is a notorious season for melancholia so, who knows, it may deter a few people from slitting their throats as they contemplate more useless garbage in their Yule stockings.
I’m delighted to hear of your pleasant new ménage in Belgium. It sounds as if you have a wonderful setup and I have a feeling that you’re going to enjoy yourself (along with the family) immensely. I envy you all that Belgian cuisine.
The jamboree in Raleigh for my father’s 100th was a tremendous success. The whole family (including husbands) was there for a splendid Sunday barbeque which was delectable despite the weekend’s continuous rain. Phillip Horne, the entrepreneur behind the show, outdid himself by prevailing on Bob Loomis (who was present) to get Random House to produce a lovely little 8-minute film about my father and Newport News and me and my career, so called. They got Tom Wicker*UUU to come down to N.N. and narrate the film from the Hilton Village piece. It was a truly lovely little presentation and they showed it as a prelude to my speech before a 900-member audience; it quite bowled me over, and my daddy would have been beside himself with the praise they bestowed upon him. I wish you’d been able to be there.
I’ll write further soon; meanwhile enjoy beautiful Belgium.
As ever,
B.S.
TO JACK ZAJAC
November 2, 1989 Roxbury, CT
Dear Jack,
It was lovely of you and Corda to come to my public exhibition—such a bore it must have been—but it was wonderful going to Santa Cruz and having that good dinner with all the friends. Also, grim as it was, the trip through the Mall was memorable, and I’m grateful as usual for your hospitality. I got to New York right on schedule, much of the trip made endurable by reading these Smithsonians. I was especially taken by the article on George Rhoads (Oct. 1988) and his remarkable Rube Goldberg machines. I’ve known George ever since our Bohemian days in New York in the late 40s. He lived in total squalor (as did I) and, being poverty-stricken, we often dined off of government surplus canned fish. He took the photograph of me that adorned the first edition of Lie Down in Darkness. For years he painted rather murky paintings and it’s lovely to see that he’s come into his own.
Thanks again to you guys for everything. Rose was fascinated by Corda’s info on yeast and will be in touch.
Ever thine,
Bill
TO BOB BRUSTEIN
December 3, 1989 Roxbury, CT
Dear Bobby, I greatly appreciated what you said on the phone about my Vanity Fair essay. I hope you know that you are the Ideal Critic (in the best sense) and that I value your opinion more than almost anyone I know (or don’t know), and so when you express such a reaction I feel tremendously fulfilled. So as always I’m very grateful to you. And I’m looking forward to seeing you bientôt.
Ever, Bill S.
TO ROBERT BRUCCOLI
December 9, 1989 Roxbury, CT
Dear Mr. Bruccoli,
Thank you for sending me the reader’s report on Lie Down in Darkness, with its many apprehensions concerning the book’s steamy passages. Actually, the book was pretty heavily censored by the publishers and an account of this appears, I am told, in the 1980 volume of Studies in Bibliography in an article by Arthur D. Casciato.*VVV Thanks again for sending me the item.
Sincerely William Styron
TO CHARLES SULLIVAN
December 23, 1989 Roxbury, CT
Dear Charlie,
I want to thank you and Dorothy for the magnificent box of citrus fruit. I
t will be greatly relished and, I’m sure, quickly devoured by the mob of family and friends who are gathering here this Xmas weekend.
Your call was also greatly appreciated and it reminded me that I’d been out of touch for quite some time. In the past year I’ve had physical problems which have set me back a little, fortunately not too far back. Last winter I began to notice that my right arm had lost strength and was malfunctioning. When shaving or combing my hair I found I couldn’t properly rotate my wrist, and at certain angles I dropped things like coffeepots. I went up to Mass. General Hospital and checked in with a neurologist, who after various tests decided I had a nerve compression in the fifth vertebra of my neck, and this was preventing my biceps from working properly; in fact, the right bicep had atrophied 40%. I was able to trace this back to an injury I’d received at Camp Lejeune in 1951: during a stream crossing exercise I’d been forced up against a wire cable and my neck had caught the blow, sending a kind of shock down my arm. Neck and arm were quite painful for a few days, but I was young, of course, and eventually everything healed and so forgot about it. Anyway, the docs said an operation was necessary to prevent total atrophy of that arm muscle. So I had the operation and lo and behold the surgeon discovered a broken ligament from that 1951 stream crossing incident, a ligament which had calcified and caused the entire problem.
The operation was a total success and now the arm is 85% functioning, which satisfies me for all intents and purposes, especially since the prediction is that recovery after another six months or so will be virtually total. But I’m still amazed that the USMC accident should rise up and strike me 37 years later.
In October I also had a brand new lens implanted in my left eye. The cataracts I’d been born with, and which caused me problems at Parris Island & Quantico in 1945 (I managed to get a waiver) finally became quite opaque this past year, especially the one in the left eye, which got so “thick” that I was legally blind. Then came this amazing operation (in Waterbury, nearby) which was totally painless, took less than 20 minutes (I’d dread a dentist visit more), and left me with 20/20 vision without glasses, looking at the world and its bright colors with such freshness that I felt—and still feel—like Adam in the garden of Eden. So we can bemoan much of our modern technology but, my God, when technology works such miracles one can’t help but feel full of praise.