§zz Hellman’s first memoir, published in 1969.
§AA Nathanael West (1903–40), American novelist and screenwriter, author of Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust.
§BB Styron refers to Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961), a writer known for his novels The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and Red Harvest, and Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), a writer and satirist known for her contributions to The New Yorker and as a founder of the Algonquin Round Table. Dorothy is not to be confused with Didi Parker, Styron’s coworker and correspondent of the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Russian-born Raya Orlova was a close friend of Hellman who translated many of her plays. Helena Golisheva and Elena Levin were other Russian friends.
§CC Styron called Revolutionary Road “a deft, ironic, beautiful novel that deserves to be a classic.” Yates (1926–92) wrote a screenplay of Lie Down in Darkness in 1962.
§DD Styron wrote a nearly identical letter to Jones on June 24, calling Yates “a capital fellow.” He also mentioned Henry Hyde procuring “a 2-book contract with Random House for 11,500 shares of RCA stock—worth a cool $500,000. I’m glad you got us together.”
§EE A special issue on William Styron: South Atlantic Quarterly 68 (1969).
§FF Young’s 1934 novel about Civil War Mississippi is considered a classic of the moonlight-and-magnolias school.
§GG Harry Tuchman Levin (1912–94), American literary critic and scholar of modernism and comparative literature at Harvard University.
§HH George Core, “The Confessions of Nat Turner and the Burden of the Past,” The Southern Literary Journal (Spring 1970).
§II When Styron donated the physical Howells medal to Duke University on February 3, 1971, he wrote, “The medal is made largely of gold and worth, I am told, in the neighborhood of $400. Therefore it is not only not invaluable but probably not even irreplaceable, so it should be treated only with the same good care I’m sure you give to the rest of your material down there. I am told that if someone were to steal it he could only get about $125 at a pawn shop, so I do not think you should be overly concerned about its security. Actually, I would think it might make you a nice paperweight, and I would be delighted to think that you might use it as such.”
§JJ William C. Styron, Sr., married Eunice Edmondson, one of his former sweethearts, in January 1971.
§KK Stationery produced by Leo Carty for Anton Studios that Styron used ironically for correspondence to friends and family. The front has a portrait of a skinny, balding African American man. The front of the card reads: “Nat Turner: POWER OF SELF DETERMINATION.” On the back of the card appears a brief biography: “NAT TURNER (1800–1831) Born in Southampton County, Virginia, Turner believed that God had appointed him a leader of his people. In February 1831, he led one of the first successful slave revolts, killing fifty-five white people. Turner was captured and hung but his fight for freedom will never be forgotten.”
§LL James Jones, The Merry Month of May (New York: Delacorte, 1971), was a novel set during the 1968 student protests in Paris.
§MM The essay appears in Mark Spilka, ed., Novel: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 4, no. 2 (Winter 1971).
§NN Styron referred to Erich Segal’s immensely popular novel Love Story (1970). Styron attached a piece, “Not Literature,” from the Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1971, in which he was quoted on the controversy: “[Love Story] is a banal book which simply doesn’t qualify as literature. Simply by being on the list it would have demeaned the other books.” The other judges for the 1971 award were author John Cheever, Maurice Dolbler (literary editor of The Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin), John Leonard (editor of The New York Times Book Review), and critic and novelist Marya Mannes.
§OO Donald Gallinger (b. 1953) was seventeen years old when he wrote to Styron about The Confessions of Nat Turner. Inspired by Styron’s reply and by a friendly postcard from John Updike (“I think you read me very well”), Gallinger eventually became a published writer. His novel The Master Planets (2008) examines the effects of a Polish woman’s actions during World War II on her American family decades later.
§PP Sterling Stuckey, “Twilight of Our Past: Reflections on the Origins of Black History,” in John A. Williams and Charles F. Harris, eds., Amistad 2: Writings on Black History and Culture (New York: Random House, 1971).
§QQ Nobile was an editor at The New York Review of Books. He wrote an account of the early days at the publication, in which he included portions of this letter from Styron. See Intellectual Skywriting: Literary Politics and the New York Review of Books (New York: Charterhouse, 1974).
§RR David Lloyd Wolper (1928–2010), an American television and film producer with a long list of credits, most notably the miniseries Roots.
§SS William Styron and John Phillips, “Dead!” Esquire (December 1973).
§TT Dorothy Tristan (b. 1942), actress, appeared in Klute (1971) and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) among other films, and was married for fifteen years to American film editor and director Aram A. Avakian (1926–87), who was in Paris when The Paris Review was founded and socialized frequently with Styron, Plimpton, and Marquand.
§UU Marianne Moore (1887–1972), American modernist poet and writer. Morton Dauwen Zabel (1901–64), author of Craft and Character: Texts, Method, and Vocation in Modern Fiction (1957).
§VV John Simon (b. 1925), American author and literary and drama critic. Richard Gilman (1923–2006), American literary and drama critic.
§WW Philip Roth, Our Gang (Starring Tricky and His Friends) (New York: Random House, 1971).
§XX Jason Epstein (b. 1928), American editor and publisher, hired by Bennett Cerf at Random House. In addition to editing such notable authors as Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, and Vladimir Nabokov, Epstein was also a cofounder of The New York Review of Books.
§YY William Styron, untitled review of Richard Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, and John Sack, Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story, The New York Times Book Review (September 12, 1971). Collected in This Quiet Dust.
§ZZ Styron refers to the main character in his Way of the Warrior. This “episode” was published as “The Suicide Run,” American Poetry Review 3 (May/June 1974), later collected in The Suicide Run.
‖aa “Marriott, the Marine,” Esquire 76 (September 1971). Collected in The Suicide Run.
‖bb Jack Zajac (b. 1929). An American artist known for his sculptures in bronze and marble, as well as his figurative paintings, Zajac received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize. He was an Artist in Residence at the American Academy in Rome when Styron was there for the Prix de Rome.
‖cc Turner (1921–84) was warden of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania from 1956 to 1972. He wrote an autobiography, My Serengeti Years, about his efforts to manage the park.
‖dd Styron’s play In the Clap Shack was produced by the Yale Repertory Theatre, and published by Random House in book form in 1973. See Melvin J. Friedman, “In the Clap Shack: William Styron’s Neglected Play,” The Southern Quarterly 33, nos. 2–3, Winter–Spring 1995.
‖ee Susanna had graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and spent the next year traveling around Europe while attending Franklin College in Switzerland.
‖ff The screenplay was never produced.
‖gg Pascal Franchot Tone was one of the founders and presidents (1973–79) of Franklin College.
‖hh Neil Simon (b. 1927), American playwright. The Prisoner of Second Avenue ran on Broadway from November 1971 until September 1973. It was later made into a film starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft.
‖ii Marie-Henri Beyle (1783–1842), best known by his pen name Stendhal, was a French writer who helped develop realism in novels such as The Red and the Black (1830).
‖jj Warren’s novel Meet Me in the Green Glen (New York: Random House, 1971).
‖kk Postcard from Downtowner Motor Inn, Goldsboro, North Carolina.
‖ll Unknown attachment.
‖mm A sticker that Bill attached to the
letter. He attached them to several envelopes around this time as well. The reference is to President Nixon’s daughter Tricia, who had married Edward Cox on June 12, 1971.
‖nn On one of the Nat Turner “Power of Self Determination” cards, Styron wrote above the image on the front, “He looks a little like Harry Belafonte, I think.”
‖oo On “Mrs. William Styron, Roxbury” stationery, with Mrs. William crossed out and Mr. Irving written in by hand.
‖pp Reprinted as “Vidal Blue,” The Atlantic 229 (May 1972).
‖qq Gerald Clarke, “Petronius Americanus: The Ways of Gore Vidal,” The Atlantic 229 (March 1972).
‖rr “Responsibility and the Exhilaration of Power,” Pointing to the Presidency, a special publication of the New Democratic Coalition of New York (1972).
‖ss Jerzy Kosinski (1933–91), a novelist best known for his novels The Painted Bird (1965), Being There (1971), and Steps (1969), which won the National Book Award.
‖tt Michael Mewshaw’s second novel, Walking Slow (New York: Random House, 1972).
‖uu Born Luis Miguel González Lucas, Dominguín (1926–96) was a famous bullfighter who took the name of his father, bullfighting legend Domingo Dominguín. Luis Dominguín counted Pablo Picasso among his friends, and had affairs with actress Ava Gardner and model China Machado, among others. In 1954, he married actress Lucia Bosé, and had a son, Miguel Bosé, a Grammy-winning singer. In 1959, the rivalry between Dominguín and his brother-in-law, Antonio Ordóñez, was chronicled by Ernest Hemingway in The Dangerous Summer.
‖vv A riff on “un homme moyen sensuel”—a man of average tastes and sensibilities.
‖ww Robert Sargent “Bobby” Shriver III (b. 1954) is the current mayor of Santa Monica, California.
‖xx Cleve Gray (1918–2004), American abstract expressionist painter. He was married to the author Francine du Plessix and lived in Warren, Connecticut. Actress Florence Eldridge was married to actor Fredric March; they owned a home in New Milford, Connecticut. The property was later sold to Lillian Hellman as well as Henry Kissinger.
‖yy Brustein wrote a regular column from London, beginning with his piece “London vs. New York: A Tale of Two Cities,” The New York Times, October 15, 1972.
‖zz Arthur Miller, The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972).
‖AA Alvin Epstein, associate director of the Yale Repertory Theatre under Brustein, directed Styron’s play.
‖BB The Diabolique was a boat jointly owned by Styron and Brustein.
‖CC October 1972 issue of The Vineyard Gazette (Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts).
‖DD Again, the Nat Turner stationery.
‖EE James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916) was an American writer and poet best known for creating “Little Orphan Annie” and the “Raggedy Man.”
‖FF Clive Barnes, “Playwriting Debut for Styron,” The New York Times (December 17, 1972). Barnes wrote that “the subject matter makes [In the Clap Shack] sound more original than it in fact is … the play is rather conventional.” After critiquing nearly every aspect of the play, Barnes wrote that “Mr. Styron exaggerates everything.”
‖GG Norman Podhoretz and Irving Howe, “Philip Roth Reconsidered,” Commentary (December 1972).
‖HH Dwight Macdonald, “By Cozzens Possessed—A Review of Reviews,” Commentary (March 1958).
‖II Clifton Fadiman, “Faulkner, Extra-Special, Double-Distilled,” The New Yorker (October 31, 1936); “Mississippi Frankenstein,” The New Yorker (January 21, 1939).
‖JJ Styron consciously struck out “seven.”
‖KK Richard Yates, William Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness: A Screenplay (Ploughshares Books, 1985).
‖LL Styron had long hoped that a film of Lie Down in Darkness would be made. He had written his agent Elizabeth McKee on December 14, 1956, hoping that Eva Marie Saint would sign on for the role. Neither that film version nor this one ever made it into production. Styron’s daughter Susanna is currently working on a new film based on Yates’s script.
‖MM Richard Poirier, often called Mailer’s most astute critic, had just published Norman Mailer (New York: Viking, 1972).
‖NN The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
‖OO Fain Hackney (b. 1960) is the only son of Lucy and Sheldon Hackney, the Styrons’ close friends and neighbors.
‖PP The daughter of the Styrons’ close friends George and Ann d’Almeida.
‖QQ The Hackneys’ youngest daughter.
‖RR Josiah Bunting III (b. 1939) is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction. He was the headmaster of the Lawrenceville School and the president of Hampden-Sydney College.
‖SS Charles H. Sullivan was a friend of Styron’s from the Marine Corps. Sullivan was a career officer who had served in Guadalcanal before being sent to officer training at Princeton.
‖TT Ben Forkner and Gilbert Schricke, “An Interview with William Styron,” was conducted in France in April 1974 and published in The Southern Review (Autumn 1974); reprinted in West, ed., Conversations with William Styron.
‖UU Styron wrote Rubin a postcard on July 29 indicating that “I toned down at least some of the ‘race’ references that you felt were rather out of order.”
‖VV Armand S. Deutsch, the eldest grandson of Julius Rosenwald, was the intended victim of the kidnappers and murderers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. A close friend of Frank Sinatra, “Ardie” was also in the inner circle of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. As Todd Purdum wrote in his New York Times obituary on August 18, 2005, “He shared a box at Dodger Stadium with Jack Benny and then with Walter Matthau, traveled the world with the publisher Bennett Cerf, lunched regularly with the director Billy Wilder and had dinner every Christmas for years in the Beverly Hills home of James Stewart.” Deutsch also wrote a memoir, Me and Bogie: And Other Friends and Acquaintances from a Life in Hollywood and Beyond (New York: Putnam, 1991).
‖WW The Styrons were on vacation with the Brusteins.
‖XX Burke Davis (1913–2006), noted Southern writer of biographies and historical novels, best known for his nonfiction works on the Civil War. Like Styron he had strong ties to both North Carolina and Virginia; from 1940 to 1980 he was married to Evangeline McLennan Davis.
‖YY Burke Davis, Getting to Know Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971).
‖ZZ Cynthia Ozick, “A Liberal’s Auschwitz,” took issue with Styron’s argument that the tragedy of the Holocaust was “ecumenical” and “anti-life” rather than Jewish. See William Styron, “Auschwitz’s Message,” The New York Times (June 25, 1974). Robie Macauley defended Styron in The New York Times Book Review, August 8, 1976. Ozick admonished Styron for making Sophie Zawistowska Polish Catholic rather than Jewish, and renewed her critiques of Sophie’s Choice as recently as a 2005 speech at Harvard.
aaa Styron never wrote the article.
bbb The election of James Earl Carter, Jr., as President of the United States.
ccc Francine du Plessix Gray, Lovers and Tyrants (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976).
ddd James Jones died on May 9, 1977, and Mitgang penned the New York Times obituary on May 10. He had written an indignant note to Styron on June 14, 1977, in reaction to Styron’s piece in New York magazine: “A Friend’s Farewell to James Jones,” New York (June 6, 1977). This piece was collected in the first edition of This Quiet Dust but was replaced by a different piece on Jones for the second and later editions. “Apparently, you did not like my obituary report on Jones,” Mitgang wrote. “Most readers thought it fair and respectful.” He questioned Styron’s ability to recognize the “difference between a news report and a eulogy,” finishing by admonishing Styron that “I don’t have a shovel.” Mitgang to Styron, June 14, 1977.
eee Mitgang’s obituary included Jones’s quote about Hemingway: “One has to be an egomaniac to be a writer, but you’ve got to hide it.… Hemingway was more concerned with being an international celebrity than in writing great books. He worked harder on h
is image than on his integrity. He was a swashbuckler who didn’t swash his buckle or buckle his swash.” Seemingly reacting to this critique of Hemingway, Mitgang wrote: “Unlike Hemingway, however, Mr. Jones continued to be criticized as a writer, regardless of his themes. Unlike Hemingway, he did not avoid writing for films and turning out books clearly designed for the commercial market. And, unlike Hemingway, he had gone to Paris, not in his youth, but in his flourishing mature years.” Mitgang, “James Jones, Novelist, 66, Dies; Best Known for ‘Here to Eternity,’ ” The New York Times (May 10, 1977).
fff Lowell had died on September 12, 1977.
ggg Stuart Wright (b. 1948), bibliographer and private-press publisher in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His imprint, Palaemon Press, issued several limited editions by Styron. Styron gave Wright his only set of galleys for Sophie’s Choice.
hhh Bell Irvin Wiley (1906–80), Civil War historian who studied under Ulrich B. Phillips at Yale and later worked at the University of Mississippi, Louisiana State University, and Emory University.
iii James L. W. West III, William Styron: A Descriptive Bibliography (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977).
jjj Styron delivered the tribute to Warren at the Lotos Club in New York City, April 10, 1975, and it was published as Admiral Robert Penn Warren and the Snows of Winter (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Palaemon Press, 1978). The first edition was signed only by Styron; a second edition in 1981 was signed by both Styron and Warren. This piece was eventually collected in This Quiet Dust.
kkk Wright was a coauthor of Forsyth: The History of a County on the March (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976).
lll Danny Robb, a fifteen-year-old boy, had written to Styron asking how he got started in his career.
mmm The town said the proposed eight-foot wall was too high. The Styrons built a four-foot wall and planted many fir trees.
nnn Peter Matthiessen’s 1978 nonfiction account of his two-month journey to Crystal Mountain in the Himalayas.
ooo “Porter” was Matthiessen’s nickname for Styron, given during chess matches in Ravello in the early 1950s and used for his entire life.