[To Bernice Baumgarten]
Thursday, November 20 [1952]
Dear Bernice,
No one can say I don’t work for a living; I sat up all night doing this. Worse, I spent the early part of the evening playing basketball, thirty-five screaming cub scouts vs. eleven gasping mothers; scouts, 21–19. I made two baskets, though, and got a terse word of praise from my son. Does the official boy scout magazine buy fiction? I got a whole new world of material, having been railroaded into being a den mother.
I have more stories almost ready. Stanley and I are sharing a typewriter while mine is being fixed, and he gets it today, so the stories are delayed.
Between basketball and your reassuring tone on the phone I manage to take heart somewhat. I wish I had gone into the lithography business, like my father wanted me to.
Best,
S.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
January 19 [1953]
Dear Bernice,
This is for you. Whatever fee you think is best is okay with me.
Due to circumstances presumably within my control, I find work almost impossible right now. Every morning I plug away at doing one whole page and every evening I throw it out. If I ever get together three or four un-thrown-out pages I shall send them to you.
Also I can’t go outdoors because one of our strange cats has completely covered the doorstep with dead frogs.
Best,
S.
• • •
[To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]
january 19 [1953]
dearest mother and pop,
i’ve been trying to get to writing you since i got pop’s letter, but i’m scared, because every time i write to you we have a blizzard the next day. one morning the brakes were frozen, but fortunately they thawed out before i got to a hill.
a couple of days ago there was a big cocktail party at the college, given by a couple of students, with about fifty people asked. i spent most of the party feeding coffee to our hostess in the ladies’ room; they had decided to make martinis, which they had never made before, and had gotten into a good deal of trouble with the proportions, and had also done a good deal of sampling. the final result was probably the worst drink you have ever tasted, and of course the hostess flat on her back. i choked down about half of one martini, which turned out to be most fortunate; we left the party about nine, and walked outdoors into a sleet storm, and i got quite a surprise when we took the first corner, turned completely around, and ended up sideways on the road. i came home two miles an hour, took the sitter home at the same speed, nearly got cracked into by another car which came around a corner the same way i had, and got home without trouble; we were supposed to have about twenty people coming along to our house from the cocktail party, and only six got here. the general opinion was that if we had taken those dreadful martinis and sprayed them on the roads, the ice would have melted right off.
i suppose that once a vermonter gets to discussing the weather no other topic is possible. i can prove it, though, because in march when you come we will sit you down and make you look at color movies of the children playing in half an inch of snow. stanley’s parents sent his brother and us each a home movie outfit—everything from camera and film to projector and screen, including something called a viewer and half a dozen parts we haven’t fitted in yet. i got the camera end of it and stanley took on the projector, so we spent one evening studying the various books of directions and the first sunny day i went outdoors with the kids, and the dog and the cats, and took miles of pictures.
my own immediate idea was to forget about the kids altogether and make a small regular income in blackmail by taking movies of local parties, but stanley pointed out that once they find out you are going to bring your movie camera to parties they very shortly stop inviting you, and you find yourself socially isolated. i could have made a fortune at the cocktail party.
the kids are flourishing. right now the girls are making valentines, which makes spring seem not too far away. laurie is making marvelous things with his erector set, and is making timid experiments with his chemistry set, although i am in constant fear of an explosion from the cellar. jannie is very busy, either visiting or entertaining every afternoon after school. sally’s nursery school is closed for the winter, so i’m trying to keep her busy with afternoon visits. her main occupation now is singing. we gave her a book of children’s songs for christmas, and after a couple of evenings with everyone gathered around the piano singing them, she had learned them all. she has an amazing ear, and can pick up a tune accurately right away, and she has a fantastic memory. i use her all the time for grocery lists. jannie, who is our scholar, gets report cards which infuriate laurie, and it looks like all through school she will be the one who gets all a’s. we gave her grimm’s fairy tales for christmas, and i told her it was the book i learned to read on (i still remember it; baba gave it to me, and i sat there until i had read it, and i can remember that triumph when it began to make sense!) and she is doggedly working at it. she has, somehow, taught sally to read and write the alphabet; she is a surprisingly patient and careful teacher, and was delighted when stanley sat there stunned while sally laboriously wrote the whole alphabet correctly. barry took his first step on christmas eve, landing with a flop on his big brother. the room which he shares with laurie now has thousands of blocks thrown around, making it very difficult to go in to cover them during the night, a brooklyn dodgers banner and a mounted butterfly tacked on one wall, a homemade indian tomahawk and a bird painting, both done by laurie, on another wall, and practically a full-size model of a jet plane hanging by string from the middle of the ceiling. i now refuse to make laurie’s bed because i keep cracking my skull on the jet plane and i am convinced that while i am reeling around holding my head the tomahawk is going to fall down and cut off my foot.
i haven’t done much writing since i turned in my book manuscript. a kind of reaction to the strain of getting the darn thing done. they are working on the jacket now, and are definitely using the picture of the kids, plus a lot of gooey sentences apparently written by the under-office boy. i cut the worst of it out, but it’s still pretty bad.
stanley and i also want to thank you for the check, which was literally a godsend. we did certainly appreciate it very much, and thank you again.
our family doctor—much to the amusement of the children—had to go to the hospital for a minor operation yesterday, and stanley and a couple of the other grey ladies have gone off to visit him with a bottle of whisky and a deck of cards. i imagine that the doctor gets special privileges around the hospital, because it’s twelve o’clock and they’re not back yet. it’s just possible, of course, that they could have stopped off somewhere with their provisions and never gotten to the hospital at all.
we’re all waiting to see you in march; if we get a blizzard tonight i’ll send you a telegram.
lots of love from all,
s.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
Friday, March 20, 1953
Dear Bernice,
Many many thanks for the check, and for the thankless job I wished on you. I am deeply apologetic for having had to ask you to do it, and please believe that I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for extreme emergency. We were in one of those spots where the storage company was going to sell our furniture, and everybody else was on us, too. Ought I to write Roger?
Stanley has accepted an offer to teach again at Bennington, and begins in July. I think having an honest job after all these years of writing scares him a little, and I have quite forgotten the sober, self-effacing demeanor of the faculty wife, although I expect it will come back to me gradually. Stanley will have to find a suit, or at least a pair of pants and jacket that match. We will hav
e to get our books out of storage; he is teaching Folklore. I am practicing up on the conversation which begins “And this is your first year at Bennington? How interesting; and what do you plan to study? Bird care? How interesting; and are you fond of college? How—”
I have been writing and writing and writing, but nothing seems to finish itself. With any luck I should have a story in a few days, though.
Again, many thanks for the check and the getting-blood-from-a-stone. Will send that story as soon as I can.
Best,
S.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
March 26 [1953]
Dear Bernice,
The contract seems fine to me, and I’ll be glad to sign. One of my closest friends up here is a notary, and it will give me a splendid excuse to run over and have a drink with her.
I am having a very rough time with the typewriter; although I have done halves of several stories, nothing comes out right, and I’ve thrown away almost everything for the last three months. I don’t know why it is, and what it will come to, but of course it has happened before and no doubt will again, although why it always happens when we need the money worst, I don’t know. I have a story which I think is inferior, which I’ll send you as soon as it’s typed; I could be wrong about it, considering my general view of stories these days. Our financial situation continues very rough indeed, since Stanley doesn’t start teaching till July, and when no stories sell, bills accumulate. (Have you ever noticed bills accumulating?) Unless something else turns up, we will have to hit Roger again during April. I feel irresistibly like the dissolute young scion of a noble family who borrows from moneylenders against his inheritance.
My only cheerful item is that, unable to make any headway whatsoever with stories, I have kept doggedly at work on the new novel,*2 on the theory that what is no good in the novel can easily be cut. As a result I have thirty pages, solid, which Stanley has read and finds “remarkably good”; it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever read. As soon as I have fifty or so pages I’ll send them along to you and see what you think.
You think I ought to try writing poetry? Advertising jingles?
Best,
S.
• • •
“And one typewriter ribbon, for a Royal Portable, and a good typewriter mechanic if you have one.”
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
March 31 [1953]
Dear Bernice,
The Landmark book*3 sounds like a wonderful idea, and I’d like very much to do it. Laurie, who reads Landmark books, is extremely pleased with me.
Salem witchcraft sounds like a fine topic, since I already have enough of a library on the subject to get the material easily, once our books are out of storage I can do preliminary work on the outline and generally drafting the book on the information I can find in the college library here. Would Random House object to a contract of, say, a year, allowing me enough time to get to my books?
If the witchcraft idea should prove too horrible for kids, would they let me switch to another subject?
But I’d enjoy doing it; I like the subject, and very much want, at present, something definite to work on. Many thanks, ma’am.
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
Monday, April 6, 1953
Dear Bernice,
Sorry about the delay in the contract; had to cover Southern Vermont to find a notary, my friend having lapsed.
This thing which looks like a story is a story, and represents such a galvanizing of creative energy that it astonishes even me.
The trouble, I find, with writing and being absorbed in a book about dissociated personality is that after a while you begin to dissociate yourself. I am now worried about dissociating into a B3 personality which will finish the book to suit herself.
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Herbert Mayes, editor of Good Housekeeping magazine]
May 11, 1953
Dear Mr. Mayes,
I have always believed that you are a person of considerable sincerity and honesty, which is a good deal more than you apparently believe of me. Although for more than three years I have acknowledged and done my best to pay a debt to your organization, you refuse to recognize this, and view all my attempts with an air of suspicion and disbelief which surely indicates a strong doubt of my honesty, as well as my intelligence. I realize that one more protestation of my readiness to pay this debt by any means in my power can carry no more weight with you than my previous statements by letter and phone, but my own conviction, that you would if you realized the situation from my position do me more justice, argues that I should try once more.
I have only one source of income, and that is writing. I owe you a debt, which I have only two ways of paying. One of them is by means of stories, the method of payment originally and most reasonably intended, since it enables me to devote a certain number of stories to your magazine, which is of course what I always wanted to do. Although you have not found any of my stories satisfactory for your purposes, other editors have disagreed with you, and found them suitable and publishable. Failing to meet my obligation with stories, my only means of earning money, I have tried to arrange with you a plan whereby I may pay off my debt in the only way possible for a free-lance writer with an income derived solely from fiction sales, in small sums as it became possible for me to pay, irregularly by necessity, but with every intention of continuing payment until the debt was written off. I am sure you know as well as I do the impossibility of regular payments for such a writer, when sales are occasional rather than regular, and—in my case—barely enough to meet personal and household expenses.
My own preference in payment is, certainly, in favor of stories; naturally I feel a good deal more satisfaction and pride in seeing one of my stories in Good Housekeeping than I do, even, from paying off a part of my debt in cash. In spite of all my difficulties since with this debt, I have—as I know I have tried to tell you in every possible way—felt always that the arrangement with you which called for my sending you stories regularly as a generous and extraordinarily helpful offer on your part, made as much to assist an ambitious young writer as to have stories, and you know how deeply I regret that the arrangement I found so kind has become a source of worry and irritation to you, and that you have come to view me as a kind of dishonest, debt-dodging creature in whom you were unwise to put any trust.
I am sure that, since this situation has been largely forced upon you by the length of time gone by, and my own disagreeable financial position, any attempt to reinstate myself in your good graces is largely hopeless. I can only say again that I would like, more than anything I can think of, to be writing good stories and publishing them in Good Housekeeping; next to that I should like to pay off my debt to you as quickly as I can.
Sincerely,
Shirley Jackson
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
may 13 [1953]
dear bernice,
enclosed my newest document to mayes. my hair is curling. i got part of it, i believe, from an eighteenth-century letter-writer—it should end “until that day, i beg to remain, your most obedient humble servant,” but i didn’t have the nerve to put it in. first paragraph, indignation; second paragraph, justification; third paragraph, nostalgia; fourth paragraph, compliment. i have noted this down as a permanent form to follow. i have one further very secret line of defense; a charming girl i used to know confided in me once that mayes was always pinching her bottom at parties, and i am sure she is enough of a friend of mine to forbid him to pinch her any more if he sues me. i didn’t like to put it in the letter, though.
i hope it will surprise you pleasantly to hear that i have a good (that is, good) hundred pages of my new book, titled at present “the elizabeth case,” finished; the first two sections (of five) should be about a hundred and seventy five pages, and finished by the end of june and i’d like to send them to you then. nothing has gone so well in a long time; i know i’ve been talking about it for months but in the last few weeks it’s gone tremendously. long book, too.
everything seems to have turned good after being so bad. you must have powerful magic.
s.
all this and money too! check arrived just now—thanks
• • •
[To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]
wednesday [May 1953]
dearest mother and pop,
i’m writing this, uneasily, because when you were here you said we could call on you in a financial emergency, and i’m afraid we’ve got one; it’s not vital, but we need three hundred bucks, and if that is more than you can spare temporarily, it’s not such an emergency that we will be turned starving into the streets!
The Letters of Shirley Jackson Page 26