I have been invited to read the first section of Elizabeth to the next Bennington college literary seminar. The psychology teacher and our family doctor are going to sit in the front row and look incredulous. I am boning up on pre-Freudian catch-phrases.
June Mirken Mintz*16 was with me when I sent the apples, and she asked that her best regards be sent you. The poor girl is going to have her first baby next January in New Haven (because he teaches at Yale) and they expect her to have it Without Fear,*17 except she isn’t going to; she has already got fear.
My letters to you are beginning to be as long as my letters to my mother. Except if I don’t write her every three weeks I get a telephone call from San Francisco and she starts saying feverishly “Dear, are you all right?”
Best,
S.
• • •
[To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]
december 30 [1953]
dearest mother and pop,
let me start by saying, generally, thank you very much from all of us, for all the wonderful things you’ve sent, and a particular thank you from me for the lovely birthday check, which went, with the christmas check, into our dishwasher fund. stanley feels that every minute i am not doing housework is potential writing time (although i actually spend it sleeping), and so, many thanks for the new dishwasher, which we expect to have in and operating by the time we see you.
we had a wonderful christmas, even better because it was our first in our new house. stanley’s brother and wife and child were here so that the house was full of excitement. we trimmed the tree on christmas eve and all the ornaments survived the storage and moving, except stanley wants me to tell pop that although the lights are still okay, they needed a little more tape this year, and new this year was stanley’s drinking eggnog from the children’s supply, while arthur and bunny and i, of course, had the reinforced variety.
the children and i combined this year, and got stanley just one present, a tape recorder, which he has wanted for years. he finally carefully recorded the children singing, but he cannot figure out how to erase. i am loaded with scarves and gloves and two unbelievably lovely indian miniature paintings, which are to go over my desk.
aside from playing with soldiers and trimming christmas trees, i have been doing nothing but working on my book, which is suddenly due on march first. i feel that i ought to make some kind of an effort on it, since they are paying me five thousand bucks on january tenth, and have already sold the reprint rights. if i get it done, it will be out in june; i’ll send you a copy, of course, but i bet you won’t like it. it’s had me walking in my sleep for the last month. the publishers are advertising it as a psychological horror story, but of course it’s really more like moby dick, penetrating to the depth of the human heart, and what not. i’m feeling very set up about it, as you can see, because i got through twenty pages last night and ten more this morning, which is real speed, considering that the plumber was putting in a shower upstairs at the same time and barry was steam-rollering christmas candies into the rug. not to mention stanley, who got the catalogue of king farouk’s coin collection, being sold at auction, and was feverishly leafing through it looking for something he could afford. savages is coming out in england this spring, i hope—also germany and sweden and denmark and i think france—and i am very much taken with my new english publisher, who seems like a charming man; at any rate, he writes nice letters and sends nice christmas cards. i have a subscription to punch for christmas, so i can watch for reviews.
stanley and i were talking today about what a year this has been for us; i think it’s the best year we’ve ever known. i think it’s the house that makes it so wonderful, actually, because we’ve never had a place of our own before, and never lived anywhere we liked so well. i think you’ll like it, too, when you see it, and now it’s less than three months before you come. do you prefer a private apartment, or the guest room?
lots of love from all, and many thanks again.
s.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
December 31 [1953]
Dear Bernice,
Can’t let the old year go without telling you that I have just gotten a running start into section four, going like mad, pages piling up on all sides of the typewriter, and S. says it scares him to death. He read section three and was afraid to go to bed.
I took Christmas Eve off, though.
Best,
S.
• • •
“—and in return for these few suggestions, Mr. Ross, all I would like is a small raise in sal—”
[To Ralph Ellison]
January 8, 1954
Dear Ralph,
It was a tremendous success,*18 and he has been doggedly recording Sally singing “Away in a Manger” and Jannie reciting “The Night Before Christmas” and Laurie singing “What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor” and Barry saying “Wha? Gimme candy” and such priceless records of culture in our time; he refuses to believe that I was capable of unearthing your secret phone number. Also, now that I am able to discuss our conversations over the phone, I am unable to remember any of the news you told me, so you will positively have to write him and tell him yourself.
In any case, thanks again; it was wonderful of you. And when you coming up? Record a little something? Can you sing tenor?
Best to you and Fanny. Come soon.
S.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
February 15 [1954]
Dear Bernice,
I’m scared to say anything about Elizabeth; except, of course, that you’re going to be seeing her quite soon. What do you think of “The Others” for a title?
And I know how it comes out, too. Last person I would have suspected.
Best,
S.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
March 1 [1954]
Dear Bernice,
It is with sorrow that I have to tell you that you will not see Elizabeth for another week or ten days; I thought she would be ready, but now it seems wiser to make several drastic corrections before sending it in, rather than trying to do them in proof, say. And I was so proud of my deadline!
Also, do you think that Mr. Cerf would give me a stay of execution? A couple of months, say? I have the book well sketched out, and could finish it fairly soon, but, to tell the truth, I am so limp from Lizzie that I lack the capacity to approach the new one with any energy, and I do want to do it well. If he says no, naturally I’ll get right to work on it.
Now all of a sudden I am real timid and shy about Lizzie. I hope she remembers her company manners when I let her go out alone.
Best,
S.
P.S. I’m writing Roger about the delay. He no longer dares write me, probably for fear of shaking my delicate artistic balance. He writes to S.
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
May 17, 1954
Dear Bernice,
I have been working on a combination of McCarthy hearings by day, and witchcraft trials by night, a truly well-rounded life. The W. book moves on splendidly, and except for trying to play down the scary parts, I am going very well with it; I think I can say that it is going to be ready on time, although I hate to commit myself, since it always turns out that I want to rewrite pages 43-67.
At any rate, the great good feeling between me and Roger at present provokes me into thinking that he could be persuaded to put forth another two thousand advance on Elizabeth. I have been trying to do a couple of stories in between trials, but until they get themselves finished, we are going to have to hit Roger, although I hate to do it. He has been talki
ng so enthusiastically about reprints and N. Book Awards, that I think he has enough confidence in the book to advance at least another thousand. As a matter of fact, he has promised to eat three copies in Macy’s window if it doesn’t get the N.B.A. He might be getting off better for two thousand. What do you think?
Did you know that six witches were at last exonerated by the Mass. legislature this year, after three hundred years? I cannot find out what would happen to their property, which was confiscated by the church when they were condemned; it would be, now, approximately in the middle of the Boston business district.
If Mr. Cerf wants a bibliography, I have a splendid one for him, nothing published later than 1720. I thought I’d put one in anyway, because I’m using some of the trial records, and he should know I didn’t make them up, although there is a terrible temptation to improve on them.
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
August 1 [1954]
Dear Bernice,
Here are the contracts. I think Mr. Joseph*19 is pleasant to deal with, and he certainly made Savages into a nice-looking book. I’m glad he likes this one.
I am working on the witches, except that the devil background the lady asked for involves approximately four thousand years of theological debate. (Were there, in 1860, really 6666 cohorts of demons, each including 666 companies? Is it true that the demon Asmodeous could not spell French?) I am enjoying it, however. Can you use a spell to drive away Lyars and Beggards?
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
September 30 [1954]
Dear Bernice,
Naturally, whatever you decide about a Hollywood sale of Bird’s Nest is all right with me, although the notion of Selling It To The Movies is intoxicating. Are you going to encourage them to improve the offer?
Just out of curiosity, do you think they would use four actresses, or one?
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Bernice Baumgarten]
October 11 [1954]
Dear Bernice,
Here are the additional sentences for Life; I have just worked them into the first paragraph of the story. I left out some such explanation as this originally because I thought the story was too long.
The royalty check staggered me. I was positive the decimal point was in the wrong place, but I am beginning to believe it now. As a result I now have the most beautiful refrigerator you’ve ever seen; the old one lasted long enough to show up in the Life story, and then went to pieces. It filled the house with some horrible choking gas, necessitating my rushing the children outdoors and down to the hamburg stand for lunch, providing me with material for a new story, if the market is not already overfull of refrigerator stories.
Do you want more stories? I never know whether to do more or not, when there are a couple out. I am afraid of overdoing it.
Best,
Shirley
• • •
[To Betty Pope, who has replaced Herbert Mayes at Good Housekeeping]
[undated, probably fall 1954]
dear miss pope,
i think that a monthly series on home and children would be great fun and could actually be an original and provocative idea. it does seem to me that the first step ought to be getting away from the hackneyed, every-other-magazine type of article, the things that have been done to death and are simply not entertaining any more, and trying out instead a kind of off-beat (if you will forgive the word) series; the little odd things that haven’t been used so often, the sudden unexpected views. i think of things like the children who are born losers of things and the ones who are born finders, the one child in the family who always gets the piece of shell in the scrambled egg or the bone in fish, the various small terrors and guilts of the mother every day and the shocks of finding out in many ways that one’s children are real people. i don’t propose these as necessarily subjects for articles, but as an idea of the kind of different ideas that should be used. also wonder about your aiming the articles at young mothers; in my experience the entire local p.t.a. reads good housekeeping, and the ages of their children cover a considerable range. i think there are a good many small funny articles that can be done about high school students and their parents, with a considerable audience for them; if nothing else, it would give the parents of smaller children a glimpse into the future.
i suppose that essentially what i am saying is that there is just so much fun and satisfaction in day-to-day life in a family that maybe it’s time someone wrote about that, and shouted down the children-are-monsters people. some articles, perhaps, on the infuriating things, like bullies and outsiders and meanness, but always stressing the notion that things are fundamentally nice. i get many letters from women who feel that they are buried hopelessly under the endless problems of a family, and have found that just one humorous article has given them enough of a brief new glimpse so that they can dig in again and get the laundry done in half the time, or get through dinner one more night without screaming.
i admit it’s a subject important to me. i’d like to know what you think.
Shirley Jackson
• • •
[To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]
october 15 [1954]
dearest mother and pop,
it’s been such a long time since i wrote, and i’m sorry. i’ve been feeling very tired and depressed for most of the summer—still working off my wild writing schedule last winter—and haven’t had energy or spirit to write. things look a good deal better now, however, and i’m feeling more like getting to the typewriter.
life magazine decided that they wanted a new feature, a short humorous fiction piece; they were going to experiment with one issue and then decide whether it would work, and they asked me to do the first one. my agent, who is a great one for getting every nickel there is in such a deal, arranged that life should pay me two thousand dollars if they bought the story, and one thousand if they turned it down. i tried to make them agree to give me five hundred if i didn’t write it at all, but they wouldn’t go that far. anyway, they have the story, and can’t make up their minds. the agent writes that they are afraid that the story may be too difficult for the average reader to understand. they asked if i would please write an additional paragraph making everything absolutely clear, which i did, and they are still worrying. we get the impression that changing the format of life is something like tearing down the new york skyline. in any case, once they opened the envelope they owed me a thousand bucks. also, if this should work out they may ask me to do more.
my crazy agent has also turned down a movie offer for bird’s nest because it wasn’t good enough. and she bounced a publishing company who wanted me to do a weekly newspaper feature column. every so often she calls and tells me about these things, and it’s wonderful, because i get all the feeling of importance without having to do any work.
i believe laurie wrote you about your nice birthday present, and told you he dashed right out to the lumber yard—where he is a prized customer—to get plywood to make his train table. he has that big extra room, you know, and it is almost filled with the train setup. he takes carpentry shop in school, so the train table is quite well made. he also made barry a fine bookcase, which barry is very proud of, and he is working on some very important object in the barn which stanley and i are not permitted to see. this is the first year he has really liked school, and is doing much better than ever before. all three older children have started piano lessons, and seem to like it, although practicing is horrible. jannie is also in a drama class—her dearest desire—and once a week she goes off and, so far, paints scenery. sally has a dear fri
end, and they go back and forth to school together and tell each other the three words they have learned to read. it is so strange having all four of them gone.
i heard from my agent this morning that she had sold another story. it means i shall have to get to work; that was my last remaining unsold story; it went to mccalls, which has never bought anything before, but bernice says she is going to send them stuff regularly. i wonder if their recipes are better than the companion’s?
i am reading at the college tomorrow night, selections from all my books. when i called stanley to tell him about the story sale, he said he would take me out to dinner to celebrate.
we are all very excited that you might be coming; i hope you will be able to. it would be so nice to see you, and laurie and i will beat pop at pingpong. we set our pingpong table up in the barn, and have been playing every day. at first stanley had to give me a fifteen point handicap, and now laurie and i can both beat him, but laurie can beat me. laurie had never played before, and it’s amazing how fast he is. so pop will have to practice, or laurie will give him a handicap.
everyone sends lots of love. hope to see you very soon. love,
s.
• • •
The Letters of Shirley Jackson Page 29