by Ann Hulbert
I am grateful for permission to quote from the correspondence of Stafford’s friends and family, as follows: James Oliver Brown; Whit Burnett (by permission of Whitney Burnett Vass); Lambert Davis; Nancy Flagg Gibney (by permission of Eleanor Gibney); Robert Giroux, Copyright © 1992 by Robert Giroux (courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University); Caroline Gordon (by permission of Nancy Tate Wood, courtesy of The University of Tulsa, McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections); James Robert Hightower; Ann Honeycutt (by permission of Robert MacMillan and Joseph Mitchell); Oliver Jensen; Karl Lehmann (by permission of Phyllis Williams Lehmann); A. J. Liebling (by permission of Russell & Volkening, Inc., as agents for the author, copyright © 1991 by Norma Liebling Stonehill; courtesy of the Department of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University); Robert Lowell and Charlotte Lowell (by permission of Frank Bidart, courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University); A. G. Ogden (by permission of the Atlantic Monthly Company); Dr. Jacques Quen (by permission of Dr. Thomas N. Roberts); Philip Rahv (by permission of Betty T. Rahv); Dr. Thomas N. Roberts; Delmore Schwartz (by permission of Robert Phillips); Evelyn Scott (by permission of Paula Scott); Mary Jane Sherfey (by permission of William E. Sherfey); John Stafford (by permission of Marjorie Stafford Pinkham); Allen Tate (by permission of Helen H. Tate, courtesy of Princeton Library and McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa); Peter Taylor (courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University); Paul and Dorothy Thompson; Edward Weeks (by permission of Phoebe-Lou Weeks); Katharine S. White (by permission of Roger Angell).
Soon after I began my research, I discovered that two other biographers were also at work. My aims have been different from theirs, but I have benefited from the ground covered and the information uncovered by David Roberts in Jean Stafford: A Life (Little, Brown) and Charlotte Margolis Goodman in Jean Stafford: The Savage Heart (University of Texas Press). Ian Hamilton’s Robert Lowell: A Biography (Random House) and Raymond Sokolov’s Wayward Reporter: The Life of A. J. Liebling (Harper & Row), the fullest biographical accounts of two of Stafford’s husbands, were also valuable resources.
Finally, I would like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for a fellowship in support of my work. But above all, I am grateful to my friends and family, without whom this book would have been unimaginable. Martin Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic, didn’t hesitate for a moment when I asked for a year’s leave to get started. Leon Wieseltier, my colleague in the magazine’s “back of the book,” urged me on, shouldering various burdens during my absence and sharing his thoughts about literature and criticism all along; those conversations have left their mark on the book. Scooter Libby gave me helpful legal advice. Mary Jo Salter was the first to see the manuscript, and as always, she was my ideal reader; the book’s final shape owes a great deal to her comments, large and small. Luke Menand, who stood in for me at The New Republic during my sabbatical year, helped me early on to refine my thoughts about what literary biography could and should be; four years later I relied once more on his advice. Dorothy Wickenden was yet again an acute and rigorous editor. Brad Leithauser, Jay Tolson, and Janet Hook gave me very useful suggestions in the last stages of my work. Many thanks also to my agent, Rafe Sagalyn, and to my endlessly patient and perceptive editor, Ann Close.
This book owes more than I can say to my husband, Steve Sestanovich. Over the past five years, he has seen me through not only its writing but the arrival of our children, Ben and Clare. I could not have wished for wiser help or more love.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1 “I am so sick”: JS to Ann Honeycutt, June 25, 1956, Jean Stafford Collection, Special Collections Dept., University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries.
2 “predilection for masks”: Howard Moss, “Jean: Some Fragments,” Shenandoah 30, no. 3 (1979), p. 78.
3 “Lowell-to-Liebling”: Wilfrid Sheed, “Miss Jean Stafford,” Ibid., p. 98.
4 “reporter’s moll” to “the Widow Liebling”: Ibid., p. 95.
5 “Although it often may”: Peter Taylor, “A Commemorative Tribute to Jean Stafford,” Ibid., p. 57.
6 “Actually, what she was like” to “she was always seeking”: Ibid., p. 59.
7 “Yet really we had the same life”: “For John Berryman,” Robert Lowell, Day by Day (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977), p. 27.
8 “What do I care”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
9 “The esthetic distance”: Guy Davenport, review of The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, The New York Times Book Review, Feb. 16, 1969, p. 40.
10 “the poets to a fare-thee-well”: Alden Whitman, “Jean Stafford and Her Secretary ‘Harvey’ Reigning in Hamptons,” The New York Times, Aug. 26, 1973, p. 78.
11 “You have spoken”: “Jean Stafford, a Letter,” Lowell, Day by Day, p. 29.
PART I: Cowboys and Indians and Magic Mountains, 1915–1936
CHAPTER 1: California and Colorado
1 “If I have that dream again”: Sheed, “Miss Jean Stafford,” p. 96.
2 “By the time I knew him”: JS, The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969), author’s note.
3 “whose life-long interest”: John R. Stafford, When Cattle Kingdom Fell (New York: B. W. Dodge and Co., 1910), dedication.
4 she was fond of citing: Eileen Simpson, Poets in Their Youth: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1982), p. 122.
5 “as soon as I could” to “they won’t go back”: JS, Collected Stories, author’s note.
6 “When Cattle Kingdom Fell is back”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, postmarked Aug. 19, 1969, JS Collection, U. of Co.
7 In 1920 her father’s: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d. (probably May 1940), JS Collection, U. of Co.
8 Richard Stafford’s land and money: JS notes, Samothrace folder, JS Collection, U. of Co.
9 John Stafford and Ethel McKillop’s meeting, marriage, early married life: Marjorie Pinkham to author, Apr. 20, 1987; and Charlotte Margolis Goodman, Jean Stafford: The Savage Heart (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), p. 9.
10 Malcolm McKillop and family: JS notes, Samothrace folder, JS Collection, U. of Co.
11 John Stafford’s career: obituary from JS Collection, U. of Co.; Marjorie Pinkham letter to author; John Stafford letter to JS, Dec. 21, 1951, JS Collection, U. of Co.
12 “get down to what”: John Stafford to JS, Dec. 21, 1950, JS Collection, U. of Co.
13 At the Covina ranch: Marjorie Stafford Pinkham, “Jean,” Antaeus, no. 52 (Spring 1984), pp. 11–13.
14 “Our days on the ranch”: Ibid., p. 11.
15 “She’s all right”: Ibid., p. 9.
16 “On the lippia lawn”: from a speech JS was to deliver at California State University at Northridge, quoted in William Leary, “Native Daughter: Jean Stafford’s California,” in Western American Literature 21, no. 3 (November 1986), p. 198.
17 “There is drama”: JS childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
18 In 1920 John Stafford sold: Pinkham, “Jean,” pp. 15, 18–21.
19 “The Rocky Mountains were”: JS, “Enchanted Island,” Mademoiselle 29, May 1950, p. 140.
20 “in truth [she] would”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
21 “My father … cursed”: JS notes, JS Collection, U. of Co.
22 “his mind was”: Pinkham, “Jean,” p. 14.
23 “She was nearly” to “not a man”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
24 “problem feeder”: JS, “On My Mind,” Vogue 162 (Nov. 1973), p. 200.
25 “The Stafford-McKillop predilection”: JS to Marjorie Pinkham, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
26 When Grandmother Stafford: David Roberts, Jean Stafford (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1988), p. 43.
27 As for Dick: Pinkham, “Jean,” p. 20; and Marjorie Pinkham to author.
28 “Jean was a quiet child”: Pinkham, “Jean,” p. 15.
29 “pledged al
legiance to the English language”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” lecture at 1952 Writers’ Conference in the Rocky Mountains, University of Colorado, p. 3.
30 “Sometimes when my eye”: JS to Marjorie Pinkham, Dec. 21, 1974, JS Collection, U. of Co.
31 “I typed it”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 3.
32 a friend, Howard Higman: Howard Higman interview with author, Dec. 18, 1986.
33 Anyone who walked with her: Mary Davidson McConahay, “Heidelberry Braids and Yankee Politesse: Jean Stafford and Robert Lowell Reconsidered,” Virginia Quarterly Review 62 (Spring 1986), p. 219; and Edward Joseph Chay interview with author, Dec. 23, 1986, reminiscing about college.
34 “a race of social-climbing”: JS, “Vox Populi” column, Prep Owl, Apr. 24, 1931.
35 “It wasn’t everyone” to “so stupidly serious”: JS childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
36 “before August” to “cool shaded lakes”: JS, “Fame Is Sweet to the Foolish Man,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
37 “pounding out ‘shorts’ ”: JS, “Smith Saga,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
38 “with only the true passion”: JS, “Our Latin Teacher,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
39 “the most imaginative”: JS, “Miss Lucy,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
40 “I am sending you”: John Stafford to Oliver Jensen, Nov. 13, 1950, JS Collection, U. of Co.
41 Roughing It (one of the books at Stafford’s bedside): Joseph Mitchell interview with author, Jan. 30, 1987.
42 “Pretty soon he would be”: Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad; Roughing It (New York: Library of America, distributed by Viking Press, 1984), p. 541.
43 “The Reo was packed”: JS, “Disenchantment,” JS Collection, U. of Co.
44 “How we suffered”: Twain, Innocents Abroad; Roughing It, p. 546.
45 “Our beautiful dreams were shattered”: JS, “Disenchantment,” JS Collection, U. of Co.
46 “years of tiresome”: Twain, Innocents Abroad; Roughing It, p. 548.
47 “We were dismayed” to “celestial spirited”: JS, “Disenchantment,” JS Collection, U. of Co.
48 “After his schooling”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
49 “I will rigidly eschew”: Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain (New York: Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 1984), p. 67.
50 “Some persons may ask”: JS, “Some Advice to Hostesses from a Well-Tempered Guest,” Vogue 164 (Sept. 1974), p. 296.
51 “frustrated spirit” to “spiritual valetudinarian”: Van Wyck Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1933), pp. 40–41.
52 “Of course there’s no market”: John Stafford to JS, June 3, 1963, JS Collection, U. of Co.
53 “Only a few people have”: John Stafford to JS, Feb. 26, 1950, JS Collection, U. of Co.
54 “There was a photograph”: JS, “Woden’s Day,” Shenandoah 30, no. 3 (1979), p. 13.
55 “Dan’s bilious moods”: Ibid., p. 16.
56 “laughter strangled him”: Ibid., p. 18.
57 “figure, this replica”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
58 “He got up at dawn”: Ibid.
59 “Much of Joyce’s tragedy”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 2: The University
1 “restless, plunging into work”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
2 Joseph Cohen: Howard Higman interview with author, Dec. 18, 1986.
3 “In my chronic inability”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
4 Stafford encountered psychology: Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 61.
5 “the splendor of [Dr. Rosen’s] intellect”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
6 “Miss Irene Pettit McKeehan”: JS, “Miss McKeehan’s Pocketbook,” Colorado Quarterly 24 (Spring 1976), p. 408.
7 “equipment as useless as any”: JS, “Souvenirs of Survival,” Mademoiselle 50 (Feb. 1960), p. 175.
8 “express [her]self”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.
9 “democrat of the” to “gangs”: JS, “Vox Populi” column, Prep Owl, April 24, 1931.
10 “my mother spared his feelings”: JS notes, JS Collection, U. of Co.
11 “ ‘Culture’ was a word” to “disrupts her plans”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
12 She wore jeans: Alex and Marie Warner interview with author, Dec. 17, 1986.
13 “Then she wandered about”: JS, “The Philosophy Lesson,” in Collected Stories, p. 362.
14 “She concluded”: Ibid., p. 365.
15 “In my last year”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 5.
16 “She did not really listen”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
17 “All of [the intelligentsia]”: Ibid.
18 “the red-haired queen”: Anatole Ehrenburg to author, Jan. 31, 1987.
19 “It was the fashion”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
20 “We would have been shocked”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 6.
21 “limp, disreputable entourage” to “terrifying modus vivendi”: JS to Edward Joseph Chay, July 3, 1948, JS Collection, U. of Co.
22 Lucy’s and JS’s relations: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.
23 Stafford was mesmerized: Ibid.
24 leaving the local boardinghouse: Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 66.
25 Her enthrallment: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.
26 according to another friend: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.
27 Just how entangled: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.
28 Lucy’s suicide: “Girl Student Shot Herself Late Saturday,” Boulder Daily Camera, Nov. 11, 1935.
29 “explanation of myself”: JS, “Truth and the Novelist,” Harper’s Bazaar 85 (Aug. 1951), p. 1189.
30 “Most of them”: Sinclair Lewis, quoted in After the Genteel Tradition: American Writers, 1910–30, ed. Malcolm Cowley (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964), p. 174.
31 “the aroma of Bohemianism” to “nine months”: Maurice Zolotow, “Bohemianism on the Campus,” American Mercury (Dec. 1939), quoted in James Atlas, Delmore Schwartz (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977), p. 35.
32 “Maisie herself was a symbol” to “imitate their ways”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
33 “My own morality” to “they existed in hers”: Ibid.
34 But it was not, it seems: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.
35 “badly lived life” to “most precious thing you have”: lectures and plays file, JS Collection, U. of Co.
36 “Too bad I failed” to “for the lonely man”: Ibid.
37 “She believed herself”: JS, In the Snowfall MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
38 “I think you had left Boulder”: JS letter to Edward Joseph Chay, Oct. 12, 1944, JS Collection, U. of Co.
39 “undisciplined eating arrangements”: Paul and Dorothy Thompson interview with author, Sept. 3, 1986; and Paul Thompson’s transcription of his diary, Feb. 16, 1935, courtesy of Paul Thompson.
40 “We both like her”: Paul Thompson’s transcription of his diary, March 1, 1935, courtesy of Paul Thompson.
41 “Landlocked, penniless, ragtag”: JS, “Souvenirs of Survival,” p. 175.
42 Lucy’s parents evidently agreed: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987; and JS to James Robert Hightower.
43 Hightower and Fairchild had both met Stafford: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.
44 merely “physical”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 28, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
45 The affinity between Stafford and Hightower: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.
46 her parents (who had temporarily moved to Denver): Marjorie Pinkham to author, Apr. 20, 1987.
PART II: The Innocent
s Abroad, 1936–1938
CHAPTER 3: Mentors
1 “In Heidelberg, tongue-tied”: JS, “Miss McKeehan’s Pocketbook,” p. 410.
2 “Radcliffe or Bryn Mawr” to “impossibly silly daydream”: Ibid., pp. 410–411.
3 Initially a favorite: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.
4 “In a foreign country”: JS, “It’s Good to Be Back,” Mademoiselle 34 (July 1952), p. 26.
5 “the helmets and the masks”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 1.
6 Stafford’s arrival in Heidelberg: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.
7 “The great engines of war”: David Donald, Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1987), p. 387.
8 “a nation of madmen”: JS to Andrew Cooke, Oct. 28, 1936, courtesy of Andrew Cooke.
9 “It was a grand, operatic, declamatory display”: JS notes for “Sense and Sensibility,” Barnard Lectures, unpublished MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
10 “It is with reluctance” to “very important work”: Martha Foley to JS, Jan. 25, 1937, Archives of Story Magazine and Story Press, Princeton University Library.
11 “This was the first time”: JS to Martha Foley, Feb. 5, 1937, Archives of Story Magazine and Story Press, Princeton University Library.
12 “I’m at work”: Ibid.
13 McKees’ loan: JS to James Robert Hightower and Robert Berueffy, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
14 after a difficult December: Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 111.
15 “When I think”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Jan. 13, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
16 a declaration of his isolation: Donald, Look Homeward, p. 353.
17 “It’s female trouble”: JS to James Robert Hightower and Robert Berueffy, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
18 he argued that in fact it was likely syphilis: Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 117.
19 she later told a friend: Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 111.
20 “It’s hideous”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.