by Ultan Macken
One of the street games played in our road was called kiss and chase. The boys lined up on one side of the street, with the girls on the other side. The girls would turn their back on us, count up to sixty and we would run and hide. If the girls caught you, you had to kiss them. Myself and my best friend Paddy Mervin were the smallest boys in the road. As soon as the game began, we would hide ourselves in the garden shed, right down at the bottom of our long back garden. As six-year-olds, we were of course terrified of girls and especially of them kissing us.
On one occasion when we were hiding, I saw my eleven-year-old brother smoking with his two friends at the corner of the shed. I was shocked and immediately ran into our kitchen. My mother and father were there: mother standing at the sink smoking and father sitting down smoking. I ran in and said in a rush of words: ‘Daddy, Daddy, Wally Óg is out the back smoking!’ There was a shocked silence in the kitchen. My father went to the kitchen door and called my brother. When he came into the kitchen, my father asked him about the smoking. Of course my brother denied it and they believed him. My father was furious and I think he gave me a slap, the only time in his life that he raised his hand to me. I was shocked more by the fact that I had been accused of lying than by my big brother lying through his teeth!
Meanwhile my father and Macmillan were still discussing the short stories and it was very hard for him to receive letters like the following, after Lovat Dickson had rejected one of his short stories about the life of a salmon:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
29th November 1948
Dear Macken,
Thank you for your letter of November 24th. Mine of the 22nd seems to have upset even your equable temperament. However, differences are good things on matters of this kind, because though you may think my view is obstinate, it will represent at least what a part of your readers think. I believe that we can only sentimentalise those animals whose actions we have an opportunity to observe closely and continually, and who can themselves exhibit a range of emotions like gratitude and affection. That is why I think the salmon is out of it.
I did not mean to hint that you ought to give up writing short stories: far from it. I meant only to warn you that it was a particularly difficult medium to work in. I had an impression that you felt it was as easy to do a good short story as to do a good novel, and I happen to think it is more difficult. I am glad to know that you will persevere. As long as you do not mind a quite frank expression of opinion on the stories you show me I will always be glad to read them. I will look forward this week to reading ‘Battle’ and ‘The Passing of the Black Swan’, and I will write to you about them just as fully and as frankly as ever.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Lovat Dickson
My father sent two more stories within weeks, which drew the following response:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
7th December 1948
Dear Macken,
These stories I like much better: ‘Battle’ and ‘The Black Swan’. They are good stories both and I think will be liked. In the case of each, if I may say so, you don’t approach a pitfall, but successfully encircle it. I don’t want to stress too much the danger of sentiment, but it is a thing which I think you should beware of: you come perilously close to it with the old man and his boat, and the understanding scene between the Sergeant and Seán at the end of ‘Battle’. But in these matters a miss is even better than a mile: you have the advantage of having worked an emotion successfully without the disadvantage of having it drown you and your story in unreality.
I hope I have made my point of view clear about that. As long as you can use sentiment as an instrument as you do in these two stories and get away with it, you are doing fine: it is only when the vapours of sentiment thicken and obscure the pattern of your story that it becomes dangerous. I begin to wonder at this stage if some little link between the stories isn’t necessary? So far the ‘Citie’, though you often refer to it, isn’t clear in my mind as the little recognisable world I think you mean it to be. I should like it to be clearer so that I should know instantly its topography whenever you refer to it. I ought to know what the bay looks like, and how the town appears against the skyline, as they sail the ‘Black Swan’ home at night, and where the police station is, and how far of a walk, and through what streets and surroundings Seán was led on his way to the Tinker’s Fair at Eyre Square. I should like the same characters now and then to wander through all the stories, as characters do in a Hitchcock film. Adding in topographical detail in each story will not be enough by itself, but I was wondering, as I read today, whether that difficult first story or introduction which you have laboured over might not be simply a sketch of the town itself. And an assembly of the characters there who are going to come into all the other tales? Like the prologue to the ‘Canterbury Tales’? I don’t know, but it might be worth thinking about.
Yours ever,
Lovat Dickson
Two weeks later, two further stories prompted the following letter:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
14th December 1948
Dear Macken,
This note is just to acknowledge the two further stories, ‘First Kiss’ and ‘Mary Ann’. I look forward to reading these and to writing to you about them in a few days’ time. I am glad you liked the idea for the Introduction. I can see the difficulty in keeping a few characters running through the stories, but I still think it might be a good idea. These characters could be unconscious commentators. Perhaps commentators, is hardly the right word, but I mean someone whose entrance to the scene will touch a chord of memory in the reader’s mind. All they need to do is pass across the scene: they need not say anything or have anything to do with the story, but the view of them will serve to emphasise the fact that these stories all have a unity of place.
Yours sincerely,
Lovat Dickson
Next came a letter with Dickson’s comment on ‘First Kiss’ and ‘Mary Ann’.
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
23rd December 1948
Dear Macken,
These are two very interesting stories, ‘First Kiss’ and ‘Mary Ann’. I think they both deserve to go into the collection. You come dangerously near sentiment with both of them, particularly with ‘Mary Ann’, but with Mackenesque agility you manage to avoid it, and I must congratulate you on both stories. By ‘sentiment’ I hope you will understand that I mean a state approaching sentimentality, but not quite that. This word is constantly changing in meaning. Sentiment is a necessary ingredient of any narrative, but it must be an ingredient and not the whole mixture.
Yours sincerely,
Lovat Dickson
Another encouraging letter came towards the end of January:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
20th January 1949
Dear Macken
I have now had a chance to read ‘Colm Comes to the Citie’ and ‘Dad’. They make interesting reading, but my criticism in the case of both these stories is that the plot is too obvious. It is plain what is to happen to Colm; and the sort of man that Dad was to turn out to be was evident from the beginning of the story, for as you no doubt know, this theme has been done many times before.
There is further criticism to offer that they are longer than they need to be. I think the effect would be heightened if you were to cut out some of the unnecessary words. But these criticisms made, the stories have, as all your writing has, light and air in them, and the descriptions of countryside and character are excellently done. No doubt they will fit well into the collection, but I must be frank and say that I do not like them as well as some of the other contributions you have made.
We have now reached the stage, I think, when you have written enough to assemble these stories into the sort of book you visualise. The new Introduction or an introductory story needs to be written, but if you could complete that and let us have what will be the MS of a volume of short stories, I should like to show them to som
e of our readers, whose judgement we are bound to take. Are you ready to do that, or would you rather wait until you have written some more?
Yours sincerely,
Lovat Dickson
As a result of this letter from Dickson, my father compiled a list of the stories that he felt were ready to be included in his first collection:
The Boy and the Brace
Bill
First Kiss
Black Swan
Battle
Mary Ann
Colm
Dad
Intro
Spanish Joe
Saga
Pugnug
Tale of a Kid
The only story he put a question mark over was ‘Spanish Joe’. However, there was bad news from Lovat Dickson:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
25th March 1949
Dear Macken,
I am sorry that we have taken rather longer than we had hoped in considering the new MS of short stories. These went to several readers, all of whom knew your earlier work, and we have had long and interesting reports from them which reflect the careful thought they had given to the publishing problems presented by these stories. The Board has now considered these reports, and I am instructed to write to you and give you our views on the MS itself, but especially the relationship it bears to the general programme of work.
I must frankly tell you that the reports were not altogether favourable. As you know, views differ widely about short stories, and hardly any two readers admire the same thing. Your effectiveness in creating character and in getting over the idiom of the Irish countryside was universally praised, but each of the readers felt that these stories did not succeed in creating the impression that you obviously meant them to have. Oddly enough – because none of them know what the other had said – each commented on the impression the stories gave of not being worked over sufficiently. I think I remember in our earlier correspondence about this that I mentioned the same thing, so this is evidently the effect your stories have on several types of reader, at least.
I do not think there is anything to be gained by your going over each of the stories now, even if you were willing to do so. But we would suggest that you put the MS aside until after ‘I Am Alone’ is published. (That is to come, by the way, in our six month publishing programme.) Then we would suggest that you look at this MS again, perhaps discarding some of these stories, working over some of the others to meet the criticisms of those readers.
Whether that will result in producing a MS that passes all the tests it is hard to say, but I do believe that if you put this MS on one side for about six months, you will want to discard some of the stories and will see in the others a need for a re-writing that you did not see at the moment.
I hope you will take this advice, given with all friendliness, in good part. We have now published a novel for you and two plays and have another novel in the press. We are at the most critical point of your career, and although this is the second time (actually the third time) that we have asked you not to publish something, I believe that in offering advice that must be unpleasant to receive we are acting in your best interests. Do think it over and see if you do not agree. Meanwhile I will keep the stories here and will not send them back to you until I hear from you.
Yours sincerely,
Lovat Dickson
My father was shocked by this rejection:
31 Ardpatrick Road,
Cabra.
March 26th 1949
Dear Dickson,
Your letter of 25th at hand. You don’t have to be told I am sure that I was duly shocked. The truest word in your letter is about ‘the most critical point in my career’ such as it is.
I’ll tell you the way I feel. You published ‘I Am Alone’ rather against your will, I imagine. I remember you saying it would not be food for your reputation, so that reading the proofs of it now I find myself almost hating it and feeling that it is no good at all. I gave a lot to the stories you have rejected. Now frankly I have come to the point where I don’t think anything I could ever write again would meet with your approval. I genuinely cannot see myself sitting down to write anything anymore without saying to myself, well what’s the use, Macmillans won’t like it. That of course is a fatal feeling, and I don’t see how it will ever be possible for me to overcome it.
So there I leave you. There’s no use going into impassioned reasons for why I think you are wrong and I am right or the other way about. You will know in what category to place me as an author, I cannot help the feeling that publishers no more than doctors have often been wrong.
I will be obliged if you will let me have the MS at your convenience and my thanks again for the care with which you read them. For the moment, I find I have nothing further to say.
Sincerely yours,
Walter Macken
My father sent another letter that same day posing a number of questions to Dickson:
March 26th 1949
Dear Dickson,
Further to my letter of 26th and to assist me in coming to a decision, would you please answer the following questions if possible?
1. Did the readers dislike all the stories?
(If the answer to this is yes, you needn’t bother with all the other questions.)
2. What stories taking an average of their report, did the readers like?
3. Why did they like them?
4. What stories met with their partial disapproval?
5. What stories met with their complete disapproval?
6. Why?
If it is possible to answer some of these questions for me without being unethical it might be a great help in straightening out the way I feel now.
Sincerely,
Walter Macken
Lovat Dickson replied promptly to his letters:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
29th March 1949
Dear Macken,
Thank you for your letter of March 26th, I am more sorry than I can say that our decision should have upset you so much. I know quite well what your first feelings must be, and I have complete sympathy with you in the mood that must have been on you when you wrote.
I am returning the stories under separate cover. I hope that we may see each other soon and talk about this whole matter. That is so much more satisfactory than trying to get one’s ideas over in a letter.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Lovat Dickson
My father was convinced that Tales of a Citie was ready to be published, so he submitted the MS to Collins in the UK:
Abbey Theatre.
July 7th 1949
Peter Wyld Esq.,
Collins Publishers.
Dear Mr Wyld,
Thanks a lot for your letter of the 5th. I’m glad to hear that the mix-up over the letter was due to such very human things as marriages and illnesses and I hope that they are all duly eliminated now.
I am enclosing herewith the MS of ‘Tales of a Citie’. The delay in assessing it will be expected by me. I have learned patience in a hard school. With all best wishes, and when you have come to a decision about the MS would you please direct the body or the report of the inquest to my private address below.
Sincerely yours,
Walter Macken
31 Ardpatrick Road, Cabra, Dublin.
However, nothing came of his efforts to get another publisher to publish the stories.
The turning point of my father’s writing career happened in 1949 and it was his newly completed novel, Rain On The Wind, that was to bring about the change. He wrote to Lovat Dickson:
31 Ardpatrick Road.
November 9th 1949
Dear Dickson,
As you see, I am not dead but living. It’s a long time since we heard from each other. I am writing now to say that I have completed a new book called ‘Rain on the Wind’, written about events and people on my own heath so to speak, and I’m wondering if Macmillans would read it and let me kn
ow what they think of it.
I don’t know when you will be bringing out ‘I Am Alone’ but when you are sending me the author’s copies would you include another six extra and put them against my account. I have so many relatives that have to have them.
I hope you are well and haven’t forgotten me.
Sincerely yours,
Walter Macken
It seems that he wrote this novel in the period between spring and November 1949, when his short story collection, Tales of a Citie was rejected. Lovat Dickson answered by return post:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
11th November 1949
Dear Macken,
I am glad to hear from you again after so long, to know that you are well, and to have the good news that you have completed a new book. Certainly we should like to consider it. Do send it right away, and you may be sure that we will examine it, carefully, and sympathetically.