I sold my Jeep when I left Rome.
Ever,
Tenn
« • »
little blue book: JL’s A Small Book of Poems (ND 1948).
the men tattooed Baudelaire: JL’s poem, “The Man in the Subway.”
Some Natural Things: A book of poems by JL (ND 1945).
Rossolini: Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (1906–1977), Italian film director and screenwriter, husband of actress Ingrid Bergman.
Anna Magnani: (1908–1973). Fiery Italian actress of stage and film, Magnani won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Serafina in the film version of The Rose Tattoo, 1955.
Olivier’s Hamlet: Laurence Olivier (1907–1989). Olivier directed the London premiere of Streetcar starring his wife, Vivienne Leigh, as Blanche DuBois.
61. TLS—1
October 27, 1948 [New York]
DEAR JAY:
Please remember not to let One Arm be displayed for sale in bookstores. When I heard that Miss Steloff had ordered 200 copies, I became alarmed with visions of you and I pinned up like our one-armed hero. I hope that the book will be distributed as we planned, entirely by subscription. Let me know how you plan to distribute it. It is the most beautiful book you have yet made, and I am crazy about it.
Call me as soon as you can.
Sincerely,
T. Williams
« • »
Miss Steloff: Frances Steloff (1888–1989), founder and longtime owner of the Gotham Book Mart in New York City.
62. TL—1
November 29, 1948 [New York]
DEAR TEN:
I have a lot of things to talk to you about, and I hope you will be sure to see me before you plunge off into the African Velt, or sandstorm. But there is one thing that I want to write a letter about, so that I will be sure not to forget it.
When I was in Boston the other day, I went in to see the Houghton Mifflin people, and they gladly gave me permission to reprint Carson’s book, Reflections in a Golden Eye in a New Classics Series, and they will lend me the plates to do it.
Now what I was wondering was, whether when you got over there in Africa, you would find the time and inclination to write a special introduction for our edition. I know how you feel about Carson, and all I can tell you is that your name is very hot at the moment, as you know, and that it would help to sell the book a great deal, and get it the kind of notice which it deserves.
Isn’t it an awful commentary on our culture that a writer as great as Carson should have to have any help at all in getting her work to the public. But that’s the way it is, and all we can do is just get in there, and kick and scratch the best we can.
Are you going on December 2nd, or will the strike hold you back? I’m going to Utah on the 5th, so be sure to call me when you get back from St. Louis, so we can get together. There are a lot of things to talk about.
As ever,
James Laughlin
SECTION VII
PF: When did Tennessee and Frankie get together? Do you remember? Sometime in the late forties I guess.
JL: There again, could you pick up anything out of the diaries? I remember Frankie vividly, how he was.
PF: Tell me about it. Tell me about him.
JL: Well, he was a little man, a Sicilian from Newark. Very conversational. He annoyed a lot of us because he would answer for Tennessee you know, and I’d ask Tennessee a question and Frankie would say, Tennessee thinks this or that, which it might not have been. Frankie was a vulgar little man—he’d been a sailor—he was very small. I once asked Tennessee, I said, “Tennessee, why do you love Frankie?” and Tennessee sort of smiled and said, “He has the most beautiful skin.”
« • »
Frankie: Frank Philip Merlo (1922–1963). Sicilian born Merlo and TW met in Provincetown, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1947. They ran into one another in Manhattan the following year and remained a couple, lovers and partners, until just about a year before Merlo’s death from cancer. Enduring nearly fifteen years, their relationship lasted longer than any TW had before or after.
63. TL—3
December 18, 1948 [Alta, Utah]
DEAR TEN:
I hope that you had a good trip over and have been having fun in Spain, and that this letter will eventually reach you. I didn’t know any other address where to send it, except in care of Paul [Bowles].
This will be mailed to you from the office in New York, but I am dictating from out in Utah, where I have been for ten days, getting the ski place started up for the winter. We already have about eight feet of snow on the ground, and the atmosphere is about as removed from that of New York as anything could be, which I rather welcome. On the other hand, it doesn’t begin to have the peasant village kind of charm that I found in Switzerland last winter, and I’m very homesick for those places where I was last year.
Maria was in the office the other day, asking for copies of all your books, and I’ll see that she gets them when I get back. I must say that situation has me pretty well buffaloed. I like her, and would like to do something to help her out, but I just couldn’t possibly give her the job that she wanted in the office, because there is absolutely nothing in our line that she is qualified to do. She can’t even type. Even if I put her at something like filing addresses, I’m afraid that that terrific voltage of Russian emotion, which she gives off all the time, would set the place half on its ear. However, I’m sure that she knows that I am always good for a meal, if she gets hungry, and maybe something will break for her unexpectedly on the stage.
I have read the scripts which you left with me, and wanted to let you know what I thought about them.
First of all, the little play about the two old dollies in a restaurant in St. Louis during the Legion Convention [A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot]. These are good characterizations, I think, and the tone rings very true, but I don’t feel that there is enough dramatic development to make a play of it. It seems to me that it is just a sketch in its present form, and that you ought to hang on to it, and perhaps work it into something else later. I don’t think it is up to the level of the other ones in the 27 Wagons volume.
As for the play about the death of D. H. Lawrence [I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix], I think that is simply beautiful and terribly convincing. I have read a good many books about Lawrence, mostly by that horde of women who chased after him, and I think that your interpretation ranks with that of Knud Merrild for supposedly human veracity. I say supposedly, because I never knew Lawrence, and only have my own idea of what he must have been like, but your picture fits in with mine and is credible. It’s a terribly moving thing. Did you write this after you had been in Taos with Frieda, and what does she think about it. To the uninitiated, it might seem a bit rough on her, and I suppose you ought to get her permission before you publish it. For that reason, I daresay, we ought to wait, and not try to get it into the new edition of 27 Wagons right now. We have to hurry with that printing because the stores are clamoring for books. So I think we will go ahead with the same contents of 27 Wagons this time, just adding the little essay that appeared in The Star, which I liked.
But I do definitely think that the Lawrence play ought to be published, and I want to suggest that you let it be done in a small special edition, printed by those boys who do that gorgeous hand printing up at the Cummington Press in Massachusetts. Do you know their work? It is about the best hand printing being done in the United States today. I have an enormous admiration for those two guys. They live together up there in the hills of Massachusetts, under the most primitive conditions, cutting their own fire wood, and sometimes almost starving, and doing this beautiful printing unassisted by modern technical means. I would love to throw a thing like this their way, because I know it would sell well, and help them to make a little money, and they certainly desperately need it. And I know that you would be absolutely delighted with the beautiful piece of printing which they would make out of it. As they run by hand on a dampened sheet, they
would only print 200 or 300 copies, I think, which would sell at a fairly high price. After these were gone, we could then include the play in the next printing of 27 Wagons, or, we could photo-offset it for a little book by itself. Will you let me know how this strikes you, and perhaps drop a word to Audrey about it, and then I will follow the thing along. I think also that we ought to show it to Frieda, and get her okay in written form.
Now about the story, “The Kingdom of Earth,” I must confess that I like this a great deal. This is something to which I would apply my phrase of “clean dirt.” To me, there is salacious sex, such as you find in magazines like The Ladies Home Journal, and there is good, clean honest sex, such as you find in Henry Miller and Lawrence in a story like that one. I think it is well done, and makes a terrific impact, and is honest and clean. Of course, however, there’s absolutely no possibility of printing that in this country. If you wanted to have it appear, it could be arranged to do it in Paris with the man who publishes Henry Miller there. I suppose, however, that Audrey would have a fit over such a project, and possibly she is right from her point of view. Anyway, there is no hurry to do anything about it as far as I can see.
[ . . . ]
As ever,
[James Laughlin]
« • »
Maria: Maria Britneva (1921–1994) was a British would-be actress and ballerina of Russian extraction who met TW at a party given by John Gielgud after the opening of the London production of The Glass Menagerie. JL first met her when she came to New York in the fall of 1948. JL and Britneva were briefly engaged in 1954, but JL decamped to India, breaking the engagement. In 1956, shortly following JL’s marriage to Ann Resor, Maria married Lord Peter St. Just, but she remained friends with both JL and TW.
the little play about the two old dollies: The two women from A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot later appeared as the two floozies in Rose Tattoo. The final version of Perfect Analysis was published in Esquire magazine in October 1958, later collected in Dragon Country (ND 1970).
play about the death of D. H. Lawrence: I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix, originally published in a limited edition (ND 1951) and printed at the Cummington Press.
Knud Merrild: (1894–1954), Danish painter known for his cubism and abstract surrealism; he influenced Man Ray, Jackson Pollock, and others.
the little essay that appeared in The Star: TW’s “On the Art of Being a True Non-conformist” was originally published in the New York Star in 1948 and later titled “Something Wild . . .” when it was published in the paperback edition, 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (ND 1953).
those boys [ . . . ] Cummington Press: Beginning in the late 1940s, the young couple, Harry Duncan and Paul Wightman Williams, ran a highly successful letterpress printing company in Cummington, and later Rowe, Massachusetts, until Williams was killed in a 1956 car crash.
the man who publishes Henry Miller there: JL is referring to Maurice Girodias, the son of Jack Kahane, who published Henry Miller (and other innovative writers such as James Joyce and Lawrence Durrell) at his Obelisk Press in Paris in the 1930s. Kahane died in 1939, but Girodias (who had assumed his mother’s non-Jewish surname during World War II) revived his father’s operation as the Olympia Press in 1953.
64. TLS—1
4/10/49 [Rome]
DEAR JAY:
I had quite a hard time writing this introduction [for Carson McCullers’s Reflections in a Golden Eye] since I didn’t quite know what I was supposed to do with it, that is, what purpose it should serve, since Carson and her work are already so well-known and established. I may have taken altogether the wrong slant on it, particularly in the personal anecdotes and the stuff about her influence on a writer that will certainly be recognized as Capote. Please use your own judgment in trimming this down and editing it as much as you deem necessary or discreet and it might be a good idea to let Carson see it first, since it is her book. I honestly could not think of any other way of dealing with it. It was a good hard exercise but I don’t want to try it again any time soon!
I have gotten the two reprints of Menagerie and Wagons and find them stunningly well done. After a disturbing period of apathy last winter, I am plowing ahead once more and completed a first draft of a play [which became The Rose Tattoo] and of a long story [which became The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone] so if I come home next Fall it won’t be empty-handed. We, Frankie and I, are going to London the end of this month for a conference with the Oliviers, and after that we will spend some time in Paris which I found very stimulating last year, but we are keeping the little apartment in Rome to return to when it is time to relax again. The days are one long blue and gold ribbon always unwinding and giving you an illusion of permanence of at least a physical kind, which is no small bargain. Vidal has not yet returned to Europe but Capote is now on Ischia with a new red-headed lover that he dotes on. They have radioactive springs on that volcanic island, which are supposed to create enormous sexual vitality so perhaps Truman will have to leave Italy with a board nailed over his ass, which is the way a red-headed sailor once said a Mardi Gras visitor would have to leave New Orleans! How is Carson? I haven’t heard from her in a good while. Donnie’s book [The Dog Star] is being rejected by all the big houses which is discouraging to him and mystifying to me. Maria is said to be on her way back to England in a few days and is arranging to be surprised by a big bon-voyage party and “shower.”
Ever,
Tenn
« • »
two reprints: This was the first publication of The Glass Menagerie by New Directions. The jacket was designed by Alvin Lustig and the small clothbound volume appeared as part of ND’s New Classics series.
Capote: Truman Capote (1923–1984), American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and screenwriter. As with Gore Vidal, TW had a strained friendship with Capote and yet there was always a sympathetic feeling between them.
Lustig’s cover’s a dream!: Alvin Lustig’s original drawing for the 1949 edition of Menagerie is still used on the ND paperback.
65. TL—2
April 14, 1949 [New York]
DEAR TENNESSEE:
Today I have just been doing some accounting for Audrey, and I thought it would interest you to know what your books earned for you during the past year, that is, during the calendar year of 1948.
Here are the figures. One Arm brought in $1478.25; Streetcar earned you $5574.93; Summer and Smoke brought in $1263.17; and 27 Wagons brought in $368.30.
Then, in addition, according to my records, I never paid you for Battle of Angels which earned you $104.40.
So, all of that adds up to a rather tidy little sum of past $7500, which is being held in the bank for you until such time as it is good business for you to take it from the tax point of view.
I’m off tonight for Utah, where I have a lot of work to do on my ski business out there. Naturally I expect to get in a little mountain climbing and skiing on the side, but I’ll only be gone for three weeks, and then will be back here in New York.
I don’t think there is anything else to report on this end, though I have a scheme cooking with George Braziller which may amount to something, and if it does, I’ll write for your views and approval. He is the fellow who runs the Book Find Club. It has suddenly dawned on them that they have been neglecting the contemporary drama all this time, and that they ought to do something about it. They have a readership of about 30,000 which isn’t exactly to be sneezed at. I’m trying to get across to him the idea that he should present you in the round, with a volume made up of plays, stories, poems and a couple of essays. But more of this later if it actually comes to anything practical.
With best wishes,
James Laughlin
« • »
George Braziller: (1916–), American bookseller and publisher who founded the publishing company George Braziller, Inc., in 1955.
66. TL—2
May 2, 1949 [New York]
DEAR TENNESSEE:
This is just a hasty note to let you know that the second draft of the introduction of Carson’s book [Reflections in a Golden Eye] has arrived and I am very well pleased with it indeed. I shall write to Carson at once and see whether she would like to look at it or whether she would prefer to be surprised when it comes out.
I think this introduction will help the sale of the book enormously. It is very charming and engaging, and yet it gives you a good picture of the author, not to mention a rather good one of the introducer himself. Possibly Truman may object a little to what is said about Carson’s influence on his work, but it may do him a little good, too.
I was glad to note that you mention our hoped-for publication of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. In that connection I wonder if you could help me a little bit with the artist. His name is Guttusu, and he is very famous and lives there in Rome and I am sure you have met him, or know people who know him. I have written to him several times about arranging to do the illustrations for this story, but haven’t had any answer. I wonder whether you could see him and find out whether the reason is that he doesn’t want to do business with me because he is a communist and I am not, or just because he is a little perplexed because he doesn’t read English. Vittorini is going to use that story in his anthology of American stories and he will make an Italian translation which the artist could then read in order to make his illustrations. I would really be awfully grateful if you could get me some word on this rather ticklish situation. Possibly if you are busy, you could prevail on Frankie to run out and see him. He lives at a very attractive studio out in Villa something or other, whose name I can’t remember, but I’m pretty certain that he’s in the telephone book.
The Luck of Friendship Page 13