[ . . . ]
Have fun in London if you go and if you see John Lehmann, give him my best regards.
With best wishes,
James Laughlin
« • »
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe: Carson McCullers’s novella was eventually published by Houghton Mifflin in 1951.
Guttusu: Renato Guttusu (1911–1987), Sicilian painter who also designed for the theater and did illustrations for books. A committed communist, his art was robustly realistic.
Vittorini: Elio Vittorini (1908–1966), Italian novelist. ND published four titles by Vittorini, one of them, In Sicily (1949), introduced by Ernest Hemingway.
John Lehmann: The London publisher of TW’s work from the 1940s through the 1970s.
SECTION VIII
PF: What do you remember about The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, which was the novella? It seems to have grown out of a real person. Tennessee sent you a story? Eyre de . . .
JL: Eyre de Lanux. She was a leader of the expatriate literary colony in Rome. She had that beautiful apartment at the top of the Spanish Steps, and she, I think, liked Tennessee and had him around when she could, and he just used her as he often did use people, to be a character in a play or story.
PF: There’s a letter where you say, “Oh, I’m surprised that she’s forty-five years old, I thought from this story that she was much younger.” She apparently had a much younger Italian boyfriend named Paolo who took terrible advantage of her.
JL: I don’t think I met her more than once. She was attractive and bright. She had money and she dressed well. She gave a nice party. But I don’t have any strong impression of her.
« • »
Eyre de Lanux: Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux (1894–1996), American artist and art deco designer. She was the inspiration for the character of Karen Stone in TW’s novel The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.
67. TL—2
May 25, 1949 [New York]
DEAR TENNESSEE:
This is just to say that, at her request, I showed your introduction for the Carson McCullers book [Reflections in a Golden Eye] to Audrey, and she made the request that we should change the reference to the talented young writer who has imitated Carson to read in the plural so that it would not be such a direct slap at Truman Capote. It now reads: “Imitation is a strong word to use concerning the work of some very talented young writers who have been influenced too strongly by the work of a predecessor.”
I told Audrey that I would make this change, but subject to your approval. So please let me know if you would prefer to have it exactly as you wrote it. In any case, I shall try to see that proofs are sent to you before the book goes to press, so that you can make any final changes that you want to.
I was personally a little bit worried about the phrase on page 2 which refers to the famous house in Brooklyn where the poets and tourists lived as “vaguely similar” to the inferred house of prostitution mentioned above. It occurred to me that this might catch the eye of some ambulance chasing lawyer, who would bring it to the attention of Gypsy Rose Lee and get her to try to bring suit for libel. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of changing this to read as follows: “in Brooklyn where she became enmeshed in an extraordinary menage whose personnel ranged from W. H. Auden to Gypsy Rose Lee.” I hope you will approve of this change in the interests of caution.
Here, everything seems to be going along well, though the book business in general has been dropping off rather badly.
Did I ever thank you for sending over the charming little story by Eyre de Lanux? It is a fragile thing and not terribly substantial, but what there is of it is excellent, and I would be glad to run it in the next number of New Directions, where we will also have the story about his aunt by that young Italian whom you kindly sent us. Is “Eyre” a boy’s name or a girl’s name? I can’t make out from the letter which came with the script, and thought I had better ask you about this before writing an answer. The handwriting looks like a girl’s, and the general feel of the piece seems to be that of a girl, but I thought I’d better make sure.
Have you had a chance to look at the ending of the play about D. H. Lawrence [I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix]? The two boys up in Massachusetts at the hand press have gotten very steamed up about the possibilities of making something beautiful out of this, and they would like to start on it this summer if possible. The one of them who is an artist will make abstract line designs which fit right into the printed text. If this idea worries you at all, I could send over one of their earlier books where this technique has been used for your approval. But I think you will like it, as the treatment is very severe and restrained.
Before going ahead with the Lawrence play, we would also want to clear it with Frieda down in Taos, I can’t see why she or Brett would make any objection, but we ought to have releases from them in the files just to be on the safe side.
I hope you had some fun in England and write when you get a chance.
With best wishes,
James Laughlin
« • »
the famous house in Brooklyn: A brownstone known as “February House,” 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn, was the location for an experiment in communal living during World War II, whose participants included poet W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, composer Benjamin Britten, and editor George Davis.
Brett: Dorothy Brett (1883–1977), British painter who was associated with the Bloomsbury Group but later moved to Taos, New Mexico, to be near her friends Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Frieda and D. H. Lawrence.
68. TLS—2
6/3/49 [Rome]
DEAR JAY:
Many, many thanks for your letters. I am relieved that you are satisfied with the introduction to Carson’s book [Reflections in a Golden Eye]. I had misgivings about it, and I still hope that you will let me have a look at the proofs before it goes into print. I was afraid, for one thing, that I might have written too much of a personal nature, and of course I was also a bit worried about the unavoidable comments on “imitators.” I don’t want to incur the wrath of Truman, which is probably worse than the wrath of God. I have not heard directly from Carson in a long time, not for about two months, but I have heard through Audrey that she has been in the South, is well, and that her play has been sold to the producers of Medea. I can’t rejoice in that last bit of news for I am afraid that it may only bring her worry and grief, unless they pay her a good-sized advance to compensate for it.
Myself I have been terribly happy over some wonderful news about my sister. She is now out of the asylum for three days a week in the custody of an elderly couple in a pleasant country town in Missouri and Mother sent me five letters she had written expressing her great joy in the liberation. The letters were quite normal except that in one of them she sent her love to her offspring, of which of course she has none, but that seems a fairly harmless and comfortable delusion compared to the ones she used to suffer.
The story I mentioned has grown to the length of a novella [The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone], about 75 pages, and is still expanding, so I have neglected the play [The Rose Tattoo]. This may turn out to be foolish of me but I don’t seem to have any choice in the matter.
I cannot make up my mind about the Book Find deal of selected writings. Sounds more like something to be done in the hypothetical future, but I would love very much to have a little volume of verse brought out that is all my own, with maybe a couple of stories for ballast. Is there any way we could print “Kingdom of Earth” or get it typed up? I am afraid the only copy may get lost. Do what you like about the Lawrence play [I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix]. Perhaps it could be reserved to go with the eventual selection of poems and the stories: but dispose of it exactly as you think best.
Warners sent a very stupid, commercial director over here to discuss the filming of Menagerie which they are now casting and will start filming next Fall. The movie-script is a real abomination and I am raising hell about it, but perhaps quite h
elplessly as I have no legal control. The characters are all vulgarized, there is a ridiculous happy ending, and the director has no taste or distinction, but they have rounded up a stunning array of actors, probably headed by Bette Davis and Jane Wyman, who recently won an Academy Award. Would you like to read a copy of the film-script just to see how awful they can be? Audrey could provide you with one. And do you think, since the play is really a dramatized memoir, I might sue them for libel if the characters are made too disgusting? The Mother, for instance, steals some money to bet on a race-horse! It is really worse than the proposed changes by Louis J. Singer. The director, Irving Rapper, is coming to see me for another conference at five o’clock, and the feathers will fly!
Paul and Jane Bowles are in Tangier. Lehmann in London is very happy over advance reactions to Paul’s novel and I suspect it will make a real impression there. He now has the manuscript of Windham’s novel, which has been rejected by most of the big commercial publishers in the States.
Eyre de Lanux is woman who was a great beauty, is now about 45 and I think she has recently had her face lifted while she was mysteriously away in Paris. She has a young Italian lover, a boy of 25, startlingly beautiful and the only real rascal that I have met in Italy. Her blind adoration of him is shocking! But quite understandable.
I have not yet located the painter (engraver?) you mentioned but I am sure I shall find him if he is still in Rome. The city is now at its loveliest, dangerously lovely for a person who should sit at home working all afternoon if he hopes to continue to get anywhere with his work.
Yours ever,
10.
Eyre’s boyfriend, Paolo, recently brought her a two-year-old infant that he claims to be his bastard child and wants her to take care of it for him. It has no resemblance to him, it is obviously a trick of some kind. She has written a story about their “menage” as if it were being observed through the eyes of their cat. It is not yet good enough to send you, but perhaps the second draft will be.
« • »
my sister: Rose Isabel Williams (1909–1996). Rose Williams and her brother were inseparable as children and continued to be extremely close into young adulthood; however, Rose, who had always been outgoing and personable, began to retreat mentally, eventually showing signs of a psychotic break in her late twenties. In 1943 her parents, presumably her mother, authorized one of the first prefrontal lobotomies in the United States to be performed on Rose. It left her calmed but in a childlike state for the rest of her life. After 1945 Williams assumed the total responsibility of care for his sister, making sure that she always lived in comfortable circumstances and was visited regularly by friends and family.
Warners [ . . . ] stupid, commercial director: Irving Rapper directed the first film version of The Glass Menagerie (1950) for Warner Brothers.
Bette Davis and Jane Wyman: Davis would have been cast as Amanda, but the role was played in the 1950 film by Gertrude Lawrence. Wyman ended up playing Laura in the film.
Louis J. Singer: The original stage producer of The Glass Menagerie.
a young Italian lover: Eyre de Lanux’s lover, Paolo Casagrande.
69. TL—4
June 9, 1949 [New York]
DEAR TENN:
Thanks ever so much for your fine letter of June 3rd. A letter from you is always a breath of fresh air in this terrible New York, and you don’t know how I look forward to them. The atmosphere of this place is gradually getting me down, as exemplified especially this week by a really dastardly attack on Eliot and Pound by that old swine, Robert Hillyer, up at Harvard. He has gotten in cahoots with the editors of The Saturday Review and put on a really disgusting show. Where will the jealousy and resentment of anything first rate in those little pigs and pills stop?
[ . . . ]
The introduction for Carson’s book [Reflections in a Golden Eye] has gone to the printer, and I will be sure to let you see proofs when they come back from him so that you can make a final check on them. Audrey and I are both very anxious that your swipe at Truman should be so concealed that it won’t make him lose face and turn him into a dangerous and spiteful enemy for you and for all of us. You can check on the wording when you see the proofs, but I think we have it fixed now so that he will privately get the message but he will not think other people know it is about him, so he won’t be prompted to take revenge on you.
That is good news about your novella [Roman Spring]. I hope you are making a carbon of it so that I can see it just as soon as possible. I am very curious to find out whether you are able to maintain the intensity of the short stories when the work spreads itself out to a greater length. I have always admired the ease and grace of your prose style and felt that you had enormous possibilities as a fiction writer if you once put your mind to it. It sounds as though the thing has now gotten to a length where it could stand as a little book by itself, or possibly with one or two short stories to reinforce it.
We can talk about the Book Find project the next time I see you. Meanwhile, the idea of a little book of verse has definite appeal for me. The only real problem is to get ahold of all the material. In addition to what was in the Five Poets anthology, I have quite a number of your things in my file, but I’m not at all sure that I have all of them because you have a way of dashing them off and then hiding them away. Do you have most of your scripts with you, or are they stored over here somewhere, and if so, could anyone get access to them and hunt out the poetry. A book of verse doesn’t take very long to print and maybe we could get one ready to put out this fall if it were possible to locate the manuscripts now. Then the novella with a couple of short stories added to it, if it needs it, would follow along in the following Spring if you and I are both satisfied with the way it turns out.
[ . . . ]
There will be no trouble at all about getting the “Kingdom of Earth” printed for you the next time that I get over to Europe. I have several printer friends there who can do it up very tidily. I don’t think, however, that we ought to offer it for sale even in the limited way which we did the One Arm stories. It would be much better just to do a couple of hundred copies and give them to a selected list of friends. Meanwhile, I will have some copies of the typescript made so that there won’t be any danger of the single copy getting lost. I’ll send one over to you there and keep one in my safe at Norfolk, and one here in the office.
I can well imagine the awful mess which Hollywood would make out of something so delicate and subtle as The Glass Menagerie. I guess you’ll just have to get used to that. By the way, Tom Merton had the guts to tell Hollywood to go to hell. They wanted to make a movie of The Seven Storey Mountain, starring Don Ameche, and you can imagine what a hash Hollywood would have made out of life in the monastery. Of course, it’s a lot easier for Tom to turn down a big chunk of money because [of] where he is living, he can’t even spend a dime. Nevertheless the Order needs the money badly, and I think it showed a lot of good sense on the part of the Abbot in the monastery to refuse it. It seems to me that the only thing you can do to protect yourself is to write an article tearing the movie to pieces, and release it about the time when the movie goes into the Broadway houses. Then the next time that Audrey makes a sale to Hollywood, have her insist that certain provisions are put in that you must approve the shooting script before they can go ahead with it.
I’m glad that people in London are so enthusiastic about Paul’s novel [The Sheltering Sky]. I have a hunch that we may be able to do something with it here too, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. London is a much better environment than New York for something of that kind. I will probably print the novel here after all, instead of doubling up on the production with Lehmann because I am having a row with him. It turns out that he has been systematically overcharging me for the work he has done for me in England, and now that I have caught him out in it, he has withdrawn into the Englishman’s traditional huff of hurt pride. I had always thought Lehmann as a brilliant editor, and never realized that he was also a ve
ry astute and hard driving businessman. However, those are the qualities which a publisher needs to stay afloat these days. I’m afraid that I am much too soft and easy going.
I’m amazed to learn that Eyre de Lanux is 45 years old. The little story had given me the impression of having been written by someone with the dew still fresh on her cheeks. The story about her menage sounds very funny. Do by all means let me have a look at it if she gets it whipped into shape.
The painter whom I had in mind for illustrating Carson’s Ballad of the Sad Cafe is named Guttusu. I think you ought to be able to find him pretty easily because he was in the telephone book and besides, he is extremely well known. I’ll be most grateful if you could find out what his attitude is about illustrating the book for me, when we locate a French or an Italian translation so that he can read it easily. Get him to show you the illustrations that he did for the Milan edition of Faulkner’s Sanctuary. I think they are quite remarkable. The guy has never been in America, let alone in the South, and yet he seemed able to catch that chronic sag which Southerners have as they stand about in the streets of little Southern towns.
I don’t know as there’s much news to report here on the literary front. We have run onto a kid named John Hawkes up at Cambridge who seems pretty promising, and I’ll send along his first little book [The Cannibal] as soon as we publish it. It is a bit in the vein of Djuna Barnes, but he claims that he had never read her at the time when he wrote it.
I’ve managed to dash off a few little poems in the past few weeks, but they haven’t seasoned enough yet for me to know whether they’re any good. They usually drop out of nowhere when I am riding on a commuting train and their coming is a great comfort in a life which is not otherwise exactly what I would like it to be. I was certainly never cut out to be businessman and yet, more and more, I find myself being cornered into doing that and almost nothing else. I surely envy you being over there in Rome.
The Luck of Friendship Page 14