Lest you be held as a security risk
Solicit only the evening star.
Your desperate nerves fuse laughter with disaster
And higgledy piggledy giggle once begun
Crown a host of unassorted sorrows
You never could manage one by one.
The world that jibes your tenderness
Jails your lust.
Bewildered by the paradox of all your musts
Turning from horizon to horizon, noonday to dusk:
It may be only you can understand:
On a mild sea afternoon of blue and gold
When the sky is a mild blue of a Chinese bowl
The bones of Hart Crane, sailors and the drugstore man
Beat on the ocean’s floor the same saraband.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Illumination and Night Glare
MY LIFE has been almost completely filled with work and love, thank goodness. Work has not always been easy, nor has love, may I add. My working life was almost blighted at the time I was seventeen and for a number of years, by a novel I simply could not understand. I had at least five or six characters who were very clear in my mind. Each of these characters was always talking to the central character. I understood them, but the main character was unfocussed, although I knew that he was central to the book. Time and again I thought I would just write these characters as short stories, but always I was restrained, because I knew that this mysterious creation was going to be a novel.
Then suddenly, as I was walking up and down the rug in my living room, skipping every other square in the design, and worn out with the problem I had set for myself, the solution all at once came to me. The central character, the silent one, had always been called Harry Minowitz, but as I was thinking and pacing, I realized that he was a deaf mute, and that was why the others were always talking to him, and why, of course, he never answered.
This was a real illumination, lighting each of the characters and bringing the whole book into focus. Straightaway, Harry Minowitz’s name was changed to Singer, as the name was more expressive to the new conception, and with this fresh understanding, the book was well begun. As a preface I wrote the following passage:
The broad principal theme of this book is indicated in the first dozen pages. This is the theme of man’s revolt against his own inner isolation and his urge to express himself as fully as is possible. Surrounding this general idea there are several counter themes and some of these may be stated briefly as follows: (1) There is a deep need in man to express himself by creating some unifying principle or God. A personal God created by a man is a reflection of himself and in substance this God is most often inferior to his creator. (2) In a disorganized society these individual Gods or principles are likely to be chimerical and fantastic. (3) Each man must express himself in his own way—but this is often denied to him by a wasteful, short-sighted society. (4) Human beings are innately cooperative, but an unnatural social tradition makes them behave in ways that are not in accord with their deepest nature. (5) Some men are heroes by nature in that they will give all that is in them without regard to the effort or to the personal returns.
Of course these themes are never stated nakedly in the book. Their overtones are felt through the characters and situations. Much will depend upon the insight of the reader and the care with which the book is read. In some parts the underlying ideas will be concealed far down below the surface of a scene and at other times these ideas will be shown with a certain emphasis. In the last few pages the various motifs which have been recurring from time to time throughout the book are drawn sharply together and the work ends with a sense of cohesive finality.
The general outline of this work can be expressed very simply. It is the story of five isolated, lonely people in their search for expression and spiritual integration with something greater than themselves. One of these five persons is a deaf mute, John Singer—and it is around him that the whole book pivots. Because of their loneliness these other four people see in the mute a certain mystic superiority and he becomes in a sense their ideal. Because of Singer’s infirmity his outward character is vague and unlimited. His friends are able to impute to him all the qualities which they would wish for him to have. Each one of these four people creates his understanding of the mute from his own desires. Singer can read lips and understand what is said to him. In his eternal silence there is something compelling. Each one of these persons makes the mute the repository for his most personal feelings and ideas.
This situation between the four people and the mute has an almost exact parallel in the relation between Singer and his deaf-mute friend, Antonapoulos. Singer is the only person who could attribute to Antonapoulos dignity and a certain wisdom. Singer’s love for Antonapoulos threads through the whole book from the first page until the very end. No part of Singer is left untouched by this love and when they are separated his life is meaningless and he is only marking time until he can be with his friend again. Yet the four people who count themselves as Singer’s friends know nothing about Antonapoulos at all until the book is nearly ended. The irony of this situation grows slowly and steadily more apparent as the story progresses.
When Antonapoulos dies finally of Bright’s disease Singer, overwhelmed by loneliness and despondency, turns on the gas and kills himself. Only then do these other four characters begin to understand the real Singer at all.
About this central idea there is much of the quality and tone of a legend. All the parts dealing directly with Singer are written in the simple style of a parable.
Before the reasons why this situation came about can be fully understood it is necessary to know each of the principal characters in some detail. But the characters cannot be described adequately without the events which happen to them being involved. Nearly all of the happenings in the book spring directly from the characters. During the space of this book each person is shown in his strongest and most typical actions.
Of course it must be understood that none of these personal characteristics are told in the didactic manner in which they are set down here. They are implied in one successive scene after another—and it is only at the end, when the sum of these implications is considered, that the real characters are understood in all of their deeper aspects.
The next day I actually began the book: “In the town there were two mutes and they were always together.” For a year or so I worked steadily and when my teacher, Sylvia Chatfield Bates, with whom I had studied writing for a semester at N.Y.U., wrote me that Houghton Mifflin was conducting a contest for a first novel, I wrote a detailed working outline of “The Mute” and submitted it to them along with the 100 or so pages I had already completed. That outline was a moral support to me, although I have never before or again worked so closely with an outline. It did not win the prize, but Houghton Mifflin offered me a contract, which in my mind was almost as good, and so I returned to my writing.
Meanwhile, in 1937 in my nineteenth year I had fallen in love with and married Reeves McCullers. I told my parents I didn’t want to marry him until I first had experienced sex with him because how would I know whether I would like marriage or not? In doing so, I felt I had to confess to my parents. I said marriage was a promise and like other promises I did not want to promise Reeves until I was dead sure whether I liked sex with him. Reading Isadora Duncan and Lady Chatterley’s Lover was one thing but personal experience was another. Besides in all the books there were little asterisks when it came to the point of what you really wanted to know. When I asked my mother about sex she asked me to come behind the holly tree and said with her sublime simplicity, “Sex, my darling, takes place where you sit down.” I was therefore forced to read sex textbooks, which made it seem so very dull, as well as incredible.
I told my parents my plan was to join Reeves who was living in Goldens Bridge for the winter. They respected me for my frankness and with some reluctance, let me go.
The sexual experience was not like D. H. Law
rence. No grand explosions or colored lights, but it gave me a chance to know Reeves better, and really learn to love him. We treated ourselves to pink champagne and tomatoes out of season. I also told Reeves about “The Mute,” my working title for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and he was as thrilled as I was. It was going to be a marriage of love and writing for both of us. In Sylvia Bates’ class, I had actually had my first story published in 1936 in Story magazine which was called “Wunderkind.” (It is hard to realize the prestige and importance that Story magazine had at that time for young authors.) Exhilarated by this also, Reeves thought he himself would like to be a writer. On September 20, 1937 we were married, and I went on with “The Mute.”
After his brief series of courses—philosophy, psychology in N.Y., etc.—Reeves found a job in North Carolina and we moved to Charlotte.
My life was following a pattern I have always followed. Work and love.
“The Mute” (my first title, later was changed to The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by my publisher, a title which I was pleased with) took me two years to write, and they were very happy years for me. I worked hard and loved hard. Directly after Heart was finished in 1939, I immediately began another work which was Reflections in a Golden Eye.
The pattern of love had begun when I was a child. I adored an old lady who smelled always of lemon verbena sachet. I slept with her and cozied in the dark. Often she would say, “Bring up the chair, darling, and climb to the top drawer of the bureau,” and there I would find some goody. A little cup cake, or once, to my delight, some kumquats. This first love was my grandmother, whom I called Mommy.
Her life had not been a happy one, although she never complained. Her husband had died of alcoholism after years of being tended by a strong man-servant who could control his sudden fits. However, Mommy never had bad feelings against alcohol. Once, towards the last of her illnesses, some ladies from the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union came to call. They were so serious it looked like a delegation.
“I know what you’re here for,” Mommy said. “You’re here to arrange about that badge, purple and gold, to put over my body, but I tell you now I won’t have it. I come from a long line of drinking men. My father drank, my son-in-law Lamar who is a saint drinks also. How sad it makes me when I hear that POP, and I know that all his home brew has exploded. And I drink also.”
The ladies said in shocked voices, “You could not Mrs. Waters!”
“I do every night—Lamar fixes me a toddy, and moreover, I enjoy it.”
“Well! Mrs. Waters,” the delegation said aghast.
When Daddy came into the room, Mommy said mischievously, “Is it time for my toddy yet Lamar? I think it would be delicious now.”
“Would any of you ladies like to join us?” Daddy asked. But already the WCTU were fleeing in horror.
“To tell you the truth Lamar, those WCTU ladies are awfully narrow-minded, although I guess it’s wicked of me to say so.”
“Very wicked,” my Daddy said, as he poured her toddy.
She was supported by her father-in-law and her brothers. Her brothers came every day to her home for dinner at noon, but she had to ask them every time she wanted them to buy circus tickets for the children. It was a time and place when men did not think that women had good sense. Therefore, they themselves would order barrels of flour, salt-pork and other staples and have it sent to her house. They also ordered her children’s clothes, which did not suit her at all, and very often did not even fit. Still, she was well provided for, perhaps too well provided for, for her taste.
During Mommy’s terminal illness, my brother, sister and I were sent to Aunt Tieh’s, where we had five cousins. It was marvelous sleeping in the enormous sleeping porch. My eldest cousin would tell us fairy tales about the glass mountain, Aesop’s fables, and we would happily doze off. Aunt Tieh had a wonderful scuppernong arbor and many fruit trees. There was always Tupelo honey at the breakfast table and often ripe, peeled figs over which we would pour fresh, thick cream. On Sundays we always had ice cream, and I was allowed to churn it and of course, lick the dasher. I hardly realized it when the gardener told me that my grandmother was dead. So we were driven home in the old Dodge car by Aunt Tieh.
At home, when I saw the wreath on the door, I knew that something strange and uncanny had happened. I flung myself to the floor in the hall and some moments later I had a convulsion. When I was calm that afternoon Mother wanted me to kiss my grandmother, but I said firmly, “She’s dead isn’t she, and you don’t kiss dead people. Kissing is for live people.” Though my grandmother was dead, her spirit still lives with me, and I’ve always had a picture of her on my wall. A young, beautiful widow with five children.
Mother and Daddy I also loved, but Mommy was someone always special to me. It was she who owned the house we lived in. It was a narrow house on 13th Street, Columbus, Georgia. The floors creaked in the way of old houses. She owned that house and the two properties behind it. It was in this house that I was born and lived throughout my early childhood. My parents and grandmother would not let me play with the neighbor’s children, except Helen Harvey, the girl who lived across the street.
School was all right as I learned easily and went straight to the piano in the afternoon. I spent practically no time on homework. I passed every grade, but that was all. I liked to climb a tree in the backyard and sit in a tree house my brother and I had made. We had an elaborate signal system for the cook, who was awfully nice to fasten a string in a basket and bring up goodies. Years later when I was troubled I would still take refuge in that same tree house.
I had heard horrifying things about high school. I had heard, for instance, that when Miss Cheeves was dead her brain was going to be sent to the Smithsonian Institute Museum because she was so smart. Mother dressed me in a pink wool suit and I set out for that scary high school. It was not as bad as I thought. I still wanted to be a concert pianist so my parents did not make me go every day. I just went enough to keep up with the classes. Now, years later, the high school teachers who taught me are extremely puzzled that anyone as negligent as I was could be a successful author. The truth is I don’t believe in school, whereas I believe very strongly in a thorough musical education. My parents agreed with me. I’m sure I missed certain social advantages by being such a loner but it never bothered me.
The first week at school I was literally captured by a girl when I was in the basement. She threw me to the floor and said “Say fuck three times.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Never mind what it is, you lily pure innocent, just say it.”
All the time she was grinding my face against the cement floor.
“Well fuck,” I said.
“Say it three times.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said quickly, and she let me go.
I can still feel her foul breath on my face and her sweating hands. When I was released I ran straight home but did not tell my parents because I knew it was something ugly and wicked.
“What happened to your face?” my mother asked.
“Just one of the things in high school,” I said. Although nothing else that dramatic ever happened to me, the dullness of school was a dreadful experience. When I graduated at seventeen, I didn’t even attend all the ceremonies, but asked the principal to keep my diploma, as my brother would pick it up the next day.
However, my childhood was not lonely because when I was five years old in 1922, my Daddy bought a piano. My Aunt Tieh had a piano and I had touched it gingerly and even arranged a few chords, so when my piano arrived I sat down immediately and began to play. To my parents this seemed a miracle.
What was I playing? they asked me.
“A tune I had made up,” I told them. Then I swung into “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
They decided that I ought to have a music teacher, and so they asked Mrs. Kierce to give me lessons twice a week.
I did not much like the lessons, and still preferred to make up my own tunes. Mrs. Kierce
was impressed, and very conscientiously wrote down the music. I studied with her until I heard a recital by Mrs. Tucker, about ten years later, and I hoped that she could be my teacher. I discussed it with Mrs. Kierce, and she agreed with me.
The work I played for my new teacher was the Second Hungarian Rhapsody. She once said it was the fastest, loudest Hungarian Rhapsody she had ever heard, and she accepted me as a pupil. Not only as a pupil—I spent every Saturday at her home, and she started me on Bach, whom I had never heard before.
Mrs. Tucker was to me the embodiment of Bach, Mozart, and all beautiful music, which at age thirteen had enveloped all my soul. It was at a concert of Rachmaninoff that I met my first grown friend.
He was twenty-three and I seventeen and we could talk about all sorts of things together. Not only music, but he introduced me to Karl Marx and Engels, that was one of the things that furthered my thinking about justice. I had realized so often during the Depression, when I saw Negroes rooting through the garbage pails at home, and coming to the house to beg, that there was something fearful and wrong with the world, but I had not in any way thought of it intellectually.
My new friend, Edwin Peacock, came every Saturday afternoon, and his visits were a joy to me. I was not “in love,” but it was real friendship, which has indeed lasted throughout all my life.
It was my joy to go to town to shop with my mother and grandmother. Then, one day when they had taken me to buy material—my mother always made my dresses, my grandmother my underclothes—my Mommy sat down on a stool in the drug store and said she didn’t feel so well. Mother arranged for a taxi and told me to take her home and have Cleo, the maid, undress her and put her to bed.
“It’s nothing,” my grandmother said, “just a little dizziness.”
Feeling very important, I got Mommy to the taxi and took her home. Cleo and I both undressed her. However, in spite of her protests, it was not just a slight dizziness. It was pernicious anemia, and she died a year later.
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