by Blake Bailey
One imagines Yates pleased, if not particularly happy. Like his own characters, he couldn’t help being who he was; if he’d lived to see his fame increase, no doubt he’d fret over his imperfections all the more, and resume the lonely struggle to do better (“this crazy, obsessive business of trying to be a good writer”), while he endured his nonwriting life as best he could—which is to say, not very well. “Henry James spoke of the ‘obstinate finality of human being,’” said David Milch, “and Dick was that. He was an aching example of what an artist is, and what being an artist doesn’t solve in our human predicament.”
Perhaps, but imagine a Richard Yates to whom it never occurred to write a word, and there would be a picture of misery, rather than one of redemptive heroism. And happiness too—yes—that, too, after a fashion. “I remember how much you laughed,” said Andre Dubus in memoriam, “how easy it was to make you laugh, how much of your laughter was at yourself.
It’s your mornings I imagine, Dick; you never complained to me about your body, so I imagine you waking to a room, a world, that seemed to have enough air for everyone but you, and gathering yourself, putting on those gentleman’s clothes you wore, and bringing your great heart and your pure writer’s conscience to the desk, the legal pad, the pencil. You just kept doing it, morning after morning, and you inspired me, you gave me courage, taking your morning stand against your flesh and circumstance, writing your prose that was like a blade, a cloud, a flame, a breath.
So you rest, old friend. I’ll always love you. And about all those words you wrote in all your books on my shelf, I’ll say as you used to about a book or story you loved: They’re swell, Dick, they’re really swell; it’s a sweetheart of a life’s work, it’s a sweetheart.
Notes
The following abbreviations appear in these notes:
BU-MM
Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University, Monica McCall Collection
BU-RY
Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University, Richard Yates Collection
CSH
Cold Spring Harbor
CSRY
The Collected Stories of Richard Yates
DP
Disturbing the Peace
EP
The Easter Parade
GS
A Good School
RR
Revolutionary Road
RY
Richard Yates
SP
A Special Providence
UM-SL
J. D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi, Seymour Lawrence Collection
YHC
Young Hearts Crying
Most of the letters to Richard Yates cited below are from his personal papers, and I’m deeply grateful for permission to quote from them. With the signal exception of Yates’s letters to Sheila in 1953 (copies of which were found among his papers), letters from Yates are in the hands of the recipients unless otherwise noted. Quotations are only cited when the source is not explicitly given in the text. Interview subjects are cited initially, and thereafter only when needed for the sake of clarity; otherwise the reader may assume that uncited quotations are from personal interviews.
Prologue
“a touch of emphysema”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“Can you believe it?”: Int. Tom Goldwasser.
“Getting out of here”: Elizabeth Venant, “A Fresh Twist in the Road,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1989, section 6, page 8.
“The Host of Yates fans”: Don Hendrie Jr. to RY, April 27, 1989.
“We were touched”: Int. Tony Earley.
“The implication”: Int. Allen Wier.
“Not much for one”: Quoted in Steve Featherstone, “November 7, 1992,” Black Warrior Review 21, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1994), 157–158.
Chapter One The Caliche Road: 1926–1939
“My little legs”: Int. Grace Schulman.
“I must’ve had the most”: Ms. of “A Natural Girl,” BU-RY.
she later spelled Darke: Ruth Yates misspelled the name of her home county on her application for a Social Security number, April 21, 1943.
“He says I am the best clerk”: Amos Maurer to Fannie Walden, July 29, 1873, papers of Rev. Peter Rodgers.
“I should like to have seen”: F. Walden to A. Maurer, August 3, 1873, ibid.
“[He] was buried”: F. Walden to A. Maurer, October 10, 1873, ibid.
“I know thine’s no worldly heart”: A. Maurer to F. Walden, October 16, 1873, ibid.
“Uncle Dick never liked”: Ruth Rodgers to Peter Rodgers, May 21, 1964, ibid.
For Ruth Maurer Yates’s misdated entry see Who’s Who of American Women, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Marquis, 1962), 1091.
“[S]he had probably grown up”: CSRY, 184.
“I know,” he replied: Int. Peter Rodgers. The Reverend Mr. Rodgers was kind enough to share his considerable genealogical research on the Cleveland and Bradford lines of the Yates family.
Details of Horatio Yates’s career are derived from his obituaries in the Auburn Citizen and the Auburn Daily Advertiser, April 4, 1912.
Such a life was conducive: Warden Gershom Powers is quoted in John N. Miskell, “Offering Hope: The Connection between Auburn Theological Seminary and Auburn State Prison,” unpublished manuscript, papers of John N. Miskell.
Details of Kemmler’s friendship with Chaplain Yates are derived from the Auburn-Cayuga Patriot, August 5, 1890; for the description of Kemmler’s electrocution, I’m indebted to Ted Conover’s account in his book, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (New York: Random House, 2000), 187–188.
“[H]e came upon his father”: “Lament for a Tenor,” Cosmopolitan, February 1954, 50–57.
“Dook knew right away”: Sheila Yates to RY, July 22, 1953.
“I didn’t give a shit”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“because [he] could scarcely”: CSRY, 179.
As he explained in a 1972: DeWitt Henry and Geoffrey Clark, “An Interview with Richard Yates,” Ploughshares 1, no. 3 (Winter 1972), 69. Hereafter cited as Ploughshares.
she even pretended: Int. Peter Rodgers.
“broaden his horizons”: Letter to author from Barbara Beury McCallum.
“confused and unpleasant”: SP, 123.
Her family hadn’t approved: Ruth Rodgers to Peter Rodgers, May 21, 1964, Rodgers papers.
“Elsa was very sensible”: Int. Sheila Yates.
“Dook’s fantastic schemes”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 15, 1953.
“hysterical odyssey”: SP, 10.
“the only new boy”: Ibid.
she smelled bad: E-mail to author from Gina Yates.
“cruel, bullying voices”: Int. Frances Doel.
“I wasn’t a bookish child”: “Some Very Good Masters,” New York Times Book Review, April 19, 1981, 3.
Dookie and “Cush” became friends: Ruth Rodgers to Peter Rodgers, undated letter, Rodgers papers.
“they would get together and trash things”: Int. Stephen Benedict.
“Richard, we are growing old”: Elisabeth Cushman to RY, May 8, 1945.
“liked to use words like ‘simpatico’”: SP, 138.
“a sad-eyed, seven-year-old philosopher”: CSRY, 195.
“Yates felt enraged”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.
“the most stable”: CSH, 46.
“They were comrades”: Int. Martha Speer.
As a teenager she joined: Int. Peter Rodgers.
BUST GIVEN ROOSEVELT: New York Times, April 16, 1933, section 2, page 3.
“had a wife in England”: SP, 143.
“the question of whether or not”: Ibid., 157.
lest he seem a sissy: Int. Nancy Cushman Dibner.
Background about the Vanderlip estate in Scarborough, as well as Cheever’s time there, is found in Susan Cheever, Home Before Dark (New York: Pocket Books, 1985), and The Letters of John Cheever, ed. Benjamin Cheever (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988).
“He used to speak of it”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
Yate
s submitted a blank sheet: Int. Nancy Cushman Dibner.
“He doodled on everything”: Richard Yates: An American Writer (New York: Seymour Lawrence, 1993), 17. Hereafter cited as RYAW.
“I remember how you used to delight us”: Mary Jo McClusky Sup to RY, March 7, 1977.
“The only noise I hear all day”: RY to Stephen Benedict, April 2, 1940.
“We energetically rehearsed”: RYAW, 18.
“Dookie hired a Mr. Bostelman”: Int. Nancy Cushman Dibner.
Russell Benedict … started a weekly newspaper: Int. Russell Benedict.
“Had dinner tonight with an old boyhood”: RY to Barbara Beury, February 15, 1961.
“I guess I sort of love her”: Quoted in Geoffrey Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” Northeast Corridor 1, no. 2 (1994), 34.
Chapter Two A Good School: 1939–1944
“We’re celeberaties”: RY to Stephen Benedict, March 7, 1940.
“‘blow-by-slug’ description”: RY to Benedict, February 13, 1940.
“just like a big kaht”: RY to Benedict, September 16, 1939.
“I really wrote you the verra nite”: RY to Benedict, November 14, 1939.
“It will be peachy”: RY to Benedict, March 7, 1940.
“My school is peachy (oh-so)”: RY to Benedict, October 24, 1939.
“Aubrey Beardsley mouth”: Int. Murray Moulding.
“You might be inerested”: RY to Benedict, December 5, 1939.
“Me and another guy who swings”: RY to Benedict, October 24, 1939.
“You’re invited to a peachy joint”: RY to Benedict, c. June, 1940.
“Bud Hoyt is getting”: RY to Benedict, July 6, 1940.
“You can still come”: RY to Benedict, July 28, 1940.
Background on the Rodgers family, Ruth’s courtship with Fred, and life on “Genius Row” is mostly derived from my interviews with Ruth’s sister-in-law, Louise Rodgers.
“Oh, I believe in humanity”: EP, 74.
“and I only passed History”: “Ten Americans to Watch,” Pageant, February 1963, 43.
“Such ‘movie-haunted’ stories”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 3.
“conceived in the studios”: GS, 5.
Background on Theodate Pope Riddle and Avon Old Farms: Brooks Enemy, Theodate Pope Riddle and the Founding of Avon Old Farms (Avon, Conn.: Avon Old Farms School, 1973); Clarence Derrick, “Recollections of Avon Old Farms School 1935–1941,” unpublished manuscript, papers of Daniel Gates; Gordon Ramsey, Aspiration and Perseverance: The History of Avon Old Farms School (Avon, Conn.: Avon Old Farms School, 1984).
“in aging they would warp and sag”: GS, 5.
“Given good-enough clothes”: YHC, 347.
“‘FRANKLIN SIMON!’ the students yelled”: Int. Lothar Candels.
“That’s me, all right”: Int. Harry Flynn.
“What a flood of memories”: Mason Beekley to RY, December 11, 1978.
“almost unalloyed in its misery”: SP, 12.
“the pain implicit”: Quoted in Writer’s Choice, ed. Rust Hills (New York: David McKay Co., 1974).
“held together by safety pins”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“Thin, haggard, disheveled”: Int. David Bigelow.
“Dick was obviously poorer”: Int. Hugh Pratt.
“He was fragile”: Int. Jim Stewart.
“‘Sue the bastard’”: Richard E. T. Hunter to RY, February 19, 1979.
Yates was not actually masturbated: Int. Irv. Jennings.
“wondering how he was going to live”: GS, 27.
Details relating to the wedding of Ruth Yates and Fred Rodgers are derived from my interviews with Louise Rodgers.
“mutual admiration society”: Int. Lothar Candels.
“I suppose you know Ruth is married”: RY to S. Benedict, August 24, 1942.
“Re-reading the Cold Spring Harbor letter”: Letter to author from Stephen Benedict.
“All I do is rush around”: RY to S. Benedict, August 24, 1942.
Yates was at Van Nordan’s bedside: Int. Sheila Yates.
A mutual friend described Pratt: Int. David Bigelow.
“Dick ran everything”: Letter to author from Gilman Ordway.
Information about Ernest “Bick” Wright is derived from my interviews with his widow, Ann Wright Jones, and his friend Don Nickerson.
Family lore has it: Int. Fred Rodgers Jr.
“Emily fucking Grimes is me”: RYAW, 21.
“All I’m really qualified to remember”: GS, 177.
“Cigarettes were a great help”: Uncertain Times ms., hereafter cited as UT.
“learning how to behave in college”: GS, 94.
“quite good”: Int. David Bigelow.
“struggling artist”: Int. Hugh Pratt.
This account of summer 1943 is mostly based on pages 13–16 of A Special Providence, whose essential accuracy has been corroborated by letters and interviews. Dookie’s employment at the Optima Optical Company is noted on her Social Security application, likewise RY’s employment at the New York Sun, which he later also mentioned in Pageant magazine (February 1963), 43.
“I think you’re pretty good”: Elizabeth Nowell Perkins to RY, November 7, 1943.
It was a bad Christmas: Int. Ann Barker.
Chapter Three The Canal: 1944–1947
“People don’t recover”: Quoted in David Streitfeld, “The Great Unknown,” Fame, Summer 1990, 30.
“Do you like girls?”: E-mail to author from Gina Yates.
“[They] tend to sort in large groups”: Quoted in Kay Redfield Jamison, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (New York: Free Press, 1993), 107.
“mild and pampered”: SP, 29.
“Dick was hilarious”: Int. Pat Dubus.
“Dick cultivated an anti-intellectual manner”: Int. DeWitt Henry.
Basic information about Yates’s military service is taken from his honorable discharge, dated June 19, 1946.
“He took pride in delivering”: SP, 86.
“I mean after this Horbourg business”: Ibid., 89.
A doctor … poked him in the chest: Int. Sheila Yates.
peculiar stench of the pneumonia ward: Int. Dan Childress.
“shut off [his] mind”: UT.
Knorr had been the B.A.R. man: Int. Janis Knorr.
Yates … would occasionally claim … B.A.R. man: Int. Franklin Russell and Edward Hoagland.
“more goddamn trouble”: CSRY, 375.
“out of badly made shoes and boots”: Seymour Krim to RY, September 24, 1978. In the letter Krim paraphrases Yates’s remark to this effect.
Dookie and Elisabeth Cushman’s boozy celebration of VE-day is recounted in Cushman’s letter to RY, May 8, 1945.
“seriously afraid something had happened to [him]”: Ernest B. Wright to RY, May 31, 1945.
“enjoy good food, women”: Davis Pratt to RY, May 17, 1945.
“Your knowledge … mayhap”: Hugh Pratt to RY, June 2, 1946.
“one of the brethren”: H. W. Harwood to RY, February 22, 1946.
“Connie says … plaything”: “Joan” [last name unknown] to RY, February 2, 1946.
“He was full of … joie de vivre”: Int. Tony Vevers.
“Yates, please tell me”: “F. G.” [?] to RY, March 9, 1946.
“You don’t sound very keen”: “Joan” to RY, February 18, 1946.
Details of Yates’s morose homecoming to High Hedges are derived from my interviews with Louise Rodgers and Fred Rodgers Jr.
Yates’s postwar stint at the radical York Gazette and Daily were mentioned in interviews with two people otherwise unknown to each other, Ken Rosen and Natalie Baturka.
“At twenty, fresh out of the Army”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 3.
“dumb, arrogant thing to do”: Pageant, February 1963, 43.
“God, you can’t mean that!”: Quoted in Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 30–31.
“Wishing I’d Gone Myself”: RY to Peter Na
jarian, September 24, 1960.
it just wasn’t “real journalism”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
RY’s postwar freelancing escapades with Russell Benedict are based on my interviews with the latter.
“No, I didn’t know”: Virginia Shafer Cox to RY, July 8, 1961.
“Bick was right about that, too”: Int. Ann Wright Jones.
“I am sorry to hear”: “Joan” to RY, November 15, 1946.
“‘back on [her] feet’ in no time”: CSRY, 298.
According to records provided by Pen and Brush, Ruth Yates was named “Resident Sculptor” in June 1944.
“oddly satisfying”: CSRY, 299.
“utterly defeated”: Ibid.
Chapter Four Liars in Love: 1947–1951
Russell Benedict … beginning to pall: RY had suggested as much in a letter to Sheila Yates, June 29, 1953.
“young, poor, bright”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. June 1953. Sheila was clearly expressing an ideal coveted by both her and RY.
“trying to figure out”: CSRY, 300–301.
plerb (“a synonym for…”): from the 1944 Winged Beaver yearbook. Macaulay’s role in introducing RY to Sheila was mentioned by the latter.
For background on Sheila’s father, Charles Bryant, I’m greatly indebted to Gavin Lambert, Nazimova (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).
Marjorie would go on … John Birch: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.