A Tragic Honesty

by Blake Bailey

  “needless expense” of divorce: RY to Barbara Beury, September 9, 1960.

  “other commitments”: RY to Paul Engle, c. August 1959.

  Chapter Seven A Glutton for Punishment: 1959–1961

  “thirty-three years ago”: Peter Najarian, The Great American Loneliness (San Francisco: Blue Crane, 1999).

  “My New School class”: RY to Barbara Beury, September 30, 1960.

  “If you were teaching”: Int. Sidney Offit.

  “Emphasis is on the craft and art”: Yates’s course description in the New School Bulletin, Fall 1960.

  “He didn’t seem into teaching”: Int. Peter Najarian.

  “a nineteen-year-old … delinquent”: RY to R. V. Cassill, May 5, 1960.

  “Theodore Schwertheim”: RY to Peter Najarian, undated.

  “You are worth a thousand”: Najarian to RY, September 2, 1960.

  “I’ve had a real ball”: RY to Cassill, May 5, 1960.

  “There was something broken”: Int. Betty Rollin.

  “I thought I was witnessing”: Int. Gail Richards Tirana.

  “It was exhausting”: Int. Warren Owens.

  “I felt we deserved … contempt”: Susan Grossman to RY, c. March 1961.

  “Baked Alaska!” … A Star Is Born: Int. Warren Owens.

  “some of the finest autobiographical fiction”: Ploughshares, 71.

  “the greatest cocksman”: Int. Anne Bernays.

  “Dick was forthright … Broyard was the opposite”: Int. R. V. Cassill.

  “one of the most fruitful”: Lawrence to RY, October 2, 1959.

  “[T]his option was very important”: Charles Scribner Jr. to RY, October 22, 1959.

  “every sentence right”: RYAW, 56.

  “Although you may not learn”: Lawrence to RY, March 30, 1960.

  “Congratulations on your Bread Loaf”: Lawrence to RY, June 22, 1960.

  “funny evening”: Lawrence to RY, July 8, 1960.

  “[I]’s practically impossible”: Lawrence to RY, July 12, 1960.

  “Owing to its autobiographical”: RY’s undated Guggenheim statement, BU-MM.

  “a work of history and not”: Lawrence to RY, July 12, 1960.

  “We have a terrific novel”: Int. Dan Wakefield.

  RY’s various titles for Revolutionary Road are among his notes at BU. Robin Metz was the friend to whom RY mentioned his favorite, The Bullshit Artist.

  “He used to stand around”: Robert Parker, “A Clef,” unpublished ms., papers of Robert Parker.

  Kay Cassill remembers … “awe”: Int. Kay Cassill.

  “A deft, ironic, beautiful novel”: Styron’s comment was used by Little, Brown in promotion of the first edition, and appeared as a cover blurb on most later editions of the novel.

  “grubby little writing for hire”: YHC, 168.

  “I smoke too much”: Styron is quoted in Streitfeld, “Book Report,” Washington Post, December 27, 1992, X15.

  “Dick was always lubricating”: Int. William Styron.

  “He’s a great guy”: RY to DeWitt Henry, January 20, 1972.

  met the poet Marianne Moore: Int. Robert Parker.

  “Booo, Dartmouth!”: Int. Robert Riche.

  “drunken and frantic”: RY to Barbara Beury, September 23, 1960.

  “Dreadnought Dick”: Int. John A. Williams.

  “I well remember”: John Williams to RY, November 5, 1970.

  “And speaking of incredible”: RY to Barbara Beury, September 30, 1960.

  “premature ejaculation”: RY to Grace and Jerry Schulman, May 18, 1962.

  Yates’s “Lost Soul quality”: Int. Edward Kessler.

  hallucination? “Because that’s”: RY to Beury, December 22, 1960.

  “A massive lethargy”: RY to Cassill, May 5, 1960.

  The NIMH study on manic-depressive disorder is discussed in Jamison, Touched with Fire.

  “Zelda and F. Scott FitzYates”: Int. Barbara Beury McCallum.

  “drunk and self-absorbed”: RY to Beury, September 30, 1960.

  “The worst possible way”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.

  “Tell this dumb son of a bitch”: Int. Seymour Epstein.

  “real beds, chrome-and-leatherette”: DP, 55.

  “I have given the Bellevue authorities”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.

  “Bellevue was an epiphany”: Int. Grace Schulman.

  “Yates was always the smart one”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.

  “For God’s sake, take it easy”: RY to Najarian, September 24, 1960.

  “beautiful” … “very well-written”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.

  “I wish you wouldn’t ‘worry’”: RY to Beury, September 23, 1960; Beury’s side of the exchange is surmised from RY’s reply.

  “I think it’s a very swell”: RY to Beury, September 30, 1960.

  “This excellent novel is a powerful”: Kazin’s edited blurb appeared on the first edition of RR; the whole quote was included in Little, Brown promotional material found among RY’s papers.

  “After Little Brown got that letter”: RY to Beury, September 23, 1960.

  “delighted to work with [Yates]”: Saul David to McCall, October 27, 1960.

  “never read a more brilliant”: Quoted in RY to Beury, November 11, 1960.

  “The Presentation today”: RY to Beury, November 21, 1960.

  “very nice and un-awesome”: RY to Beury, September 30, 1960.

  “a gruesome failure”: RY to Beury, November 11, 1960.

  “[Anatole] has expressed”: Ibid.

  “The whole three days”: RY to Beury, October 24, 1960.

  “formal divorce talk”: RY to Beury, September 23, 1960.

  “The only nice thing”: RY to Beury, November 11, 1960.

  “big Celebrity Interview”: RY to Beury, December 22, 1960.

  “shocking”: Gingrich to McCall, January 22, 1961.

  “You are free to remarry”: Leonard Golditch to RY, February 9, 1961.

  “Got my final divorce”: RY to Beury, c. February 15, 1961.

  “Dick would hand you a tumbler”: Int. Alan Cheuse.

  “For God’s sake”: RY to Edward Kessler, March 6, 1961.

  “Maureen seemed like a tough”: Int. Edward Kessler.

  “I was fascinated”: Updike’s blurb for RR was included in Little, Brown promotional material found among RY’s papers.

  “Here is more than fine writing”: Lawrence mailed RY a copy of Tennessee Williams’s remarks on February 27, 1961; Williams’s blurb has appeared on most subsequent editions of RR.

  “Oh yes,” he responded: Contemporary Authors interview, 1981.

  Reviews of Revolutionary Road: J. C. Pine, Library Journal, February 1, 1961; R. D. Spector, New York Herald Tribune, March 5, 1961; W. E. Preece, Chicago Tribune, March 5, 1961; Martin Levin, New York Times Book Review, March 5, 1961; Orville Prescott, New York Times, March 10, 1961; “Briefly Noted,” The New Yorker, April 1, 1961; David Boroff, Saturday Review of Literature, March 25, 1961; Jeremy Larner, New Republic, May 22, 1961; Dorothy Parker, Esquire, June 1961; F. J. Warnke, Yale Review, June 1961; Theodore Solotaroff, Commentary, July 1961.

  “remains one of the few novels”: James Atlas, “A Sure Narrative Voice,” Atlantic, November 1981, 84–85.

  “a cultish standard”: Richard Ford, “American Beauty (Circa 1955),” New York Times Book Review, April 9, 2000, 16.

  “strikes too close to home”: Fred Chappell, essay on RR, in Rediscoveries, ed. David Madden (New York: Crown, 1971), 247.

  “Doesn’t it sound like a real name?”: Int. Robin Metz.

  “You threaten the intellectuals”: Andrew Sinats to RY, March 16, 1961.

  “If this was indeed”: Donn C. McInturff to RY, April 5, 1962.

  “Not knowing where else”: Thalia Gorham Kelly to RY, May 30, 1961.

  “very healthy indeed”: Lawrence to RY, March 7, 1961.

  “We are over 9,000”: Lawrence to RY, April 4, 1961.

  “I
cannot recall … launched”: Lawrence to RY, May 1, 1961.

  “the lousy way the book”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.

  “[I]n my more arrogant or petulant”: Ploughshares, 74.

  Chapter Eight The World on Fire: 1961–1962

  “re-read Fitzgerald’s ‘Crack Up’”: RY to Beury, c. January 1961.

  “The idea of the writer”: Int. David Milch.

  “Dick was both melancholy”: Int. James Whitehead.

  “How’s the schoolteaching”: Int. Robert Riche.

  “When Emma dies, I die”: Int. Grace Schulman.

  “It takes many amateur writers”: Contemporary Authors, 1981.

  “Don’t worry if it comes slowly”: RY to the Schulmans, April 16, 1962.

  “[I] still feel like a turd”: RY to the Schulmans, April 2. 1962.

  “PAY NO ATTENTION”: RY to Grace Schulman, April 28, 1966.

  “I always thought Dick was incorruptible”: RYAW, 48.

  “Best regards to Cyrilly”: RY to the Schulmans, April 16, 1962.

  “I got turned down for that job”: RY to Beury, May 4, 1961.

  “knowing you both”: RY to the Schulmans, November 23, 1971.

  “It was the nicest thing”: Int. Natalie Bowen.

  “Before the meal was over”: Dan Wakefield to RY, July 2, 1976.

  “You make … uncomfortable”: Susan Grossman to RY, March 17, 1961.

  “You’d be bored”: Quoted in Grossman to RY, late March 1961.

  “incurable keeps-player”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.

  “How dare that crook”: Int. Natalie Bowen.

  “Forgot to tell you that my mother”: RY to Beury, May 4, 1961.

  “I guess I was a bit of a bastard”: RY to Beury, mid-February, 1961.

  “Even if you end up marrying”: RY to Beury, June 26, 1961.

  “This confident, good-looking”: RYAW, 39.

  “soulmate drinker”: Int. Franklin Russell.

  “Outrageous!” he shouted: Ibid.

  “Beverly who?”: E-mail to author from Robert Riche.

  Yates felt certain that his “effeminate”: Int. Natalie Bowen.

  “experimental warm-up”: Ploughshares, 70.

  “[about] a ‘colorful’ character”: Rust Hills to McCall, May 24, 1961.

  “Jerome Weidman writes three”: Saturday Review of Literature, July 1, 1961, 14.

  “No culture has placed”: Yates’s course description in the New School Bulletin, Spring 1961.

  “Had a dreary class”: RY to Beury, April 26, 1961.

  “a considerable amount of dough”: RY to Beury, June 26, 1961.

  “[They] are talking … ‘wait and see’”: RY to Beury, July 23, 1961.

  “physically stronger but mentally”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.

  “I am not, as you so neatly”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, c. October 1961.

  “It was Bob Jones”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, c. September 1961.

  painted lipstick on her reflection: For the real-life basis of this memorable scene in The Easter Parade, see RYAW, 22.

  “The deaths of parents”: Quoted in American Voices, ed. Sally Arteseros (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1.

  “I sweated blood”: Ploughshares, 67.

  “[W]e don’t mark our bottles”: Rella Lossy to RY, September 9, 1961.

  “He had … spoiled child”: Int. Julia Child.

  “Dick never praised simply”: Int. Miller Williams.

  “I can’t tell you how impressed”: Lawrence to RY, September 8, 1961.

  Broyard … avoided Yates as … drunk: Int. Alexandra Broyard.

  “lively if somewhat confused”: RY to Miller Williams, January 20, 1962.

  “endless sophomoric discussions”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.

  “Christ, Dick, you’re no cad”: Beury to RY, January 23, 1962.

  “a perfect gentleman”: Int. Sandra Walcott Eckhardt.

  “On the first day of class”: Int. Lee Jacobus.

  “hole-in-corner deal”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. January 1962.

  “I have learned what it is”: Sheila Yates to RY, January 17, 1962.

  “a hell of a lot of trouble”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 14, 1962.

  “rather exaggerated emptiness”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.

  “the two terrible traps”: Ploughshares, 70.

  “special type of writer”: Int. John Frankenheimer.

  “The Movie Deal that seemed”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.

  “no whiff of a contract”: RY to Miller Williams, January 20, 1961.

  “Mr. Yates, how can I make sure”: Charles Leap to RY, January 2, 1961.

  “the book was a shattering”: Lawrence to RY, January 30, 1962.

  Yates … Wallant … commiserate: Int. Lee Jacobus.

  Background of the 1962 NBA controversy: Gay Talese, “Critics Hear Tale of Novel’s Prize,” New York Times, March 15, 1962.

  “a beautiful writer”: Ploughshares, 77.

  “a pathetic lush”: Letter to author from Carolyn Gaiser.

  “Want it? Want it?”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 36.

  “Just to save you anxiety”: Int. Grace Schulman.

  “I spent the first week”: RY to the Schulmans, April 2, 1962.

  “Do you think Hollywood”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. March 1962.

  “Baby, this is Crazyville”: RY to Kessler, April 23, 1962.

  “the drug I’ve been needling”: Jerry Schulman to RY, April 5, 1962.

  “He’s probably some semi-literate”: RY to Schulmans, April 16, 1962.

  Reviews of Eleven Kinds of Loneliness: Peter Buitenhuis, New York Times Book Review, March 25, 1962; Richard Sullivan, Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1962; Hollis Alpert, Saturday Review of Literature, April 21, 1962; J.C. Pine, Library Journal, April 15, 1962.

  A translated version of Cabau’s review of EKL in the French weekly Express was mailed to RY on October 24, 1963, by Monica McCall: “You are now a pet of the French critics,” she wrote.

  “stands at the pinnacle”: Jonathan Penner, New Republic, November 4, 1978.

  “the mere mention of its title”: Robert Towers, New York Times Book Review, November 1, 1981, 3.

  “he believes this light to be a lie”: CSRY, XX.

  “economics of publishing”: Lawrence to McCall, April 16, 1962.

  “They’re there, and now all”: Lawrence to RY, April 24, 1962.

  “a kind of literary snow-blindness”: Stories for the Sixties, ed. RY (New York: Bantam, 1963), vii.

  “quite impressed”: Rust Hills to RY, April 17, 1962.

  “Maybe the little bastard”: RY to the Schulmans, May 18, 1962.

  “It was almost as if he knew”: Ploughshares, 75.

  “At the rate Yates is going”: Malcolm Stuart to McCall, May 25, 1962, BU-MM.

  “discovering endless problems”: RY to the Schulmans, May 18, 1962.

  “Don’t think I’m neglecting”: RY to Robert Parker, May 13, 1962.

  The birthplace and maiden name of Catherine Downing are found on her Social Security SS-5 form; other details about Downing were cobbled together from epistolary evidence in RY’s papers as well as interviews with Frances Doel and others.

  “You didn’t leave anything”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.

  “a whole new avalanche”: UT.

  “Good novels—let’s say great novels”: Ploughshares, 72.

  “delivering great globs”: William Styron’s “Lie Down in Darkness”: A Screenplay (Watertown, Mass: Ploughshares, 1985).

  “At a distance in time”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 14, 1962.

  “old, reliable tranquility”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. March 1962.

  “I will never—and I mean”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 14, 1962.

  “I should, damn it, have known”: John Ciardi to RY, September 10, 1962.

  “ugly fucking battle-ax”: Int. Grace Schulman.

  “You can take my word”: Ciardi to RY, September 13,
1962.

  “After it’s over I wince”: Quoted in Jamison, Touched with Fire, 32.

  predicted he’d kill himself: Marilyn Renzelman to RY, February 20, 1963.

  “Any hope that we can work”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 10, 1963.

  Chapter Nine Uncertain Times: 1962–1964

  “revolutionized the treatment”: New York Times, February 14, 1983, D10.

  “This is what keeps your old daddy”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.

  Frankenheimer had assured: Frankenheimer to RY, October 2, 1962.

  “ninety-eight per cent sure”: Cassill to RY, October 9, 1962.

  “Miss Wood’s agent decided”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.

  “Frankenheimer’s mills”: Styron to RY, March 14, 1963.

  “I’m working hard as hell”: RY to Cassill, February 7, 1963.

  “spasm of writing”: UT.

  Background on Ruth’s marriage: Int. Fred and Peter Rodgers, Ruth Rodgers Ward, Sheila Yates.

  “mentally ill, incompetent”: Cassill to RY, April 3, 1963.

  The meeting was a fiasco: “Kennedy and Baldwin: The Gulf,” Newsweek, June 3, 1963, 19.

  “turn them into words with a snap”: RYAW, 43.

  Prettyman called … Styron: Int. E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., Styron.

  “I don’t even know if I like”: UT.

  “short, clipped sentences”: Ibid.

  “We’re living in very uncertain”: Venant, “A Fresh Twist in the Road,” sec. 6, p. 8.

  “School is out, girls”: UT.

  “more of an honorarium kind of thing”: UT.

  “I couldn’t resist”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.

  “Dick composed the most memorable”: RYAW, 43.

  “He used RFK as a ventriloquist’s”: Int. Kurt Vonnegut.

  “Dick was respectful”: Int. Jack Rosenthal.

  “Sorry I’ve been so elusive”: UT; Int. Wendy Sears Grassi.

  “The FBI wheels”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 10, 1963.

  “a fine-looking young man”: UT.

  “hunched and impassioned”: Ibid.

  “Dick, I recall feeling”: John A. Williams to RY, November 5, 1970.

  “If my questioning you”: RY to Williams, c. early 1971.

  “There! I wrote that!”: Int. Janis Knorr.

  “White people of whatever kind”: Robert F. Kennedy: Collected Speeches, ed. Edwin O. Guthman and C. Richard Allen (New York: Viking Penguin, 1993), 98–100.

  “a little heavy in the leg.”: The phrase was used to describe Sears’s fictional alter ego Holly Parsons in UT.