I think the crowd of hangers-on around the cafes still interest me most clinically and as a group. The Americans, I mean. The general impression I had of Americans in Paris, at least before I came, was that they were a highly intellectual bunch, serious and dedicated to the creative act. But to tell you the truth I’ve never been so disappointed in any one group of people in all my life; outside of a few people here and there like Peter Matthiessen and a few of his friends, these Americans are the most no-good ignorant lot of bums I’ve ever seen, loafers and fortune-hunters who have absolutely no purpose or visible reason for existence, a perfectly appalling bunch of philistines and know-nothings and creeps, whose only daily act seems to be cadging 60 francs for a sandwich or a beer. None of them have given me personally any hard time or unhappiness, and I avoid them when possible, but I thought you’d be interested in hearing my reactions to our contemporary ambassadors of culture.
Please tell Lizzie to call off her research for the Drewry book, “The Southampton Insurrection,” as I’ve gotten a letter from J. Saunders Redding at Hampton Institute, saying that he’d get it and send it to me. But tell her, too, that I would still very much like to have the other books I wrote her about.
I’d better close now and be off to the other side of the river …
Bill
TO ELIZABETH MCKEE
May 27, 1952 Paris, France
Dear Lizzie,
I hope Dorothy got you to call off the search for the Drewry book, because I told her to, since Saunders Redding, to whom I wrote, said that he was pretty sure he could get a copy for me from the Hampton Library. As for the Aptheker and the Phillips items, you’d better just send them to me here c/o American Express by ordinary mail, even if it does take longer, since airmail sounds too expensive.
Giniger is one of the most charmless people I’ve ever met, but he has been nice to me. Took me to a couple of forums in the “Oeuvre du XXme Siècle” series and introduced me to Allen Tate, Auden, Robert Lowell, James T. Farrell, Stephen Spender, all of whom are terrible bores. Glenway Wescott was present, too, an aging pansy with a coterie of elf-like, twittering young men.†Y I must say the literary life can be nauseating. Even if occasionally interesting.
This thing that I’m writing looks like it might be too long for anything but New World Writing or the book that John Aldridge and Vance Bourjaily (commonly known as Raoul Bojalay) are working up. But they don’t pay much, do they? Please call up Arabel Porter or Mac Talley and find out when the closing date for the next New World Writing is.
I’d be glad to get you the bottle of Lanvin’s Prétexte and will send it along to you sometime soon with someone who’s coming back.†Z Incidentally, I lost Douglas McKee’s address and I don’t know what an A.P.I.A. is. Is it American Piepan Intelligence Associates, or the association for the Prevention of Indigent Authors, or what? There are so many initialed agencies over here now that I’ve lost track, but I would be glad to give him the loot if you’ll send his address.
I was wrong about my life being clean and ordered. It is now slightly fingerprinted around the edges and distinctly disordered, but très gai.
Love + Kisses
Your littler 10%er
TO JAMES JONES‡a
May 27, 1952‡b Paris, France
Dear Jim,
If you think you’ve got a writing set-up out in Illinois, you should come to Paris. You won’t get a thing written here, because just as the poets always intimated, the prevalence of cafes, booze, and an incredible assortment of women absolutely precluded anything but what we used to call in the Marines “fiddle f-king around.” Sometime this summer I’m going to find a clean, well-lighted place in Italy and start to work. How’s everything with you?
Bill Styron
TO ELIZABETH MCKEE
June 11, 1952 Paris, France
Dear Lizzie,
I braved through the throngs on the right bank to get your Lanvin’s Prétexte, and this is just a note to let you know that I am sending it to you in the hands of a young man named Ormond de Kay, who is leaving on the Île tomorrow, the 12th, and should be in New York early next week.‡c He said that he would call you as soon as feasible. In case he doesn’t (unlikely), his address is 142 East 18th St., Phone Gramercy 3-0582. A very likeable guy. He wrote the screenplay for that movie about the Negro doctor in Vermont or New Hampshire—“Lost Boundaries.” He is also thinking about writing a novel. The price of the perfume was 3900 fr. Or almost exactly $10.00 which you can take care of. Also, I told de Kay that in exchange for this service I would ask you to give him one of those extra English copies of “LDID,” which I hope you’ll do. And finally, I am also asking him to deliver, c/o you, a little something for Dorothy, which I’d like you to give her. You may tell her that the design on it is an ancient form of dice game, and that I hope she lays a nickel down for me.
Two things I’d like you to do for me. The first is try to find out through either Willingham’s publishers (Vanguard + Dial) or his agent just what Calder’s present address is, so I can jig him about the $50 he owes me, long overdue.
The second is this. I don’t know why Hiram Haydn manages to get such stupid secretaries, but he does. Lately she has been forwarding mail that comes in for me at Bobbs by merely scratching out the original address and writing “c/o American Express, Paris,” on it. Naturally, if only a 3¢ stamp is on the envelope, as is usually the case, the letter gets sent back to the original sender for foreign postage, occasionally a letter comes through with postage due, and two weeks late. Please call either her (her name is Sally something) or Hiram immediately, and ask her to continue putting my letters in a separate envelope, properly addressed to Paris, and sent by air mail. Tell her the air mail rate is 15¢ a letter, roughly, and that I’ll pay the postage if necessary, out of my account, but that I don’t want to keep having my mail screwed up by her stupidity. Or words to that effect.
No more news since my last letter to Didi—except I’m having a birthday party tonight (my 19th). I’ll look for Kathleen Winsor on the 18th.
Love + Kisses
WCS
TO VANCE BOURJAILY
June 13, 1952 Paris, France
Dear Vance,
Anticipating your rude remark, I took my hand off that teat long ago in order to place it on the typewriter, having come to the conclusion that in France arse is longa and vita is brevis which, freely translated, means that there’s plenty of tail around but it’s not every day you get a chance to pick up a buck through Discovery.‡d The magazine sounds fine from the prospectus and I should like to think that I might be a charter contributor. Right now I’m in the midst of a long short story which looks as if it might run to as many as 15 or 20,000 words.‡e I plan to have it finished within a month or so, but what I want to know is when the deadline for manuscripts is. If you could give me an approximate idea as to the latest date, it would put my mind at ease and either spur me to more strenuous effort or in some way help me to adjust my pace. Also, if the story is good enough—which I think it will be—is 20,000 words (at the very most) too much? Please let me know.
Europe is great but I’m provincial enough to miss the New York parties. One also must steer clear of the American girls in Paris—they’re all being psychoanalyzed and think that the vagina is meant for wee-wee. Or something. If you know where Calder is, let me know his address, because he pulled a quick one on me in Denmark to the tune of $50 and hasn’t made amends. Best to Tina and the Aldridges.
Yours—Bill Styron
TO DOROTHY PARKER
July 19, 1952 Paris, France
Honeybunch darling—the story is, I believe, coming along just dandy and my pretty much night and day work on it is the main reason I haven’t written you before this. It is now between 11,000 and 12,000 words, which I figure is about two-thirds complete. It has some really good—fine—things in it so far, and I think it will be even better when it’s finished. In fact I think I can say it has some of my best writing in it and wil
l make stories by people like Hemingway and Turgenev pale in comparison. That sounds a bit like what Hemingway would say, doesn’t it? No, what I really mean is that it won’t have any of the really “cool, gone” (in junkie parlance) quality of the best in LDID, but it will be good, “true,” powerful and nicely-textured. I do hope I’ll be able to finish it within the month, and am determined to do so somehow, because I want the thing if possible to go into Jack Aldridge’s and Bourjaily’s magazine “Discovery,” and Vance wrote me that the outside deadline is August 15th—the very latest, and I’ll probably have to get special dispensation to get it in even by that date. Tell Lizzie I’ll send the MS as soon as it’s finished and typed and that she can wrangle with Vance about rates after he’s seen it. Vance said 3¢ a word probably, but of course I wouldn’t be averse to 3½ or 4¢ if Lizzie could work it. I really think “Discovery” is a good bet—in the first place because the story will obviously be too long for practically anything else, in the second place because $600 (or more) is pretty good dough, and in the third place because the magazine is not only going to have a large readership but, according to Lew Allen, a friend of Vance’s, I’ll be in fairly good company—Mailer, Jones, Hortense Calisher, and most likely little Truman.‡f
The joke, which really isn’t a joke, that I forgot to tell you in another letter is more really just a mot. It concerns the remark made by a bright lad concerning a honeymooning couple, the guy a pallid sort of fellow and the gal a kind of frigid-type debutante. Quoth he: “I’ll bet you that’s going to be like trying to get a marshmallow into a piggy-bank.” End of joke. You either like that type of joke or you don’t, n’est-ce pas?
I have met Mlle. Bataille, my French agent, who is very nice and who has introduced me to my publishers at Les Éditions Mondiales. I’ve also met my translator, a man by the name of Michel Arnaud, who is a genial bright sort and has translated Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair. He’s been working on LDID for about three months and is almost finished. The book is scheduled to be published in October sometime and they plan to give it the works. Incidentally I also met—Mrs. Franz Horch.‡g I’ve seen her a number of times and I must say that I certainly like her a lot. She’s coming back to the U.S. early in September but in the meantime she asked me to send you, and Lizzie too, her best regards and felicitations.
Social life here is about the same—gay when I’m working at the social life but rather circumscribed at times by the fact that I’m pretty much at work writing most of the time. Zeph Stuart and la Wanda are coming up tomorrow from Milan, so the coming week or so promises to be jolie. Incidentally, you asked if I saw Barbara Taeusch here. She’s left now, about two months ago, but I did see her, to answer your question, and the results are just about what you might imagine. What do you imagine?
I have sort of a chore for Lizzie, as usual, which I wish you could communicate to her. I hope it’s not asking too much but I think it can be done. Friends of mine here—chiefly Peter Matthiessen, about whom I’ve written—are starting a magazine which promises to be a very good one, since unlike others they have managed to get quite a bit of backing (one of the backers is the brother of Ali Khan)‡h and are all set financially besides having a more than ordinarily intelligent editorial approach. It’s to be called “The Paris Review” and one of its features each issue will be the photostated copy of a fiction or poetry MS, along with the author’s comments. E.M. Forster is going to be in the first issue with part of the MS of an unpublished novel, plus comments, and I’ve been picked for the second issue. Now what I want Lizzie to do, if she possibly can and it’s not too much work, is this: get hold of the MS of LDID, or the specific part that I want, and have that part photostated and sent to me. The MS was in the possession of Mrs. Hannah Josephson at the American Academy of Arts + Letters (in the phone book) but Lizzie can find out where it is now by calling her. Sigrid might have it. At any rate, I would like to have photostated that part of the MS which, in the English (H. Hamilton) edition, begins on page 223 and ends on 224, i.e. the part in the MS which, on P.223, begins with “Helen held her breath. Rain had begun to fall.…” And ends, on P.224 with “… She kept on crying, loud and unreasoning and anguished, and said, ‘No! No!’ ” If Lizzie could possibly swing this deal I’d appreciate it, and I think it will very much be worthwhile because the magazine will be well-circulated both in the U.S. and in France and could no doubt sell a few books …
Bill
P.S. Enclosed is the type of fan letter I’ve been getting recently. Pop forwarded it to me. It had been addressed to “William Styron (writer?), Newport News, West Virginia.”‡i
TO ROBERT LOOMIS AND JOHN J. MALONEY
August, 1952‡j Saint-Tropez, France
This part of the world is fabuleux, with blue, blue Mediterranean water and fishing with harpoon among the rocks. I’ve become terribly rugged + haven’t had a drink for over a week. I’ve been staying at a 35 room estate owned by an old woman who starred in René Clair’s first movie, now living in a sort of impoverished elegance. In a few days I’m going to a place on the Atlantic + visit with Irwin Shaw (where I’m sure to stay drunk) and then back to Paris for a week or so before I head for Rome. I’ve sent off a 20,000 word story to E.M. McKee which I expect will appear in the first issue of Jack Aldridge’s Discovery and which will settle the Marine Corps situation once + for all. I’m glad I’m over here because if the USMC brass read it they’re going to have a shit hemorrhage and send out patrols for me. The tail situation here is flourishing and is probably even better than Westport. Love + Kisses
WCS
TO GEORGE PLIMPTON‡k
August 16, 1952 Saints-Girons, France
Dear George—
A card from the Provence, a little south of Toulouse, where Doc, Moose & I are spending the night en route from St. Tropez to St. Jean de Luz.‡l Fine time on the Côte d’Azur, where I fell in love with a 15-year-old girl, alas but am looking forward to more sun + water on the Atlantic. Expect I’ll be back in Paris around next weekend, so stand by for a blowout at Le Chaplain. —Bill
TO HIRAM HAYDN
September 7, 1952 Paris, France
Dear Hiram,
I got your letter and thank you for your detailed comments and advice. Day before yesterday I got a letter from Elizabeth, who told me about all the confusion the story seems to have caused. Being so far away, and not having gotten your letter yet, I was not sure what the confusion was about, and so wrote her a hasty and what might have seemed a peevish note, telling her to take it easy, but now I’m more in the clear as to what is going on.
I will follow your letter point by point and try to give you my ideas on the various matters. First I should like to say that I’m of course very glad that you, John and Louis like the MS. I could feel blessed by no better approval. I also feel that I am aware of the various shortcomings of the MS which you mentioned. As a result, I think I would most certainly be willing to try to clarify certain things (the “slightly unsatisfied feeling” the reader might have at the end, for instance); although I’m not sure that I know how to go about making such changes, or whether I’d be successful if I tried. My approach to my own writing is such that when I’ve finished something I feel that I’ve literally finished, and that in spite of excellent criticism (and warranted criticism) I hardly feel up to changing it all around again. This might be laziness—I don’t think I really have a bull-headed, proprietary sense which says “this is perfect and not a word will be changed”—but I think that it would be nearer the truth to say that my execution so closely coincides with my conception that afterwards, when it’s all over, I just sort of feel that any major tinkering will … [Incomplete letter.]
TO LOUIS D. RUBIN, JR.
September 8, 1952 Paris, France
Dear Louis Rubin:
I’m glad to hear that you’re at work on a novel. I can both sympathize and wish you the best of success with it. I’m also happy to learn that Bob Hazel has had his work accepted by Wor
ld, which someone had already informed me.‡m
As for doing the reviews you mentioned, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline, and my reasons are two. The first is that I’ve tried reviewing and I’m simply no good at it. I get terribly wordy and rather emotional. The second, and more important, reason is that I’m somehow rather averse to criticizing my contemporaries. Not that they don’t need criticizing, some of them, but I’m afraid that for a writer to start talking in print about another writer, a contemporary, is in a way sort of sticking his neck out. I write something nasty about Shelby Foote,‡n then he writes something nasty about me, and first thing you know we’ve become squabbling critics rather than writers of books. I hope you understand my position, because if I did undertake to write reviews there would be no journal I’d rather write for than the Hopkins.
Paris has been very pleasant, and I’ve even managed to get some work done, but soon I’m off to Rome. Hope all goes well with you and the Review, in spite of J. Donald Adams.‡o
Sincerely
Wm Styron
TO DOROTHY PARKER
September 8, 1952 Paris, France
Darlingest Didi,
Right now it’s cold and rainy in Paris, and I miss you and I love you. I’ve put off writing you for this long because of your rather enigmatic letter about that which “I ought to have done years ago” and “I can’t gather my strength from outside myself,” and so I’ve rather imagined that you would just as soon not get any letters from me for a while. Is that right? If so, I understand perfectly, but at the same time I did want to write you this and tell you that I understand. I hope it doesn’t disturb you, because if there’s anyone on earth I don’t want disturbed or discomfited, and want to be happy, it’s you, my darling. And if you don’t write me for a while, I understand, too, but please, baby, make all this quick, for I yearn for the sound of your voice, no matter if it’s in ink and second-hand.
As for me, I’m back in Paris once more after a long and for the most part delightful voyage to the ends of France. I sent the long story off from St. Tropez, hoping that it would get into the first issue of Discovery, but it got such close and lengthy examination by E. McKee and Hiram that I’m afraid it’s going to end up in the Rocky Mountain Review, if that. Perhaps by the time you get this something will have been done about it. I hope so. At any rate, St. Tropez was marvelous, with the sea deliciously just like you described your own sea off Long Island, with wine, and with women. It wasn’t love but at least I got my ashes hauled, as they say. Incidentally, some day I’d like to write you a long pornographic letter describing my fantasies about making love to you, which I have 10 times a day, but that would no doubt disturb the rather delicate equilibrium you’re in at the moment, I guess.
Selected Letters of William Styron Page 17