Selected Letters of William Styron

by William Styron

  Another place where you are absolutely spectacular, of course, is in the underwater scenes. All of them are fantastically good, breathtaking, but for some reason the ones that stick out the most remarkably for me are the retrieval of the two niggers from the river (that panties bit was superb), the time when Ron gets caught in the net, and the time or memory when Bonham goes out and kills him that shark. They are gems in themselves, and recur still over and over in my mind.

  Finally, you have pinned down beautifully the thing you told me you were after in the book: this terrible wrench and anguish men have, especially American men, over their maleness. I think you have dramatized it superbly, especially in the inter-relationship between Grant and Bonham (and to some extent later with Grointon, though there the heterosexual jealousy takes over); and God knows after that hectic, desperate, wonderfully described voyage to the Nelson Islands, the reader stands in perfect awe of your ability to smell out all the hideous little motivations and counter-motivations, sexual and otherwise, that make men into the kind of half-monsters that they are. In fact, I have an idea that WIDOW-MAKER might become the definitive work on the hell of masculine identity.

  There is so much fine in the book that I hesitate to niggle about the lapses. I think for one thing (and I speak as a believer in spaciousness in the novel) that it is considerably too long—many too many maneuverings of people around hotel lobbies and bars and in and out of rooms and such, which could have been done in a line or two rather than the paragraphs you took; too much dogged palavering over, for instance, the details of the financing of the Naiad, and goings and comings of Sam Finer, and quite a few bar scenes that are repetitious and could have been left out entirely. And also many random paragraphs here and there which simply didn’t—to my mind—have to be there; repetition again. As I say, I believe in scope and length among the Novel’s chief virtues; but as your good friend and reader I think that if you apply ruthless and microscopic attention to eliminating in the galleys as many superfluous details and scenes as you can (shrinking certain purely transitional paragraphs to a laconic sentence or two, for instance), you can reduce the book’s length by 200 pages and I passionately believe it will gain in force and intensity. At any rate, that is my humble opinion.

  There are certain substantive things in the book which, because you saw them that way and because you may be right, I can’t ask you to tamper with but still bother me—fit matters for a personal discussion rather than a letter perhaps. Lucky is such an adorable creation, so filled with insight and sympathy and understanding, that I find it somewhat hard to believe that this sweetie, once she heard the truth from Ron about Ron’s past relations with Carol, would remain so bitter and antagonistic toward Ron, at least for so long. Perhaps for a night or a day, in a funk so to speak. But for a girl who has up until this moment been portrayed as such a paradigm of warmth and understanding to be so unremittingly resentful and intolerant is a little hard for me to accept. Just as I find it hard to accept (even within the framework of the dependency-type personality you have established Ron as having, with Carol before), or if not hard to accept then irritating, that Ron would be so insanely jealous over the possibility (not the fact) that Lucky stepped out on him with Grointon. My own reaction was, Well, so what? So he stuck it in her once, he won’t do it again. In the meantime the universe and the beautiful underwater world still exist. But all of this, as I say, is substantive and has to do less with the aesthetic of your book than with a particular moral hang-up which seems to posit absolute purity and decency on the one hand and absolute treachery and evil on the other, either one depending upon whether one has inserted a throbbing piece of flesh into a more or less throbbing orifice, or whether one hasn’t. My honest feeling was that Ron had gotten himself into such an insane state over this matter that, although I didn’t know for sure whether Lucky had fucked Grointon, I kind of wished she had.

  But all of this does not diminish in the slightest my basic admiration for what you’ve achieved. Despite my reservations (which I expect you to reject anyway) I think you’ve produced a really prodigious work of the imagination, broadly intelligent, filled with uncanny insights about men and manliness (and also about women and screwing), and containing some of the best passages about the sea written since J. Conrad left Warsaw to become a cabin boy.‡ee I should think that these facts should fill you with some satisfaction and allow you to go to bed at night and tickle (Lucky’s) pussy with a sense of fine mission finely achieved.

  I hope you will write me a post card when my book is finished. Love to all and give a stroke to Lucky for old Bill.

  B.S.

  TO C. VANN WOODWARD

  October 26, 1966 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Vann:

  I think that “The Second Reconstruction” is just splendid, and I certainly don’t think that you need have any worries about either pedantic tendencies or gaucheries about the White Negro.‡ff Indeed, your remarks about the hipness and chicness of Negro attitudes among hip white people are among the best I’ve ever read. It is in a sense, of course, a pessimistic essay, but I don’t think that you should be concerned that some new political pronouncement after the election is going to substantially alter the truth of your viewpoint. You have summed up beautifully the quality of the impasse, and of course the historical perspective you have brought to it gives it an enormous added authority. It is a powerful and disturbing piece and I have no criticism at all except the minor suggestion that you add to your list of defectors from the cause one of the most significant groups: I am thinking of the college kids for whom, according to Monday’s N.Y. Times, the civil rights movement is a dead turkey. I am simply thinking that perhaps somewhere in the second paragraph on p. 11 you could add a single short sentence adding the campus young people to the groups who have joined in the “great stillness.” It is a truly fine piece, and the sooner it appears the better.

  I also greatly enjoyed the adroit decapitation you did on Dwight Lowell Dumond‡gg (do you think his middle name had anything to do with his self-righteous ardor?); the reference to Rousseau is perfectly apt.‡hh Also, the observations on the Underground Railroad are fascinating. I’m going to get hold of that book if I can. I’m beginning to think that all of antebellum history was one big pipedream. Who knows, maybe even Garrison was the figment of someone’s imagination.

  The November 29th visit with Genovese sounds fine, and I’ve put it down on the book. Also, I’ve gotten a letter from J.M. Dabbs,‡ii who would like to get together with you and me around November 7th. I certainly am amenable to come to New Haven around that time so anything you set up with him will be O.K. with me. Will you let me know what you work out with him?

  Yours, sadly, in the backlash,

  Bill

  TO JAMES JONES

  October 28, 1966 New Milford, CT

  Une jeune fille 3 kilos Love Bill and Rose.‡jj

  TO ROBERT PENN WARREN

  November 11, 1966 Roxbury, CT

  You must read the following message as a short story, without peeking at the ending. You will recall, first of all, the story I told you about my roommate at Davidson College, Charlie Capps, who went on to greater things and became the High Sheriff of Bolivar County, Miss. This story resembles that but exceeds it somehow, and makes me wonder if my youthful roommate background is not somehow strangely blessed, or cursed.

  As you know, the other night on TV we witnessed one of the weirdest finales of any national election in recent history. Well around 7 PM—when by way of the new electronic marvels that announce the winners, accurately by God, 10 minutes after the polls close, on the basis of early returns, and make you feel that you are living in 1984—I turned on the set and by pure coincidence saw the smiling victorious face of one of my old roommates. (His face had been preceded by that of Lester Maddox, also smiling, winner of the disputed but probably sure governorship of Georgia.) I near about dropped off the davenport. Anyway, this roommate was my roommate at Duke for 8 months when we were in the
Marine V-12 together. Really charming guy—a native of Montgomery who had been transferred to Duke from Emory. I shared a room with him and a Jewish boy from Memphis named Arthur Katz. We had a great time together, boozed it up a lot and went off whoring in Raleigh, and one time—together with a couple of girls from Wilmington, N.C.—had the nearest thing to an orgy I ever encountered. This fellow was bright and engaging, a good student, charming, generous, and I honestly missed him after we shipped out of Duke and went our separate ways in the Marines.

  After I had become what they call a Writer, I began to get an occasional very nice letter from him, pleasant and congratulatory and in good tone. He obviously had moved ahead. He was in his mid-thirties (my age at the time) but was already the president of a Life Insurance company down south. He invited Rose and me to come and see him, implying without being ostentatious that he had a pretty good place to make us feel at home in. Then about three years ago I actually ran into him, in the lobby of the Hotel Savoy-Hilton in New York. Great hellos and hollers and all that. He was in NY on business, up from the South. We had several drinks together, terribly pleasant, and planned to hit the town together, as they say, to recapture all the old times, but for one reason or another it fell through. Anyway, during the brief time I saw him I got the impression of an up-and-coming, very unstuffy rich young businessman from Down South that either of us would like to have adorn our living room. Literate without being bookish, all that, knew Warren, Faulkner, Styron, not the whole Canon but enough, all that bullshit.

  The short story is coming to an end. The man’s name is Claude Kirk, Jr., and he has just been elected the governor of the sovereign state of Florida. I would say that his politics, such as they are (He ran like the rightist in Md. on the platform of “Every man’s home his castle,” and the Times reported him as winking at old ladies in parking lots during the campaign and promising $3 billion of state goodies on a $1.5 billion budget) is somewhere between Willie Stark and Lester Maddox. Actually, it occurs to me that he is the new Willie Stark, all Duke U. and Brooks & Warren and very much in and sophisticated, lit., etc., and several miles to the right of Mussolini. Some of the things he said in his campaign would curl the hair of a man inured to Vardaman and Maddox. Not because they were the words of a redneck, but precisely because they were so Duke U. and suave. Anyway, that’s the end of the short story. I think that before you return from France I will have taken me a little edifying trip to Tallahassee. An essay on Old Roommates.

  Our new offspring is just beautiful, and Tommy is meaner than hell about her. On the first day after she was born, when his grandmother called up to ask what he wanted her to bring him, he said quite slowly and deliberately, “Some wire … and some … batteries … and some nails … and some heavy weights.” I really think he was building an electric chair for the baby in the cellar.‡kk

  The book marches toward an end. We plan a spring (early spring) visit to the Alpes Maritimes.

  Love to all the Warrens,

  Bill

  PS: Not that I want to push my weight around about food but tell Eleanor that we have just finished a bushel of Chincoteague oysters.

  TO ROBERT WHITE

  November 18, 1966‡ll Roxbury, CT

  Lyndon B. Johnson’s Postal Regulations Forbid Me Signing Anything But A Cryptic: W.S.

  TO JAMES JONES

  December 9, 1966 Roxbury, CT

  Dear James:

  … Fine called me the other day to ask if I would let him quote from my letter to you (a copy of which he sent me) for purposes of plugging, advertising and other forms of commerce. I thought it over for a good while and decided not to, for the following two reasons which I hope will not offend you.

  a) Most importantly, I honestly don’t think it looks good for two writers who are as well-known as friends as we are to give each other such a scratch on the back in public. I meant every favorable thing I said about the book, and more, and am willing to stand by more words, but I simply think that it lacks style and grace for me to plug you, and I would feel exactly the same if the positions were reversed. My feeling about this is reinforced by

  b) the fact that you shouldn’t and don’t need such a plug. The book is a powerful and original piece of work, you are a famous and venerated and well-established writer; therefore, for me to give you such a plug would seem under the circumstances to be at best superfluous and at worst a form of special pleading. The book should—and will—be able to stand by its own self.

  I have no criticism of your criticism of my criticism except to say that your howls of dismay won’t budge me an inch from my stand about some minor misgivings about what to me is a major and powerful work. I certainly didn’t make my criticisms lightly or facetiously, and the fact that you call me “off my nut” and “full of shit” doesn’t change my belief that—in terms of the two or three matters I brought up—you were not in the book artistically consistent. You may be right and I may, of course, be utterly wrong, but I don’t think so, and I wouldn’t have been honest if I hadn’t told you what I thought. For me the two things I mentioned didn’t come through convincingly, that’s all. Otherwise, I think it’s a tremendously powerful piece of fiction, and I’ll stand by every favorable thing I’ve said to you about it and every passionate feeling I have for it.

  Rose went to T. Capote’s masqued ball which was the shriek of New York, but I didn’t, being too involved in my own creative writing.‡mm She got rubbed by a couple of masqued faggots, and danced with Henry Ford, but that’s about all.‡nn Andy Warhol was there in his own face.

  We had a fine time with Monique and Jean-François, both in N.Y. and up here where they spent part of Thanksgiving week-end, but I guess you all have heard the gossip by now. Great folks, I think, even if they are French.…

  I hope you understand about my reluctance to quote from my letter. Again, I think the book is an absolute knockout, as they used to say in the twenties, and you should be relaxing serenely on your laurels.

  Merry Christmas to all etc.…

  Bill

  TO DONALD HARINGTON

  December 24, 1966 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Don:

  Just a brisk, brief note on Christmas Eve to wish you all a verrie merrie Xmas and all that bullshit. Our house has turned into a hideous materialistic gang-bang of a Gehanna worthy of the wildest dreams of a Byzantine Santa Claus with tons of junk, candy canes, and all sorts of obscene trash littering the premises from basement to attic. You may read in the Putney Bugle of all sorts of wild, demented, violent acts coming out of our Roxbury homestead. My latest ploy is just before bedtime to tell wonderful Yuletide stories to the kiddies about Santa turning at midnight into a hideous man-eating bat and the sugarplum fairies being humped by His reindeer.

  My lousy record as a correspondent may be laid to the fact that I have exhausted myself trying to finish Nat so it will be delivered to the Crystal Palace on Madison Avenue sometime in January.‡oo I will do better after all this is over. I figure that maybe this is my last novel. They take too much out of me to be commensurate with the spiritual rewards. Stick maybe to short stories—that was a damn lovely one of yours in Esquire, incidentally—but even the worth of shorties is a moot point.

  I’ll try to take you up on that kind invitation to visit, after this monster is laid to rest. Maybe you could find me a Vt. Snowbank to die in.

  I hope you’re over your Mammoth Writer’s Block. Take it from an old hand: they’ll keep coming but you’ll always get over each one.

  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,

  Yrs in Kris

  Kringle

  Bill

  TO MR. BEAN‡pp

  January 13, 1967 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Mr. Bean:

  I am old-fashioned enough so that most of my faith still comes from the poetry and passion of the Bible. So that when I recall the words—

  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be remov
ed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea—

  I am moved to a belief in the eternal, in which one’s death is only a necessary part of the great design.

  Warmest regards,

  William Styron

  TO DON CONGDON‡qq

  January 21, 1967 Roxbury, CT

  Dear Don:

  This is just to let you know THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER is finished and that I am delivering the manuscript to Bob Loomis at Random House sometime during the middle of the coming week—the 25th or 26th probably. Bob will be making Xerox copies and I’m sure he’ll give you one as soon as they are available. You may be interested to know that Life magazine is very eager to see the manuscript with the view in mind to break a precedent (except for Hemingway’s OLD MAN) and run fiction, in this case an excerpt as long as 7,000 words. The girl up there who is handling this matter, and who approached me about it, is an old friend named Jozefa Stuart, and she’ll be the one for you to talk to. Harper’s also is definitely planning to run a really big amount (45–50,000 words) coinciding with the publication of the book next fall. I don’t know yet how that will conflict with Life. Perhaps that will become one of your pleasant problems.

  Anyway, the book is done and I’m off to the Bahamas around February 3d, feeling somewhat like Manchester‡rr at his poorest. Call me up here before then if you need any more information.

  Yours,

  Bill