†kkk Carlos Fuentes, The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992).
†lll See William Styron, “Too Late for Conversion or Prayer,” first published (in English) in Havanas in Camelot.
†mmm A sign of superannuation and the mortician’s knock—old guys talking about their prostates!
†nnn Morris’s 1993 memoir about his days as the editor of Harper’s.
†ooo Styron attached a clipping from Random House Magazine with a photo of President and Mrs. Clinton presenting him the National Medal of Arts. Styron circled and identified “movie director Billy Wilder” looking on.
†ppp Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass ran at Manhattan’s Booth Theatre from April 24 to June 26, 1994.
†qqq Bunker appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film in the role of Mr. Blue.
†rrr D’Almeida, a painter and poet, was a friend from Rome in 1959. George’s mother married Paul Warburg, who owned a large estate on Martha’s Vineyard, so they became friends on the Vineyard as well.
†sss Matthiessen’s grandson was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
†ttt Then director of the Special Collections Library at Duke University.
†uuu Boyd Boyner, “General Hartwell Cocke of Bremo,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia.
†vvv Styron met Magda Moyano, a young translator, on a trip to Mexico for the Inter-American Foundation in 1963. Although her father was Argentinian, Moyano’s mother was from Fulvana County, Virginia. Moyano was a descendant of John Hartwell Cocke, master of Bremo Plantation in Virginia. It was Moyano who led Styron to Boyner’s study of this progressive slave owner.
†www Nobile authored Judgment at the Smithsonian: The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (New York: Marlowe and Co., 1995).
†xxx This letter was written in response to Nobile’s letter to Styron on April 7, 1995, requesting Styron’s opinion of the United States’ apologizing to Japan on the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bomb.
†yyy Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific (New York: William Morrow, 1994).
†zzz Styron is referring to Buruma’s many articles in The New York Review of Books in the early 1990s, among them “The Devils of Hiroshima” (October 25, 1990) and “Ghosts of Pearl Harbor” (December 19, 1991).
†AAA The writer William Manchester also signed this letter.
†BBB Philip Roth, “The Ultimatum,” The New Yorker (June 26, 1995).
†CCC William Styron, “A Case of the Great Pox,” The New Yorker (September 18, 1995), collected in Havanas in Camelot.
†DDD Styron mentions Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” Cicero’s “Virtue is its own reward,” and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
†EEE Charles Joyner is Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern History and Culture at Coastal Carolina University and author of several books on American slavery.
†FFF Charles Joyner, “Styron’s Choice: A Meditation on History, Literature, and Moral Imperatives,” in Christopher Morris and Susan A. Eacker, Southern Writers and Their Worlds (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996). See Toni Morrison, “The Art of Fiction No. 134,” The Paris Review (Fall 1993). Morrison responded to questions about Styron’s novel: “Well, here we have a very self-conscious character who says things like, I looked at my black hand. Or, I woke up and I felt black. It is very much on Bill Styron’s mind. He feels charged in Nat Turner’s skin … in this place that feels exotic to him. So it reads exotically to us, that’s all.… He has a right to write about whatever he wants. To suggest otherwise is outrageous. What they should have criticized, and some of them did, was Styron’s suggestion that Nat Turner hated black people. In the book Turner expresses his revulsion over and over again … he’s so distant from blacks, so superior. So the fundamental question is why would anybody follow him? What kind of leader is this who has a fundamentally racist contempt that seems unreal to any black person reading it? Any white leader would have some interest and identification with the people he was asking to die. That was what these critics meant when they said Nat Turner speaks like a white man. That racial distance is strong and clear in that book.”
†GGG Mike Hill, filmmaker who made an audio recording of Styron in the fall of 1996 for a documentary about Apollo 8, the first space mission to circle the moon in December 1968. Hill served as a consultant on the PBS documentary Race to the Moon (2005).
†HHH In his foreword to Ron Schick and Julia Van Haaften, The View from Space: American Astronaut Photography 1962–1972 (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1988), Styron recalls the hush that fell over a small group of friends watching the televised Apollo 8 mission during a party. He later identified the host as Leonard Bernstein.
†III Richard Widmark (1915–2008), actor and neighbor of Styron’s in Roxbury, Connecticut.
†JJJ Francine du Plessix Gray, “Department of Second Thoughts,” The New Yorker (September 15, 1997).
†KKK The letter thanks Styron for the “book that was every bit as responsible for saving my life as the surgeon and internist who put my body back together after my suicide attempt.”
†LLL Claire Nicholas White, Stanford White: Letters to His Family (New York: Rizzoli, 1997).
†MMM Styron refers to a 1998 calendar entitled “A Literary Companion,” issued by the Library of Congress. The writers whose pictures appear therein include Poe, Eliot, Rebecca West, Pasternak, Capote, Hughes, and Gertrude Stein.
†NNN Uri Geller had sent Bill a crystal after the two met at a birthday party, and Styron forwarded Geller’s note to Roth.
†OOO Edgar L. Nettles was a coworker of Bill, Sr., at the Newport News shipyard. His wife, Frances C. Cosby, was Styron’s sixth-grade teacher. Reading “A Tidewater Morning” prompted Nettles to write Styron.
†PPP This postcard is from the “Writers and Their Familiars” series (photographs by Jill Krementz). The photograph is of Styron walking with his dog Aquinnah in Roxbury. As the caption reads: “William Styron with Aquinnah, Roxbury, Conn., April 29, 1979. William Styron (b. 1925) has written some of the most important novels of our time, including Lie Down in Darkness (1951), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), and Sophie’s Choice (1979).” Aquinnah, a golden retriever, “had attributes that were nearly human, but she also possessed all-too-human failings,” Styron recalls. “For instance, when I taught her how to drive, she insisted on staying on the left-hand side of the road. So that ended her driving career, which made it all the better for our wonderful daily walks together.” The co-editor of this volume, R. Blakeslee Gilpin, sold Styron the stamp for this postcard and canceled it at the West Chop, Massachusetts, post office.
†QQQ This note accompanied the manuscript of Styron’s eulogy for Willie Morris, which was published in The Oxford American, September/October 1999, and in a book of tributes called Remembering Willie (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000).
†RRR Styron had asked Bunker to procure a suicide cocktail for him and Bunker urged him to take a few days to think it over.
†SSS The unfinished manuscript of Styron’s The Way of the Warrior.
†TTT Bunker replied, “I have to tell you that you’re one of the best friends I’ve had in my entire life. You’ve done so many favors for me that I can’t begin to count them. There is nothing [in] the world that I would not do for you.”
†UUU “An Evening with William Styron” was held in the grand lobby of the Library of Virginia on December 2, 2000, when Styron was quite frail from the depression, which, he explained, had “mutated into a physical decline.” This celebration featured tributes by Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Jim West, Peter Matthiessen, Mike Wallace, and Bruce Hornsby.
†VVV Brooke Allen reviewed Ozick’s Fame and Folly for The New York Times Book Review on June 9, 1996.
†WWW Ozick’s essay “A Liberal’s Auschwitz,” in her collection The Pushcart Prize, took
writers like Styron to task for not emphasizing the Holocaust’s “specifically Jewish martyrdom.” Robie Macauley’s review of that essay in the June 27, 1976, New York Times prompted Ozick to clarify her position and Macauley to defend Styron in the August 8, 1976, Letters to the Editor.
†XXX Jeffrey Gibbs (b. 1971), Florida-born poet and writer who read Sophie’s Choice as an undergraduate in 1992 and credits the book with changing his life.
†YYY Styron attached a photo of himself in the gazebo in Styron Square and another photo of him and Jim West in front of the sign for the city of Newport News.
†ZZZ Styron sent this note to his biographer and friend Jim West with a note dated June 5, 2000: “Jim: I’m having a very bad time. I hope to make it through but in case I do something to myself I trust you will make the enclosed letter public and also bring it to the attention of Random House. As ever, Bill.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FIRST, I WOULD LIKE to make special acknowledgment of Edmond Miller. When Ed learned that I was casting a net far and wide to retrieve my husband’s existing correspondence (Bill, in my memory, never kept copies), he generously pointed me to certain letters in Duke University’s Rubenstein Library and suggested plumbing other writers’ archives at Yale, Princeton, the University of Texas, the University of Mississippi, the University of North Carolina, and the Morgan Library. I am most grateful to him.
James L. W. West III, Bill’s biographer, was an invaluable resource and frequent adviser who was in close contact with Bill and me for decades. The book Jim put together of Bill’s early correspondence with “Pop” inspired me to write an introductory essay on their unique father-son relationship and then to pursue this volume.
It is especially fitting that Bob Loomis ushered this project from a computer file into print. Beyond being Bill’s classmate at Duke and his incredible editor for almost fifty years, Bob was ever ready to encourage us. He approached Bill’s private correspondence as he did Bill’s fiction, with great sensitivity and steadfast principle. Ben Steinberg has been a splendid ally at Random House, where we also profited from the sharp touch of copy editors.
I am indebted, too, to Robert Byrd, head of the Special Collections Library at Duke University, and to his responsive staff, especially Will Hansen, who found and sent me documents I needed when I could not return to Durham myself. I am also indebted to Richard Workman and Katherine Kelly, who were at the Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, when I visited; to the patient personnel who guided me through Harvard’s Houghton Library and its Law School Library, as well as those at the Library of Congress; to James Baldwin’s sister Gloria Smart; and to our dear neighbor and pal Mia Farrow, who lifted my spirits by presenting me instantly with Bill’s original handwritten letters to her. There are many others whose friendship I so value: they sustained me through the search.
Finally, Blake and I agree that this collection would never have seen the light of day without the endless hard work and imaginative contributions of Christina Christensen. She has our deep appreciation.
ROSE STYRON
April 2012
I FEEL FORTUNATE to give credit to the many institutions that generously supported this work over the years. The John Hope Franklin Fellowship program at Duke University, the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University, and the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill all provided crucial assistance for my work in Bill’s papers. Above all, this volume would likely have taken another decade if it had not been for the unstinting support and flexibility of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney: in particular, I am grateful to Margaret Levi, Rebecca Sheehan, Sean Gallagher, Andres Vigano, Geoffrey Garrett, Brendon O’Connor, and Craig Purcell. A special related thank-you to Shane White for all of his support and interest in this and other projects. I am also grateful to my colleagues at the University of South Carolina, where this project finally made it into print.
My advisers and mentors have provided encouragement and enthusiasm throughout this process. I owe particular debts of gratitude to Joe Flora, Harry Watson, Tim Marr, Glenda Gilmore, Anne Fadiman, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown. John Stauffer has selflessly given me inspiration, support, and counsel; I cannot wait to share this work with him. Last but by no means least is David Blight, who, aside from being my model of scholarship and teaching, is the best cornerman any young academic pugilist could hope for. David has gone out of his way to help me stretch beyond staid disciplinary boundaries and always proves a wise and loyal friend.
Simply put, this collection would not have been possible without James L. W. West III. In addition to donating a wide assortment of Xeroxed letters, Jim patiently read galleys of the manuscript and generously shared his unparalleled expertise. Rose and I are very grateful for his countless contributions.
I must thank Rose for the opportunity to edit this collection. I had become consumed with all things Styron after my first month in Bill’s papers at Duke and I leapt at her invitation. Rose is an astounding person, all the more so for being able to remember a dinner party in Rome in 1952 or the identity of a nickname in a letter five decades old. It has been a privilege to edit these letters with her.
My deepest thanks are to my wife, Abbey, who not only put up with the endless transcriptions and piles of Xeroxes on the kitchen table, couch, and floor, but also endured the 100,000-plus miles of travel the collection entailed. While sharing my enthusiasm, offering a critical ear, and listening to lots of talk about William Styron in 1948, 1968, and beyond, she also gave birth to our son, Bear. I would be lost without Abbey’s loving support. Someday I hope she or Bear will crack this book open to see the fruits of those many late nights and early mornings.
R. BLAKESLEE GILPIN
April 2012
FIRST AMERICAN EDITIONS OF WILLIAM STYRON’S BOOKS
Lie Down in Darkness. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1951.
The Long March. New York: Random House, 1956.
Set This House on Fire. New York: Random House, 1960.
The Confessions of Nat Turner. New York: Random House, 1967.
In the Clap Shack. New York: Random House, 1973.
Sophie’s Choice. New York: Random House, 1979.
This Quiet Dust and Other Writings. New York: Random House, 1982. Expanded edition, New York: Vintage, 1993.
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. New York: Random House, 1990.
A Tidewater Morning: Three Tales from Youth. New York: Random House, 1993.
Inheritance of Night: Early Drafts of Lie Down in Darkness. Preface by William Styron. Ed. James L. W. West III. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993.
Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays. New York: Random House, 2008.
The Suicide Run: Fives Tales of the Marine Corps. New York: Random House, 2009.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
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ROSE STYRON is a poet, journalist, translator, and human rights activist. She has published three books of poetry: Thieves’ Afternoon, From Summer to Summer, and By Vineyard Light. At the forefront of the field of international human rights since she joined the board of Amnesty International USA in 1970, she has chaired PEN’s Freedom to Write Committee and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Currently, for the Academy of American Poets, she co-chairs, with Meryl Streep, Poetry and the Creative Mind.
R. BLAKESLEE GILPIN is the author of John Brown Still Lives! America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change, winner of the C. Vann Woodward Prize for the best dissertation in Southern history. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The American Scholar, and The New York Times. An assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, Gilpin specializes in the history, literature, and culture of the American South. He is currently at work on a new biography of William Styron.
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Selected Letters of William Styron Page 73