The anthology is pretty well wrapped up, I think, but not wholly to my satisfaction. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which is now actively involved, has objected to some of my prize choices, including Margaret’s Beast in View, The Walker, and the Patrick White story. They’re afraid the anthology might be too literary. I think they underestimate the public, and not for the first time. Fortunately, apart from M’s book for which they’re substituting one of mine (Far Side of Dollar), they didn’t mess with the novelists, and there are altogether only 12,000 or so words of substitutions. But my feeling about the book has changed a bit, and I’m eager to get back to something all my own.
The trip to Chicago turned out to be quite a lot of fun. We got a fine turnout, perhaps six or seven hundred; the papers were good, and one of them, by George Grella, was brilliant, and I hope to be able to send you a copy of it some day—he said he’d give me one; and best of all was the party afterwards in a suite on the twentieth floor of the Palmer House, with scores of people (including old friends from Ann Arbor) coming by to talk. I live in California but the milestones in my life still stand back in the middle west. (You must feel this even more strongly about Mississippi, and yet you’re much more cosmopolitan than I.)
I loved the record you sent, as I told you before, with all its courage and sadness. I hope that your courage is high and your sadness quotient is low. You’ve had a difficult year. And you are not easy on yourself; just on others.
Jimmy is fine. So is Duffy—nearly four months, 54 lbs. My best to your very young relative, and love, as ever,
Ken
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, January 27, 1974
Dear Ken,
It was good to get your news, and I’m glad to know that Jim is altogether fine again, and the anthology just about wrapped up, and the trip to Chicago accomplished to what sounds like much success and a pleasure for you. I wish I might have been in the Chicago audience listening to you. You received a prize too, didn’t you? A party at the Palmer House—that’s my idea of the real thing. And how fine to have old friends converging from all around & from earlier times. I’d like to see what the young man wrote, if he comes through with his paper, and still more I’d like to read what you said—if you wrote it down. (I remember it was partly to be replies to questions.)
It’s a relief, I feel sure, to have the anthology off your mind after all your work, though it’s annoying the way publishers seem to want to make use of your name as editor, yet don’t want the collection too different from what it might have been with some other editor—(I’ve noticed that trait in other respects.) I feel sure it’s a fine array you assembled, even if it isn’t exactly what you wanted to make it, and I must say I’m delighted they pressed for The Far Side of the Dollar—A few weeks ago I read it again and believe it really is securely among your strongest and best ones—I remembered so many good things before coming to them, memories like signaling lights appearing ahead on the train track—the fine scenes with Stella (& the towhee)—the terrible farmhouse & barn scene—the very first one at Laguna Perdida, and the one near the end at the Barcelona Hotel, which seemed in a way to answer & echo each other—I just mention because it will vouch for the extra pleasure in store for all who’ll be reading it again, in the anthology—it’s a beauty that just gets better—What good luck for the Book-of-the-Month Club that they got hold of it to offer—and not bad for the book either, I hope.
We’ve had rain rain rain, like you—I hope the winds didn’t come again or take any trees of yours—I’ve had a sort of moat around my house, the walk & half the front yard standing under a couple of inches of water, and it’s good to see the sun out today—Birds are loudly singing now—the flowering shrubs in bloom, & the trees budding. I have to go north next week, though—to Washington, Bryn Mawr, Hollins College (in Virginia) & back up to N.Y. for a week before I get home again on the 24th of Feb. At which point it will really be spring here, I hope—which will make me feel ready to write a new story, I hope—And I hope you are writing a new work of your own—How good, after doing other things, to get back into fiction. Don’t you think?
Geraldine Fitzgerald is in Jackson, doing A Long Day’s Journey into Night in a guest appearance with our little New Stage, which is where you were that rainy night. She is a wonderful, powerful presence—and a generous person, with much help for the local cast supporting her. Love, Eudora
What will Duffy weigh when he is grown?
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, January 28, 1974
Dear Eudora:
I’ve just been reading in NYTBR the shortened version of your talk on Willa Cather, and enjoyed it once again. Bill Koshland had just written me that it, and the chance to see you, were for him the high points of the Centennial.3 Even from here it feels like a great occasion. I’m interested in the way the creative heartland shifts with the decades from place to place. Though Mississippi seems to hold quite steady.
I suspect that Chicago doesn’t, though it’s rude and rash of me to express even a suspicion after spending less than twenty-four hours there. The meeting itself was large and warm-hearted, though in some respects it resembled a funeral where friends took turns finding things to say about the departed, me. Four papers were read—the one by George Grella of the U. of Rochester was very good, and I understand he’s writing a book—the mystery form—and then I gave a sort of multi-purpose response, which I enclose. (The title is a parody of Chandler’s “Down these mean streets a man must go,” in case you don’t know, or remember, that essay of his.) It was intended to be mildly amusing, and got some laughs. Afterwards there was a big and long party, which lasted until 3 a.m., in the suite in the Palmer House which the Popular Culture Association had rented for the occasion. I gradually lost the feeling of attending my own wake like somebody in Synge, and simply enjoyed it: Made a new friend, John Cawelti of U. of Chicago, a pop. cult. critic. Yes, I think there must be something to Diarmuid’s idea that those who were meant to be friends do get together in the end, or sooner. Perhaps it’s easier for writers than for other people: our skeins blow out in the wind and touch so many others. A language or a culture can speak, or reply, almost without recourse to the human voice. The voice merely authenticates what has been said already, in virtual silence. I’ll never forget those meetings in your house. It made me happy to be there, and see you and Diarmuid and your other friends. Jackson had it over Chicago by a country mile. Santa Barbara, now, is another story, but it’s a story I don’t know how to tell, unless I have. In the middle of all the real-estate transactions and oil drilling (still quiescent here, but threatening) and such stuff, we’ve distilled out of the past, Spanish and anglo, a drop of the real thing. It’s really a cluster of cells: art, writing, music, a certain civility, a sense of togetherness—a city not too large. This persistence of the human scale is the essence of it, I think. We know other people, and continue to know the same people, as they change. I’m sure you take all this for granted in Mississippi, but one doesn’t in California. It’s almost a miracle here. And perhaps the fuel problem will save us yet a little longer from the metropolitan blues.
My Smithsonian Institute records came, by the way, but coincidentally my record player went on the blink so I haven’t heard them yet.4 We note your kind offer to meet us one day in New Orleans. New Orleans would be splendid, but anywhere will do.
Love,
Ken
P.S.—The anthology is turning out better than I’d hoped, after all. In place of what I lost, I at least got in James M. Cain’s “Baby in the Icebox.”
K.
Eudora Welty, Bryn Mawr, PA, to Kenneth Millar, February 13, 197[4]
Dear Ken,
Thank you so much for your letter and for the copy of your paper that you gave in Chicago, which crossed my letter asking if you’d let me read it—they came just before I left home last week. This is just a quick note and I’ll write more when I get home again & have time, but I do want to say how much I enjoyed reading what you told them
—“The moral life of the characters is the lifeblood of the story” and the rest of that sentence; “The assumption of the mask is as public as vaudeville but as intensely private as a lyric poem”; and “Like iron filings magnetized by (The Maltese Falcon) the secret meanings of the city began to organize themselves around me”—all so good, and the things I like best. All so interesting, about the ascent from the Gothic novel—I’m sure they all liked it & felt indebted to you—
It’s snow & ice all the way—Four days in Washington at an Arts Council meeting, here in Bryn Mawr on a sort of personal thank-you visit to friends here, where I’ve worked before, and I did a reading for the freshmen—Today I go back to Washington to spend the night with John & Catherine Prince, whom I expect you’ll remember, then down to Hollins College in VA., where I’ll see Bill Smith (who teaches there) and Reynolds and some other friends—It’s fun though I am working too—I must go—I heard a wonderful record last night of James P. Johnson, “Father of the Stride Piano,”—he taught Fats Waller—I expect you know it. The Smithsonian collection sounds superb, I read about it too. Have you heard them yet?
Love,
Eudora
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, March 5, 1974
Dear Eudora:
I’m slow in answering your letter, having had some strange wild variegated days—good ones, though. Margaret and I, for the first time in some years, went to Los Angeles overnight and spent two days on the set of “Underground Man” watching it being filmed, for TV not for theatres. The aim of the producers at Paramount is to start a series, if possible, and to that end they cast Peter Graves (of “Mission Impossible”) as Archer—he’s quite good in the role—and will carry on with him if the series eventuates. Actually they’ve assembled a very good cast:—Jack Klugman (Sheriff), Celeste Holm (old Mrs. Broadhurst), Jo Anne Pflug (young Mrs. Broadhurst), Lee Paul (disturbed gardener, who got jailbirded, like you, by shadows), and as his mother, the murderer, Judith Anderson. It was fun for two days to be around the players and share their cheerful cooperation, and hear Miss Anderson (whom we’ve known here as someone quite grand) called “Judy-Baby.”
Then we came home and got some good news here. My anthology is set now (with the changes I mentioned to you) and no alterations are suggested in my Introduction. Which of course I tried to write straight down the middle of the brow, while trying not to bore really literate readers; but the result is, perhaps appropriately, a little dull. I’m glad you liked my other little piece, for the Popular Culture people, which was also intended for a particular audience, indeed as a response to four papers which I hadn’t seen, indeed any possible four papers. I’m reminded that I quoted Frank Norris and must call your attention to a book you should have if you don’t have it—Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915, by Kevin Starr. It’s a first-class work of cultural history, not just for Californians born, like me, in California in 1915. It seems to tell me quite a lot about my parents and their world—like walking through a country which one has formerly known only in snatches of fiction, fragments of history, old wives’ tales.
My other news is that I’ll be checking in at the Algonquin again on May 2, having been slated to receive on May 3 from my colleagues in Mystery Writers of America what they call their “grand master” award. I’m very happy about it, never having won an Edgar before (but Margaret did long ago)—it’s so good to be accepted by the other members of one’s craft. I’ll be going up into Canada afterwards, and perhaps M. will join me there where her father is still living, in his nineties, well but nearly blind.
The present delight of my life is my German Shepherd pup Duffy, who’s close to six months now and is getting very tall and long in the tooth but has all his puppy sweetness still, towards all living creatures. I’m taking him to school: he learns fast but forgets easy. Our lives are quickened by his.
I don’t know much about James P. Johnson but Fats Waller has always been one of my favorites. Haven’t been able to hear my Smithsonian jazz (which sounds like a phrase from Eliot: “that Shakespeherian rag”) because our record player is still on the blink and in the record shop. But it’s something to look forward to.
Love,
Ken
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, March 7, 1974
Dear Ken,
All’s going as it should with you, I hope—with everybody, and the huge pup all in good health—and with the anthology, and new work too, if you’ve started some—I wonder if maybe you’ve had a fine idea and begun yourself a new novel.
I always feel as if I’ve been gone so long when I take even the shortest trip. I got home last Sunday after being in Washington, Bryn Mawr (did you get a note from me there? I never believe anything mailed in an unfamiliar mailbox ever gets picked up for collection—I believe I put it down some slot in the Philadelphia train station that looked as if nothing was on the other side), Hollins College, Va., & for a brief time in NY. (It was work & play both in each place.)5 I saw a lot of our mutual friends along the way—in N.Y. Nona, & Joan Kahn, & John Leonard, & Walter Clemons—I impulsively told Reynolds Price I would let him read your speech, then thought I should ask you first—May I? (By the way, though, do you need it back?)
It’s spring here—flowering trees, daffodils,—Today the yard is full of blackbirds—It’s 80°—The oak tree is full of buds, some fringing out, and in the frailest of twiggy ends of a big branch high up, a squirrel hardly more than a baby is swinging and eating the new buds, holding them up like corn on the cob—I’m looking out the window at him.
Love to you and I hope all your news is good—I’ll write more soon—Eudora
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, March 19, 1974
Dear Eudora:
I was properly put in my place today. A gentleman named Lincoln, visiting here from Boston, called to tell me that his eleven-year-old son was eager to meet me, having read and enjoyed my books. They’re getting younger and younger, which I like to think is a sign of increasing literacy; though afterwards Margaret reminded me that our daughter Linda was reading Theodore Dreiser when she was ten. I arranged a meeting with the young man for next Sunday when Linda’s son Jim, who will be eleven on April 1, will also be present. We can alternate literary discussion and building sand castles on the beach. I’ll take along a volume of Kierkegaard in case anyone wants to be read aloud to.—Actually, as you know, I’m very pleased to be reaching young people. It is their elders who are bothered by the complexity; the young have been brought up in it.
I should have answered before that I have no objection to your sending Reynolds my rather fragmentary speech. I would divulge anything I knew or remembered to Reynolds Price, indeed I love him. He is so complex and complete in his candor, both spoken and written, which is all of a piece. Not the least of the glories of Eudora Welty Day was the opportunity it presented for such friendships. You know their names. What pleasure you must take in them.
You are right in supposing that I’m working on an idea for a book, but it isn’t a new idea. I did get a new idea—if any of my ideas can be called new—but having developed it to a certain point I put it away to ferment. The old idea I am working on goes back more than twenty years, but of course I can’t tell you what it is. It’s about a painter, which isn’t strange: there are a number of painters in my family (as I mentioned in my speech.) My late uncle Stanley, retiring from his professorship at the Ontario College of Art, went to Mexico to paint and had a show in Mexico City when he was in his seventies.6 The strange and central secrets of his life I cannot tell you, at least not here and now—not until in my seventies I go to Mexico City and write my autobiographical novel, full of strange and central secrets. Soon I’ll have no excuse not to. Stanley’s last surviving sibling of fourteen children, my Aunt Laura, is 92 and now resident in the hospital in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Margaret’s father is the same age now, and in pretty good shape. I expect to see him in a matter of five or six weeks, when I go east, then north to Canada. I hope Canada will begin to
surprise me. It used to be as ingrown as a toenail—forgive the expression.
My dear dog Duffy is growing in all respects, and responding well to Obedience training, sometimes over-responding. He’s strong, bright, sensitive, and nice. At six months he is larger than most German Shepherds, and he already towers over the average dog, with twelve more months of (slow) growth to go. He’s snoring, rather softly, behind me now.
Margaret, who is snoring, perhaps, but out of hearing, would send you her love if she were awake. All is well here. Your trip sounds like fun. I’m looking forward to mine.
Love,
Ken
P.S. Encl. clipping from today’s L.A. Times. K.
[Cecil Smith, “Underground Man to Surface on TV,” including photograph of a smiling Ken and Margaret with actor Peter Graves]
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, March 22, [1974]
Dear Ken,
Your letter was full of such good news, and I was delighted to hear about the film underway, the anthology all set to go, and the grand master award waiting for you in New York, all coming upon you at the same time. All the way it should be. (I was astonished to know you’d never got an Edgar—could it have been because you were generally acting as a picker and giver of the awards, and so not the receiver?) I’m glad you think the man who plays Archer is doing a good job. I don’t know his work, but am anxious to see it in “The Underground Man.” And Judith Anderson! Great day! How are they going to keep it a secret from the audience that she is the murderess, that’s the only question. They sound as if they’ve given the production a fine cast—and what fun to have been there watching them work. They must have been very proud that you came. A real holiday for you both, it sounds like, and I hope it happens again before they wind it up—they may need you, indeed. If they do start the series, will all the pictures be films of your novels as written—I remember you told me they’d bought “The Ferguson Affair” and earlier “The Drowning Pool”—wasn’t it?—and if Green [Graves] does well as Archer will they put him in those, or want new stuff written? (I’m very ignorant about the way things are done for film, as you see.) All the best to whatever you would like to have happen.
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