I’m sending you my copy of Uncle Silas (you keep it) because Elizabeth Bowen’s introduction is in it, which I’d like you to see. She, too, would have liked you to—she always had a strong admiration for you—we used to exchange your books, so a number of them ended up in Ireland—(You wouldn’t mind!)
It made me very glad that you showed me the family pictures—those other faces I would have particularly wanted to see. And yours & Margaret’s in earlier times. In return for this, & the snapshot of you, here’s a few from here—The Welty grandfather is the “Pennsylvania Dutch” (more accurately German-Swiss in Grandpa’s case, & Amish ancestry) element we have in common, along with some other ones.
Thank you again for so much, and when you do finish that waiting last chapter, and have time again, please write & let me know if all kept fine and went well and nothing suffered harm for your being away from it and thinking of a hundred kind & good things to do while I was nearby.
Love,
Eudora
Both Margaret and Ken were as grateful as Eudora for the time she had spent in Santa Barbara, and both wrote to say so, Margaret first, telling Eudora: “Your visit had a peculiar effect on me. I want to start writing again after a long layoff in which I told everyone I’d retired. [. . .] Thanks. Really thanks.”16 Ken’s thanks soon followed.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, July 8, 1975
Dear Eudora:
I have been putting off answering your letter until I had the time to do it justice but, that day never having come, I’ll write as I can. I greatly value your expression of feeling for Santa Barbara and the people you met here. You must know how thoroughly it was reciprocated. It was a great week in the life of this community—you must know I mean this literally, for the cultural life of a community is made up of such weeks scattered over the years—and it will never be forgotten. The community aside, for the personal is even more important and more central, I dwell with continued pleasure and the hope of its renewal on the times we spent together and the places we went. You’re such a keen observer and enjoyer that you enhance a place by looking at it, and you strike notes that do not cease to vibrate.
I was right about needing more time for my book. I’m letting it go on a bit and unless I cut it drastically on rewriting, it will probably be my longest book, and a little different from the others. I seem to be yielding finally to change, and I suppose it’s best to do it voluntarily. It looks as if the first draft will run well over 320 pages.
My friend Ralph Sipper the rare book dealer liked Reynolds’s book so well that he phoned from San Francisco to tell me about it. Though I’ve only read a part of it, I think the book will find its readers now and in the future.
Santa Barbara is hot and blue-skied and blue-sead and will never be quite the same again. I hope you won’t be, either.
Love, Ken
P.S.—Thank you for that rich trove of pictures. Surely you want them back?
P.P.S.—I’ve been playing my Smithsonian Jazz album in remembrance of you.
K.
In April, when Eudora had read the proof of Reynolds Price’s The Surface of Earth, her assessment of it had been less generous than Ralph Sipper’s, but she had praised the novel’s craftsmanship. Then in June she was shocked and angered when Richard Gilman in the New York Times Book Review ridiculed Reynolds’s book not for the quality of its writing but because of its genre. The “family saga,” Gilman proclaimed, was “a great lumbering archaic beast,” no longer viable as an art form. Eudora wrote to the New York Times Book Review, decrying this restrictive decree defining what a writer might attempt, a decree very much akin to the one that had two years earlier been applied to Ken’s novel Sleeping Beauty. On July 20, Eudora’s response to Gilman appeared in the Book Review.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, July, 1975
Dear Eudora:
We have been slow in thanking you for the beautiful cookpot you sent us. M. has been starting a book—inspired by the Writers’ Conference and you (she, not the book, inspired by the conference and you)—and I have been finishing one. Today I wrote the 327th and last page of a first draft of what appears to be my longest book. Have already started rewriting, which it needs.
I still haven’t had a chance to read Reynolds’ book, except for the part that appeared in Esquire, but I do agree with your criticism of the NYTBR review—as if a writer had to obey the “rules” of his decade. Usually the writers who don’t, stand up best in the long run. Speaking of Esquire, I am told that John Leonard has in the current issue a light piece which refers among others to you and me.17 I’m complimented by the juxtaposition, and hope you don’t mind.
I wonder if you realize what an impact you made on Santa Barbara and our conference, which will have been permanently elevated and inspired, I believe; and what an efflorescence of good will you planted behind you. Please give me a hint as to whether and when we might get you back again between these mountains and this sea.
Love, Ken
All well here. How are you, dear Eudora?
K.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, July 23, 1975
Dear Ken,
Thank you for your letter and you don’t know how many times I’ve gone back in my mind to when I was there and wished that we could talk again and take one more ride.
I’m glad to know the news about your book, and I hope you will go happily fully as far as it leads you. I trust it! And you, as ever, in whatever you choose to do. All the best of luck all the way.
I’ve gone back to your letter, along with my memories of the time in Santa Barbara as a kind of refuge—A terrible thing happened in Jackson—Frank Hains, a good friend of mine was found brutally murdered in his home, a week ago Sunday. I haven’t been able to write because of the grief and horror I have been feeling for him—I think the chances are good that you will remember him. He was the arts editor of our newspaper and a strong moving force in the arts in our state—Talented in so many ways. He was my neighbor (4 blocks away) and we had been friends for over 20 years. He’s the man who wrote & directed the dramatic version of “The Ponder Heart” which you saw here, down at our little New Stage—
In a day or so I might send you some of the things that have been in his paper, because I think you might—that you would—care about what happened. The people concerned are really the whole bunch that you met here—It was more than ourselves that felt it, too—For instance, yesterday morning Geraldine Fitzgerald, who’d worked with New Stage in 2 productions and knew Frank in the course of it all, phoned me (she’d seen a note about it in the NYT) from the Eugene O’Neill Center in Connecticut, where she is appearing, to find out more and talk about it—He was just 49—
I’ve been trying to meet a deadline on a rather foolish article I’d rather foolishly promised—But I stopped it to write this note to you—I didn’t mean, when I said at the beginning I wished we could have one more ride, to be ungrateful—The way it was, it was perfect. I love being able now to imagine it, blue-skied and blue-seaed. Love,
Eudora
P.S. I was so glad to get the letter from Margaret and will write her—The good clippings too—And I look forward to the Biltmore photograph.
PPS I wanted you to have the little snapshots if you would like them.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, July 28, 1975
Dear Eudora:
I am profoundly sorry to hear of Frank Hains’ death not only for the loss to you, and the dreadful shock it must have been and still be, but the loss to the whole state of such a civilized and creative spirit. There is really nothing to be said in the face of such a disaster except to wish you well in the bearing of it, and in turning your mind to all those positive and creative currents in your life, which leave you not quite defenseless even against such things.
It’s good that your mind should be turning to Santa Barbara again. Though we have our share of disaster we have a full share, too, of good people and good luck. The good people keep asking about you:
the Freemans send their love, and just this weekend I ran into the Conrads at the club. They are already thinking about next year’s Conference and excited by the hope that you may come again. We all are, I particularly—there is a great deal more to be seen and said; and other things to be said and seen again here.
Margaret sends her love with mine, and thank you for the pretty gift of the pot. It wasn’t necessary but its presence in the house is a nice reminder of you. Do take care of yourself and be easy on yourself for a while; it takes a while to absorb such a shock as you have had. Please do send me the clippings when you can. Eudora Welty Day made me a kind of Jacksonian democrat.
Love, Ken
P.S. Glad you crossed swords with Gilman, as I’ve already said, I think.
K.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, August 10, 1975
Dear Ken,
Thank you for your letter and what it said in its feeling and kindness about the death of Frank Hains—I thought you would remember him, and you’d remembered him well—Here are the clippings I cut out for you (and there won’t be any more news printed now that an arrest has been made) and I don’t know anything except what’s here. What I think is that it was completely random and senseless, and that the poor soul plainly needed helping a long time ago—and the strangest & saddest thing is that Frank (who never locked his door) was a person who would have tried to give help if he could, & especially to a black person in trouble. For instance, he ran a summer workshop for young people in the theater in the poor part of town to keep them off the streets—very successful.
I hope everything’s fine, and you didn’t get any unwelcome attentions from that earthquake, like the water coming out of your swimming pool again. Where were you? (I thought of the needle on the seismograph.) (If you were writing it might have left a record on a page of your novel, the same way.)
My best to the novel. And to Margaret’s, that I’m so glad to know she has begun—
Of course I’d like so very much to come back to Santa Barbara—I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather. The Conrads did mention asking me to the Conference again, and if they’d again let me just non-lecture, and not pay me for the non-lecture, to keep my record clear*, maybe that could happen.18 In the meantime, maybe you & Margaret could come my way. If you see a possibility, of a time or an easy way, will you tell me—then I could ask when it’s just the right moment. (*I had to decline a lecture invitation to Whittier, Cal. lately. The only time I broke my rule was for Willa Cather’s 100th birthday celebration—Nobody could say no if asked to represent the Female Novelist! (Nobody female, that is.))
I’m glad you thought my letter to the Times was all right about Reynolds’ critic. (I’d copied it to send along to you, but hadn’t done it.) I’d like to know your thought on the novel when you do get time (it takes time!) to read it—I’d felt a relief about my own difficulties with the novel after our talk about it. Reynolds sent me a number of the good reviews it’s gotten elsewhere, & seems in good spirits about it.
Isn’t that a nice picture Miss Virginia Kidd came up with, taken at the Conference?19 I’m so glad to have one, and thank you for letting her know I’d like one—it’s exceptionally good, and nice to have it nearby. –On the mantle piece.
Such nice letters from your friends—Don Freeman, & Robert Easton, & Herb Harker—How far that welcome reached. I’ll write to Margaret soon, please tell her with my love.
I am doing some writing—which indeed does help as you said in your letter—Not very good yet but something that looks possible—
With love,
Eudora
Just before Eudora left Santa Barbara, Frederick Zackel, a young writer who had attended the conference, spent several hours with Ken, Margaret, and Eudora. Ken had asked him to the Millars’ Via Esperanza home, with the promise of a ride to the airport in four hours’ time. On the journey to the house, as Zackel recalled in a 1999 essay, no one said anything in the face of Margaret’s “bat-out-of-hell” driving, and the only person Zackel described as speaking once the group arrived at the Millars’ home was Ken, who to the young writer’s amazement offered to help him with his fiction. Eudora, a brilliant conversationalist, a writer who took pleasure in helping young people, made little or no impression on Zackel. It seems likely that she was as ill at ease as he; she may well have sensed what she would later learn: Margaret did not want visitors in her house; it was for family only.20 Nevertheless, this tense afternoon could not and would not dim Eudora’s happy memories of Santa Barbara.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, August 23, 1975
Dear Ken,
I’m sitting here looking at Santa Barbara—the beautiful aerial view you sent. It’s so all-encompassing, with everything visible and showing those lovely relationships of mountain and sea & sky, and the clarity of the light, and the distances—It’s so much pleasure to have the contours of the place brought back before my eyes, and to see it close to as azure in its photograph as it is in my mind. It’s a picture of many rides. Thank you so much—I am so glad to have it.
Is everything going fine with you, and with Margaret and Jim? And novels, and dogs in all their motions? I hope so—I’m all right & trying to get a story on the right track & keep it there. It’s been going through some misguided notions.
John Houseman’s Acting Company is opening the musical of “The Robber Bridegroom” in Ravinia (Chicago) Tuesday night and I decided to go up & get a look at it. It opened before this in Saratoga and I didn’t go, but saw some reviews which were “favorable.” I gather it’s lively and fairly full of 4-letter words—So I want to see what else it is. Houseman I consider a good man to trust.
I read John Leonard’s piece you told me about—Have you had time to? It was odd to see what has its personal meaning turn up in the version of an anecdote in Esquire but John is a nice fellow and he made a good story out of it, perhaps in the course of it taking more of the credit than belonged to him—it still belongs right where it started, with you writing your good books. Have you any idea what kind of detective novel he might be able to come up with? He must be really not at all lighthearted these days—Had you heard, as I had from Reynolds & Nona, that his marriage has broken up—This & leaving the Times too, all at the same time, must make writing anything pretty hard for him—
I hope to get back from Chicago the next day or the one after that and if there’s anything interesting to report, I will. I have to get up & vote before I go—about 6 when the polls open—very crucial run-off in the Democratic Primary for Governor—a Good Guy versus a Bad Guy, literally & scarily.21 I will write better next time. But I wanted you to know how happy the view of Santa Barbara has made me—I put it with mine.
Love, to you both,
Eudora
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, [September 3, 1975]
Dear Ken,
I hope life goes well, and the novel too—The novels—
I work here, and am about to get a draft of a long story done—The stage where it’s in pins & Scotch tape but all scratches—
It was hard to tear myself away to Chicago overnight (2 nights actually) to see John Houseman’s musical of The Robber Bridegroom but I had too much curiosity not to—You know better than most what changes happen to a story when it gets taken up off the page and put into another medium altogether—This was no longer what it had been, but I found I didn’t really mind, because the performers were so young & sparkling & full of bounce, & the direction seemed inventive to me, and the music OK, so it has a life of its own—the real test, isn’t it? I don’t know whether they’ll keep it in that repertory (along with “Arms & the Man,” “A School for Scandal,” & “The Cherry Orchard”!) or not. We shall see—
Have you read “Rag Time”?
My yard was full of 24 visiting robins early this morning—They must be starting to travel these days, and so eventually fall will be here—It’s so hot now—
Take care—good luck with all—to both—
Love,
Eudora
The Chicago lake front was not like the coast of Santa Barbara.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, September 8, 1975
Dear Ken,
Are you quite all right? If you were a poor letter writer like me I wouldn’t feel so concerned, but you’re a good letter writer—and a letter from you hasn’t come since July—I know you’re working hard at the revision of your book, maybe extra hard because my visit interrupted the first draft—So I hope all is well with you and with all of yours. What I said about missing the letter isn’t to complain, but just to want to make sure you’re all right—& the way I saw you last.
Love,
Eudora
Even as Eudora was writing this worried letter, Ken was apologizing for his long silence. Their letters crossed in the mail.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, September 8, 1975
Dear Eudora:
It was most thoughtful and generous of you to continue to send letters into this epistolary emptiness. It’s always so good to hear from you, and to be assured by your voice that you are recovering from your shock and sorrow for your friend. I’ve been released now from just under a year’s steady writing, having got a copy of the new book off to Dorothy Olding over the weekend. Though this is not usually the case with me, I have no certain idea of where it stands in relation to my other books, for one reason because it was more difficult to write. One other reason is that I spent too long, intermittently, on the planning, which went on over a period of thirty years. It seems to me quite different from the others, not so tight—either structure or style—perhaps a transition book to something else. You may be interested in the title, The Tarantula Hawk, which is a wasp that preys on tarantulas in this fashion: the female wasp lays her egg on a tarantula which she has paralyzed with her sting and which is available for the young wasp to eat when he hatches. There are roughly two such (human) situations in the book.—My final week on it was blown merrily along by Jimmie’s breezy presence in the house, his last week before school starts. We actually did go sailing one afternoon, with a good wind hurrying us along, and for the first time in several years I saw the city and the rim of mountains behind it as Dana saw it c. 1835. The sea is a good place to look at the land from, don’t you think? Do you recall Dana’s glorious account of his entry into San Francisco harbor, with the wild deer running on the wooded hills?
Meanwhile There Are Letters Page 29