A Tragic Honesty (32 page)

*   *   *

A month or so after Yates's marriage ended, Sam Lawrence had come to New York and commiserated with Yates at the Harvard Club (“one of the most fruitful non-literary discussions we have had in a long time,” Lawrence noted a few days later). Yates, perhaps touched by the man's sympathy, agreed at last to accept an option payment of one thousand dollars giving Atlantic Monthly Press first consideration of his novel, then titled
Contemporary Life on the Eastern Seaboard
. Such an option, however, was already held by Scribner's via the
Short Story 1
contract, until a disgruntled Charles Scribner agreed to release Yates with the epistolary equivalent of scraping something nasty off his shoe: “This option was very important in our agreeing to publish [your] stories … and we thought this was a commitment in good faith on your part. On the other hand, our Firm does not like to bring out the work of anyone wishing to change publishers.”

In mid-March 1960, after five years of labor that had wreaked havoc on his health and personal life, Yates informed Sam Lawrence that he'd finished his novel. Or rather, almost: On second thought he decided to take another six weeks in order to get “every sentence right, every comma and semicolon in place”—until, on May 5, he was able to write Cassill, “My book is finally done, as of last Monday, and is now being typed by a lovely blonde named Suzanne Schwertley who was a student in your New School class two years ago and says she found it (or you; it's hard to tell which) ‘fascinating.' Nice girl, too.”
*
A week later the freshly typed manuscript was mailed to Lawrence, who in the meantime had recommended Yates for a scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference later that summer: “Although you may not learn too much there,” he wrote Yates, “it should be a pleasant break from the New York treadmill.” Lawrence of all people appreciated how badly his friend needed a break.

For Yates, of course, it remained to be seen whether the past five years had been well or ill spent—at least according to the judgment of Sam Lawrence, whose treatment of his work had tended to be capricious at best. But this time there was no room for doubt, nor did Lawrence keep him in suspense: “I spent the entire weekend reading
Revolutionary Road,
” he wrote Yates on May 17, “and I was impressed and struck with its dramatic force, the dimensions of its themes, and the mature professional control of your narrative.” It was, in short, an “extraordinary performance,” as Lawrence wrote in his two-page editorial report, which emphasized the novel's universality (as opposed to its derivative Sloan Wilsonish triteness) and recommended immediate acceptance:

Yates is dealing with very real problems of the mid-century American.… Frank Wheeler is the prototype of thousands of young Americans who have been in the war, got married too early, began a family by mistake, taken a job which they are indifferent to, and then try to make their lives and marriages work. Frank is intelligent enough to know he is trapped, but he doesn't have anything he really believes in or wants instead.… There are a few minor changes to be made—an over-emphasis on what it means to be “a man” and the harangues on what is wrong with American life. But these
are
minor, and I would be glad to see the book published exactly as it is.… Richard Yates is speaking for his generation, and he is speaking forcefully, and truly, and alas, tragically.

One notes with a cocked eyebrow that little mention is made of April Wheeler—that she too is “trapped,” say, and for that matter the main victim of the tragedy—though Lawrence tags her in passing as “spirited, defiant”; one assumes there were few if any women on the Atlantic–Little, Brown editorial board. As for changing Frank's “harangues” against America, Yates may have pointed out that these were intended to be somewhat ironic, ditto that stuff about being “a man,” since the book was indeed published almost “exactly as it is.”

For years Yates's life had seemed a pretty hapless affair, but suddenly he began to get one good break after another. Little, Brown not only concurred with Lawrence's opinion of
Revolutionary Road,
they agreed to increase the author's advance to $2,500 (in exchange for 10 percent of the radio, movie, and television sales). A few days later Lawrence wrote Yates, “Congratulations on your Bread Loaf scholarship! Everything seems to be coming your way, and I hope this establishes a pattern. Now all that's left is Marilyn Monroe.” The next week Yates traveled to Boston to sign the novel contract as well as a separate contract for a book of short stories, after which he and Lawrence had a “funny evening” on the town that eventually petered out because the latter couldn't show Yates “more of the night life, [because] there wasn't any to show.” One matter they seemed to have discussed over bourbon and sirloins was the clinical accuracy of April Wheeler's abortion technique, as Lawrence followed up by suggesting Yates consult
Babies by Choice or Chance
by Alan F. Cuttmacher.

All this was good for morale, but the problem of sustenance remained. The advance from Little, Brown was in payment for five years of work, during which Yates's literary income had been next to nothing—a bit of math that boded ill for a man paying alimony and child support each month. Bob Parker suggested he try for a Guggenheim Fellowship; Yates had invited the artist to the city to discuss the possibility of illustrating his novel's jacket (in terms of its latest title,
An Outrage in Toyland
), and when Parker saw the “ugly, damp” basement on Seventh Avenue, he began casting about for ways to extricate Yates. Sam Lawrence was skeptical—“[I]t's practically impossible for a young writer to win a Guggenheim if he has not already published a book”—but he was also keenly aware of Yates's bottom line, and urged him to go ahead and apply. For his part Lawrence tried to recruit such eminent sponsors as the critic Alfred Kazin, who doubted he could oblige but agreed to serve as an advance reader of
Revolutionary Road
. Meanwhile Yates began to draft a Guggenheim statement concerning a novel he wanted to write about World War II: “Owing to its autobiographical nature I was reluctant to start work on it until I had first learned to write a more objective novel. That book is now finished.”

That book was now finished except for a title. After
An Outrage in Toyland
was scrapped, Yates was tempted to return to
Revolutionary Road,
but his publisher was adamantly opposed; such a title, thought Lawrence, made the book seem “a work of history and not a contemporary novel.” Lawrence continued: “Several of us did like
The Players,
but there was no overriding enthusiasm for it. Someone did suggest that perhaps you could keep the word ‘Road,' but simply substitute another one for ‘Revolutionary.'” Lawrence thought
Morningside Road
had a nice ring to it, but on second thought liked
Generation of Strangers
even better. The writer Dan Wakefield remembers visiting Atlantic Monthly Press and being told by Lawrence's associate, Peter Davison, “We have a terrific novel with a lousy title”; he then showed Wakefield a list of ten alternative titles and asked his opinion.
*
By August, Lawrence was leaning toward
A Connecticut Tragedy,
while Yates was reverting back to
Revolutionary Road
.

What seemed fairly certain at the time, snappy title or no, was that Yates was on the brink of becoming a somewhat famous writer—perhaps even a Voice of His Generation—and this made him a little less insecure about meeting other famous writers. “He used to stand around at parties of mine, looking sad and wondering what William Styron and William Humphrey were doing,” said Bob Parker twenty-five years later, as he tried to remind a mutual friend who Richard Yates was. This is a bit much, but not without a kind of glancing malicious insight—that is, Yates (at least as a younger man) did seem to harbor a wistful desire to know the writers he admired, and to be admired in turn. But as long as he was little more than the obscure author of a few promising stories, he felt painfully unworthy in the presence of those who'd made it. Kay Cassill remembers that his early “awe” of her husband often bordered on the uncomfortable, and when Yates met the charismatic founder of the Iowa Workshop, Paul Engle, he seemed “shaken by the experience.” Naturally he might have preferred for this sort of thing to work the other way around. Though modest about his work to an almost detrimental degree, Yates didn't lack a certain Fitzgeraldian zest for fame—for meeting other writers (intellectuals too) on an equal or superior footing. As Orwell pointed out, one of the “four great motives for writing” (indeed the paramount motive) is “sheer egoism”: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One should never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Yates had any number of demons, one of the more benign of which was a longing to be taken seriously by people who counted.

He was therefore elated on learning that William Styron had read galleys of
Revolutionary Road
and declared it “A deft, ironic, beautiful novel that deserves to be a classic.” Styron was akin to being the ultimate golden person in Yates's eyes: Though the same age, he'd already published three books, including
Lie Down in Darkness,
which Yates considered one of the best American novels of the postwar era. Not only that, but Styron was rich, charming, and accessible, a friend to the famous and less-than-famous in all walks of life, a man who'd never been reduced to the kind of “grubby little writing for hire” that had left Yates so exhausted at the age of thirty-four. In short—to paraphrase
Uncertain Times
(in which Styron appears as “Paul Cameron”)—he would have made Yates weak with envy if it hadn't been clear from the start that he considered Yates a good writer too. “I smoke too much” was the first line out of Yates's mouth on meeting Styron (“that might have been his
last
line as well,” Styron remarked at Yates's memorial service); he then launched into a detailed encomium of
Lie Down in Darkness
. Styron responded in kind: He had not only read Yates's novel but several short stories as well, and admired them all. And since both men liked to drink (“Dick was always lubricating his thoughts with alcohol,” said Styron), it was an auspicious meeting. “He's a great guy,” Yates later wrote a friend, “the least pretentious celebrity I've ever met.” Nor would he ever find cause to change that opinion, a rare enough phenomenon in itself.

That summer he also met the poet Marianne Moore at an exhibition of Bob Parker's work at a posh Madison Avenue gallery. Their chat was engrossing enough for Parker's mother to feel left out; on the other hand, Moore didn't have much use for contemporary fiction, and Yates's interest in poetry was roughly limited to Keats, so there it was. Still, Yates's tipsy-but-dignified poise in the great woman's presence was such that it stuck in Parker's mind, as did a subsequent exchange on a train. Calling Yates's attention to a tall, bug-eyed conductor, Parker said, “If he took his hat off, he'd look just like you.” Yates was not amused. “I don't look at
all
like that guy!” he exploded. Parker was startled: Such ragging was typical of the friendship, and Yates had always taken it (and returned it) in stride. But no more, apparently, and Parker wasn't alone in noticing this. As Bob Riche remarked, “A self-effacing, insecure, self-denigrating guy suddenly saw himself as different than before. His life changed dramatically (for the worse, I think) from that point on.”

*   *   *

Yates's coming out as a soon-to-be-celebrated author took place at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference that August. The two-week gathering was in part a pastoral alcoholic boondoggle, particularly so for the designated “scholars” such as Yates, whose optional duties included critiquing the odd apprentice manuscript and attending to their own work amid the rustle and birdsong of the Vermont woods. For Yates it was a long-deferred and richly deserved vacation, and he made the most of it.

Bob Riche also went to Bread Loaf that year, as did a couple of Yates's fellow teachers at the New School, Edward Lewis Wallant and Arthur Roth. All were about the same age and believed themselves on the verge of greatness, and together they rode the bus to Vermont. Yates set the tone by approaching the prettiest, most dauntingly well-groomed girl and asking if she, too, was bound for Bread Loaf; she gave him a nodding smile, and Yates returned to his seat with an anticipatory swagger. On arrival, however, the young woman fell in with a Dartmouth man, and for the next few days Yates would bellow
“Booo, Dartmouth!”
whenever the two passed by.

Some ten scholars roomed in the same cottage, resulting in a “drunken and frantic” atmosphere, in Yates's words. Nobody got much writing done. When they weren't swapping stories or holding profane literary arguments, Yates would loudly croon his repertoire of Broadway standards one after the other, word for word, verse and refrain. Nor was he any more decorous in public, particularly where Bob Riche was concerned. A lot of good-natured, foul-mouthed banter had passed between the two over the years, but now Yates seemed frankly contemptuous of his old friend. “Others were still dunces,” Riche said, “but he himself was no longer that.” As ever, Riche tried to give as well as he got, but lacked Yates's “authority of success”—as Fitzgerald would have it—and sometimes came across as petulant and ridiculous. One night in a local restaurant the two regaled their fellow scholars by roaring insults at each other; when a waiter asked them to lower their voices, a defensive Riche turned on a tablemate and asked why
he
was being so quiet. The man stood up and offered to fight Riche, who left the restaurant in a huff. By then Yates appeared to feel sorry for his friend and patiently coaxed him back inside, but when Riche learned the kitchen had since closed, he burst into tears.