Selected Letters of William Styron (23 page)

Please tell Lizzie to call off her research for the Drewry book, “The Southampton Insurrection,” as I’ve gotten a letter from J. Saunders Redding at Hampton Institute, saying that he’d get it and send it to me. But tell her, too, that I would still very much like to have the other books I wrote her about.

I’d better close now and be off to the other side of the river …

Bill

T
O
E
LIZABETH
M
C
K
EE

May 27, 1952 Paris, France

Dear Lizzie,

I hope Dorothy got you to call off the search for the Drewry book, because I told her to, since Saunders Redding, to whom I wrote, said that he was pretty sure he could get a copy for me from the Hampton Library. As for the Aptheker and the Phillips items, you’d better just send them to me here c/o American Express by ordinary mail, even if it does take longer, since airmail sounds too expensive.

Giniger is one of the most charmless people I’ve ever met, but he has been nice to me. Took me to a couple of forums in the “Oeuvre du XXme Siècle” series and introduced me to Allen Tate, Auden, Robert Lowell, James T. Farrell, Stephen Spender, all of whom are terrible bores. Glenway Wescott was present, too, an aging pansy with a coterie of elf-like, twittering young men.
^†Y
I must say the literary life can be nauseating. Even if occasionally interesting.

This thing that I’m writing looks like it might be too long for anything but
New World Writing
or the book that John Aldridge and Vance Bourjaily (commonly known as Raoul Bojalay) are working up. But they don’t pay much, do they? Please call up Arabel Porter or Mac Talley and find out when the closing date for the next
New World Writing
is.

I’d be glad to get you the bottle of Lanvin’s
Prétexte
and will send it along to you sometime soon with someone who’s coming back.
^†Z
Incidentally, I lost Douglas McKee’s address and I don’t know what an A.P.I.A. is. Is it American Piepan Intelligence Associates, or the association for the Prevention of Indigent Authors, or what? There are so many initialed agencies over here now that I’ve lost track, but I would be glad to give him the loot if you’ll send his address.

I was wrong about my life being clean and ordered. It is now slightly fingerprinted around the edges and distinctly disordered, but
très gai
.

Love + Kisses

Your littler 10%er

T
O
J
AMES
J
ONES
^‡a

May 27, 1952
^‡b
Paris, France

Dear Jim,

If you think you’ve got a writing set-up out in Illinois, you should come to Paris. You won’t get a
thing
written here, because just as the poets always intimated, the prevalence of cafes, booze, and an incredible assortment of women absolutely precluded anything but what we used to call in the Marines “fiddle f-king around.” Sometime this summer I’m going to find a clean, well-lighted place in Italy and start to work. How’s everything with you?

Bill Styron

T
O
E
LIZABETH
M
C
K
EE

June 11, 1952 Paris, France

Dear Lizzie,

I braved through the throngs on the right bank to get your Lanvin’s
Prétexte
, and this is just a note to let you know that I am sending it to you in the hands of a young man named Ormond de Kay, who is leaving on the Île tomorrow, the 12
^th
, and should be in New York early next week.
^‡c
He said that he would call you as soon as feasible. In case he doesn’t (unlikely), his address is 142 East 18
^th
St., Phone Gramercy 3-0582. A very likeable guy. He wrote the screenplay for that movie about the Negro doctor in Vermont or New Hampshire—“Lost Boundaries.” He is also thinking
about writing a novel. The price of the perfume was 3900 fr. Or almost exactly $10.00 which you can take care of. Also, I told de Kay that in exchange for this service I would ask you to give him one of those extra English copies of “LDID,” which I hope you’ll do. And finally, I am also asking him to deliver, c/o you, a little something for Dorothy, which I’d like you to give her. You may tell her that the design on it is an ancient form of dice game, and that I hope she lays a nickel down for me.

Two things I’d like you to do for me. The first is try to find out through either Willingham’s publishers (Vanguard + Dial) or his agent just what Calder’s present address is, so I can jig him about the $50 he owes me, long overdue.

The second is this. I don’t know why Hiram Haydn manages to get such stupid secretaries, but he does. Lately she has been forwarding mail that comes in for me at Bobbs by merely scratching out the original address and writing “c/o American Express, Paris,” on it. Naturally, if only a 3¢ stamp is on the envelope, as is usually the case, the letter gets sent back to the original sender for foreign postage, occasionally a letter comes through with postage due, and two weeks late.
Please
call either her (her name is Sally something) or Hiram immediately, and ask her to continue putting my letters in a separate envelope, properly addressed to Paris, and sent by air mail. Tell her the air mail rate is 15¢ a letter, roughly, and that I’ll pay the postage if necessary, out of my account, but that I don’t want to keep having my mail screwed up by her stupidity. Or words to that effect.

No more news since my last letter to Didi—except I’m having a birthday party tonight (my 19
^th
). I’ll look for Kathleen Winsor on the 18
^th
.

Love + Kisses

WCS

T
O
V
ANCE
B
OURJAILY

June 13, 1952 Paris, France

Dear Vance,

Anticipating your rude remark, I took my hand off that teat long ago in order to place it on the typewriter, having come to the conclusion that
in France arse is longa and vita is brevis which, freely translated, means that there’s plenty of tail around but it’s not every day you get a chance to pick up a buck through
Discovery
.
^‡d
The magazine sounds fine from the prospectus and I should like to think that I might be a charter contributor. Right now I’m in the midst of a long short story which looks as if it might run to as many as 15 or 20,000 words.
^‡e
I plan to have it finished within a month or so, but what I want to know is when the deadline for manuscripts is. If you could give me an approximate idea as to the latest date, it would put my mind at ease and either spur me to more strenuous effort or in some way help me to adjust my pace. Also, if the story is good enough—which I think it will be—is 20,000 words (at the very most) too much? Please let me know.

Europe is great but I’m provincial enough to miss the New York parties. One also must steer clear of the
American
girls in Paris—they’re all being psychoanalyzed and think that the vagina is meant for wee-wee. Or something. If you know where Calder is, let me know his address, because he pulled a quick one on me in Denmark to the tune of $50 and hasn’t made amends. Best to Tina and the Aldridges.

Yours—Bill Styron

T
O
D
OROTHY
P
ARKER

July 19, 1952 Paris, France

Honeybunch darling—the story is, I believe, coming along just dandy and my pretty much night and day work on it is the main reason I haven’t written you before this. It is now between 11,000 and 12,000 words, which I figure is about two-thirds complete. It has some really good—fine—things in it so far, and I think it will be even better when it’s finished. In fact I think I can say it has some of my best writing in it and will make stories by people like Hemingway and Turgenev pale in comparison. That sounds a bit like what Hemingway would say, doesn’t it? No, what I really mean is that it won’t have any of the really “cool, gone” (in
junkie parlance) quality of the best in
LDID
, but it will be good, “true,” powerful and nicely-textured. I do hope I’ll be able to finish it within the month, and am determined to do so somehow, because I want the thing if possible to go into Jack Aldridge’s and Bourjaily’s magazine “Discovery,” and Vance wrote me that the outside deadline is August 15
^th
—the very latest, and I’ll probably have to get special dispensation to get it in even by that date. Tell Lizzie I’ll send the MS as soon as it’s finished and typed and that she can wrangle with Vance about rates after he’s seen it. Vance said 3¢ a word probably, but of course I wouldn’t be averse to 3½ or 4¢ if Lizzie could work it. I really think “Discovery” is a good bet—in the first place because the story will obviously be too long for practically anything else, in the second place because $600 (or more) is pretty good dough, and in the third place because the magazine is not only going to have a large readership but, according to Lew Allen, a friend of Vance’s, I’ll be in fairly good company—Mailer, Jones, Hortense Calisher, and most likely little Truman.
^‡f

The joke, which really isn’t a joke, that I forgot to tell you in another letter is more really just a
mot
. It concerns the remark made by a bright lad concerning a honeymooning couple, the guy a pallid sort of fellow and the gal a kind of frigid-type debutante. Quoth he: “I’ll bet you that’s going to be like trying to get a marshmallow into a piggy-bank.” End of joke. You either like that type of joke or you don’t, n’est-ce pas?

I have met Mlle. Bataille, my French agent, who is very nice and who has introduced me to my publishers at Les Éditions Mondiales. I’ve also met my translator, a man by the name of Michel Arnaud, who is a genial bright sort and has translated Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair. He’s been working on
LDID
for about three months and is almost finished. The book is scheduled to be published in October sometime and they plan to give it the works. Incidentally I also met—Mrs. Franz Horch.
^‡g
I’ve seen her a number of times and I must say that I certainly like her a lot. She’s coming back to the U.S. early in September but in the meantime
she asked me to send you, and Lizzie too, her best regards and felicitations.

Social life here is about the same—gay when I’m working at the social life but rather circumscribed at times by the fact that I’m pretty much at work writing most of the time. Zeph Stuart and la
Wanda
are coming up tomorrow from Milan, so the coming week or so promises to be jolie. Incidentally, you asked if I saw Barbara Taeusch here. She’s left now, about two months ago, but I did see her, to answer your question, and the results are just about what you might imagine. What do you imagine?

I have sort of a chore for Lizzie, as usual, which I wish you could communicate to her. I hope it’s not asking too much but I think it can be done. Friends of mine here—chiefly Peter Matthiessen, about whom I’ve written—are starting a magazine which promises to be a very good one, since unlike others they have managed to get quite a bit of backing (one of the backers is the brother of Ali Khan)
^‡h
and are all set financially besides having a more than ordinarily intelligent editorial approach. It’s to be called “The Paris Review” and one of its features each issue will be the photostated copy of a fiction or poetry MS, along with the author’s comments. E.M. Forster is going to be in the first issue with part of the MS of an unpublished novel, plus comments, and I’ve been picked for the second issue. Now what I want Lizzie to do, if she possibly can and it’s not too much work, is this: get hold of the MS of
LDID
, or the specific part that I want, and have that part photostated and sent to me. The MS was in the possession of Mrs. Hannah Josephson at the American Academy of Arts + Letters (in the phone book) but Lizzie can find out where it is now by calling her. Sigrid might have it. At any rate, I would like to have photostated that part of the MS which, in the
English
(H. Hamilton) edition, begins on page 223 and ends on 224, i.e. the part in the MS which, on P.223, begins with “Helen held her breath. Rain had begun to fall.…” And ends, on P.224 with “… She kept on crying, loud and unreasoning and anguished, and said, ‘No! No!’ ” If Lizzie could possibly swing this deal
I’d appreciate it, and I think it will very much be worthwhile because the magazine will be well-circulated both in the U.S. and in France and could no doubt sell a few books …

Bill

P.S. Enclosed is the type of fan letter I’ve been getting recently. Pop forwarded it to me. It had been addressed to “William Styron (writer?), Newport News, West Virginia.”
^‡i

T
O
R
OBERT
L
OOMIS AND
J
OHN
J. M
ALONEY

August, 1952
^‡j
Saint-Tropez, France

This part of the world is
fabuleux
, with blue, blue Mediterranean water and fishing with harpoon among the rocks. I’ve become terribly rugged + haven’t had a drink for over a week. I’ve been staying at a 35 room estate owned by an old woman who starred in René Clair’s first movie, now living in a sort of impoverished elegance. In a few days I’m going to a place on the Atlantic + visit with Irwin Shaw (where I’m sure to stay drunk) and then back to Paris for a week or so before I head for Rome. I’ve sent off a 20,000 word story to E.M. McKee which I expect will appear in the first issue of Jack Aldridge’s
Discovery
and which will settle the Marine Corps situation once + for all. I’m glad I’m over here because if the USMC brass read it they’re going to have a shit hemorrhage and send out patrols for me. The tail situation here is flourishing and is probably even better than Westport. Love + Kisses

WCS

T
O
G
EORGE
P
LIMPTON
^‡k