Selected Letters of William Styron (44 page)

We have the whole gang over here in a nice apartment overlooking the Forum. The reason I am here is mainly to get away from Roxbury for a while—from the scene of my wrestling for so long with Cass and Mason—and to get a breath of fresh air, a momentary new slant on things. Loving Italy as much as I do, I am no expatriate, and I have no doubt that we will be back in the U.S. toward the end of this summer. The book will be published around the first of June and I am of course going to be very interested in seeing how it goes. It would be fine if Fate ordains that you review it for the
Times
, but those things as we both well know are in the hands of God + Francis Brown. Give my very best to Ann. Rose sends love, as do I, and I hope you’ll let me hear from you.

All the best, Bill

T
O
J
OHN
P. M
ARQUAND
, J
R
.

April 4, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear John

Bennett Cerf–baby just the other day sent me a package containing three copies of my new book. To be sure, the package came first class airmail, but nonetheless it may be an indication of the colossal size of this work of fiction when I tell you that I counted the postage and found that it totaled $28.80. I am being utterly serious when I tell you that, hefting this mammoth excrescence of mine, I have never been so utterly bereft and depressed in all my life.
Who
, in God’s name, is in this day and age going to sit down and read 507 pages of haggard, neurotic outpouring when they can go see Tony Curtis or learn to water-ski or fly to the Bahamas or read something slim and jazzy by John Updike? How and why do we make the fatal mistakes we make? Please, John, I implore you—this
book you’re completing, for your own sake and for the sake of literature, try to keep it down to a manageable size: 350 pgs. is about tops. If you’ll just do that, I won’t even nag at you to
finish it
. I have never been so disconsolate over anything in my life as the concrete proof, between hard covers, of my own appalling logorrhea.

But now I am so heartbroken over the whole thing I don’t even want to talk about it, but instead will try to forget it by telling you about more mundane and credible matters, chief among them that we are now settled in Rome in a chic, hideously expensive apartment owned by Prince Paolo di Borghese, whose wife Marcella is a sort of mouthpiece for Revlon’s quality line of cosmetics. He is a fat little guy, totally impoverished, who makes a living off of renting this apartment to American fly-by-nights like myself; he is of course several miles to the right of Louis XIV and it might amuse you to know that previous tenants were John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Van Heflin, Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay—all of whom I presume nodded off to sleep, as I do, over such books in his library as Mussolini’s memoirs and tracts like “Il Destino d’Italia: Monarchista o Fascista?” But there is a maid named Virginia and a boy from Capri named Paolino who cooks fine spaghetti, and everything has been all right so far except that Susanna has knocked over and broken a $500 Della Robbia vase.

We saw a lot of Jim + Gloria Jones in Paris. They were in great form. Gloria is successfully pregnant and they have bought an enormous new apartment on the Île St. Louis, where I presume they intend to stay for the rest of their natural lives. They both speak an extraordinary brand of French, well larded with shits and fucks, but they make themselves understood easily enough and they both know everyone in Paris. It might interest you to know, by the way, that while in Paris I attended a jazz-poetry session presided over by Gregory Corso. All the international hip set was there and afterwards I fell into company with Bill Burroughs. He is an absolutely astonishing personage, with the grim mad face of Savonarola and a hideously tailored 1925 shit-colored overcoat and scarf to match and a gray fedora pulled down tight around his ears. He reminded me of nothing so much as a mean old Lesbian and is a fantastic reactionary, very prim and tight lipped and proper who spoke of our present Republican administration as that “dirty group of Reds.” I thought he was kidding but he was not; he is as mad as a hatter and after the jazz session a photographer
from
Paris Presse
buttonholed Corso, Burroughs, and
myself
and took our picture (in front a
charcuterie
), later captioned—so help me God—“Les ‘Beats’ à Paris.” I’ll send you a copy if you don’t believe me.

I have no idea, really, why I am in Rome, unless it’s only because I felt that after four years solitary confinement in my megalomaniac-dreams of a novel I had to get away, escape the great Eisenhower glut for a while, and regain my bearings. So far we’ve had a pretty good time of it, with no dearth of social life, but I’m astonished even more than I was six years ago at how utterly alike in so many ways Italy and America are. The fucking noise and traffic here are so appalling that New York seems like Roxbury by comparison. Macho-men have taken over, chaos reigns everywhere, and I quite honestly often long for Connecticut—to which we shall doubtless return at the end of the summer. We’ve seen quite a bit of Blair + Nina (who seem to hobnob quite a bit with ducal Italians) and though we only saw the Sims’ once we expect to see them again when they come back from England. She reminds me so much of Suay it’s almost spooky.

We’ve heard from Lillian and understand the play is a great success, which is fine. Kiss Suay for me and the Bush-baby and say hello to the other cats—Harry Hines, Normie, Artie, etc., and drop me a line.

Stybo

T
O
W
ILLIAM
C. S
TYRON
, S
R
.

April 17, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

P.S. Did you read that the two main American Olympic track hopefuls are the Styron twins from Louisiana? I wish them well but am beginning to wonder if they’re white.

Dear Pop:

Well, it is Easter and as usual it rains in Rome on Easter so I’m taking this chance to drop you a short line. Tonight Rose is throwing a party for some people—the Fullers, whom we knew in New York, and their parents (he is Cass Canfield, Sr., who is president of Harper + Bros., and in effect my boss since I have become Harper’s “literary advisor”), and a Count Alvise di Robilant who is married to, of all things, a girl from Lynchburg
who went to Randolph-Macon, and Peter Ustinov, the actor, and his wife.
^ll
Since “Virginia Gentleman” costs more than one-third less than it does in Connecticut this party should not tax our resources too greatly: thank heaven for Roman whiskey. Spring has finally arrived in full force in Italy, as have the German tourists; we can hear them twenty-four hours a day beneath our window as they clump through the Forum. The kids seem to be flourishing in this climate. Susanna has begun to chatter in Italian, with the aggravating perfection of accent that children have which their parents never achieve. Polly speaks of “latte” instead of “milk” and even, believe it or not, “frigerifico” instead of “refrigerator” and as for Thomas I imagine he will start out speaking no English at all. We rented a television set, which the children watch at dinnertime just like they do in Roxbury. The cartoons are the same—Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, etc.—but all the voices are of course dubbed into Italian, and the kids get a big kick out of all this, understanding everything much better than their papa. The apartment itself is quite nice, with a balcony which looks out up toward the Palatine hill and the tiny little ancient church of San Teodoro—the oldest church in Rome (about the 2d century A.D.). We are enjoying ourselves peacefully and I expect we will be here through most of the summer. We might, however, go to somewhere near the sea in July and August … perhaps Ravello. In any case we are fairly certain that we will take advantage of the reservations we have, and come back to the U.S. on the “U.S.” in September. Perhaps, first thing, you will be able to visit us in Roxbury or Baltimore. I think the kids miss their grandparents very much.

I expect that by now you have received a copy of the book from Random House. As you can see, you are one of the dedicatees. I received several copies the other day by air from N.Y., and I agree with Bennett Cerf, who wrote me that he thought that it was one of the handsomest books that Random or anyone else had ever published. Anyway, they are going all out to put the book over with a bang (pub. date is June 3d) and the advance rumor throughout the trade is that it might do extremely well. Keep your fingers crossed.

Rose and the kids all join in sending love to you all in Port Warwick.

Billy

Set This House on Fire
was published May 4, 1960—the Styrons’ seventh wedding anniversary
.

T
O
M
R
. T
HOMPSON

May 12, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear Mr. Thompson:

Thank you for sending me a copy of the
Book-of-the-Month Club News
, containing Gilbert Highet’s perceptive review of
Set This House on Fire
.
^mm

The only thing I know about Gilbert Highet (save for the fact that I always confuse him with Dr. Ashley Montagu) is that one night, driving up the Saw Mill River Parkway, I heard him lecturing over WQXR, about
The Aeneid
. Poor peasant that I was, I was terribly grateful when, during the first minute of this talk, I was told that
The Aeneid
meant “a story about a man named Aeneas.” I near about drove into a ditch.

Many thanks again.

Ever sincerely yours,

William Styron

T
O
J
AMES
J
ONES

May 17, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear Jim:

Under separate cover there will arrive a statement which four of us writers in Rome have prepared about the Chessman case.
ⁿⁿ
I think when you
read it you will understand why we wrote it. If you agree with our position we want
both you and Gil
to sign it, and do all of us the additional favor and service of sending the statement to one of the influential French newspapers—we have all thought of
Figaro Littéraire
, in the hope that they will run it as a letter. Writers swing a hell of a lot of weight, of course, in France and Italy, and we thought a statement like this, coming from writers, might help clear the air. If you agree, and if you sign, would you send it to one of the influential journals? A large Italian weekly has agreed to run it here in Rome as a letter, so if you sign will you
cable
me your willingness to allow us to add your name to the Italian copy, and also Gil’s?

This is a hurried note, but I hope it makes sense. I think this is a good point, when the hysteria has died down somewhat yet when the affair is still fresh in the public mind, to state the American intellectual’s position. I hope you agree. Right now I’m frantically working on the British edition of my book, so pardon the haste.
^oo
There were so many fucks, pricks, horseshits, and the like in
STHOF
that the fucking English printers refused to touch it. You should be getting the American, un-bowdlerized edition from Random House any day now and I hope you read it, you bastard. Love to you and Moss from the both of us and hope that Jones, Jr. is coming along fine.
^pp

Ever,

Bill

T
O
E
LIZABETH
M
C
K
EE

May 31, 1960 Via San Teodoro, 28, Rome, Italy

Dear Elizabeth:

After our rather tortuous phone call I came to Rome and found your letter and am writing right away to let you know my feelings about everything. God Knows, as you say, it is complicated.

The man from Gallimard, who flew from Paris to see me, pointed out that Gallimard did have prior claims on
STHOF
. He showed me a letter dating back to spring of 1958 which he sent to Hiram (he also showed me Hiram’s reply); this letter was referred to you and Mavis, and what happened to it after that I have no way of telling. He sent other letters to you and Maria Horch, and he showed me copies of these also. So to some extent Gallimard can claim priority.

On the other hand, this morning I got a phone call from Paris, from Jean Rosenthal of Robert Laffont (while we were in Ravello, I was told, they called every day) and Rosenthal pointed out that, though it may be true that Gallimard made early inquiries, they nonetheless refused to accept a “package deal” which included
The Long March
when it was offered to them. Laffont accepted this package deal, and it was my own horrible mistake to change over to Plon. So at the moment we are back where we started, with the exception that now Gallimard is banging at the door. Basically I think that the deal that Gallimard offers is infinitely preferable to any of the others, but I do somewhat feel that it would be screwing Laffont to once again pull out on them—I’m mixing my metaphors terribly, but you see what I mean.

After so much turmoil over this thing, what I am now going to do is to place this whole situation in the hands of you, Maria Horch and Mlle. Bataille. Among the three of you, God Knows, you should be able to work this dreadful contretemps out. I don’t mean to be crass, but this is precisely what agents are for and this is how they are supposed to make their living. My mistake was to yield to that dreadful woman, Annie Brierre, and get involved with Plon. But now I am washing my hands of any personal contact with any more of these awful Frenchmen, and I expect you to act as my liaison officer and to get things straightened out. It is probably my fault that things are in such a mess, but the mess is not inextricable,
and I want you to make Maria Horch and Mlle Bataille earn their percentage by now taking the responsibility of choice off my shoulders. If I get any more phone calls from Paris and any more monstrous little Frenchmen parking on my doorstep I’m simply going to have to take the extreme measure of refusing to have the book published in France,
by anybody
.