Selected Letters of William Styron (70 page)

Bill

T
O
B
OB
B
RUSTEIN

November 15, 1972 Roxbury, CT

Dear Bob: Received your lively letter which was much appreciated, also the boat check which is sent on to the M.V. Shipyard. We’ve all enormously enjoyed your accounts of London goings-on. They gain special luster when juxtaposed against your dispatches in the
Sunday Times
: that last one—comparing the privacy of England with our state of affairs here—was truly excellent. We look forward to those pieces with great anticipation.

Alvin led the first reading of
The Clap Shack
a couple of days ago and I think it went off terribly well, given the fact that it was held on the third floor of The Blossom Shop right up from David Dean Smith and all the traffic hubbub from below made it a little difficult to concentrate. Jeremy Geidt—as you may know—is Dr. Glanz and I think he’ll be fine for the role, despite the British accent. He seems also to relish the part and likes the play a lot. I think we came up with a rather remarkable “find” in the lad playing Magruder. His name is Miles Chapin (son of Schuyler Chapin, the new head of the Met. Opera), is 18 years old with some past acting experience, is the very soul of wistfulness and innocence, rather plump with his hair parted in the middle and wears granny glasses. His reading was quite good (though as Alvin points out, he will need considerable work) and has mastered a nice, authentic-sounding mid-South accent. I was frankly very pleased with the boy and think that he will be a hit once
he gets fitted into the role. Paul Schierhorn is playing Budwinkle and is doing a fine job—at least the reading was fine … Lineweaver is being done by Nick Horman who is good but for my money doesn’t play (or didn’t read) the part nearly as flamboyantly or as “campy” as it should be. Alvin assures me, though, that Horman is a good actor who—once he gets into the role—will be able to turn on all the necessary fruity mannerisms, so that reassures me. Joe Grifani, naturally, is fine as Stancik, as is Michael Gross as Dadaris. The only part missing at the moment is Schwartz, which Joe read but, being a wop, was really unsuited for. Alvin is now engaged in a search for the Jew-boy. All in all I was very pleased and excited by the potential that was shown at the reading and am looking forward to your appearance at the last rehearsals because I know you will want to add a few of your very special licks to the production.

Strange to admit, I am getting a little of those pre-production jitters. I thought that I would be able to go through all this with more
sang-froid
than I might fail to display, let us say, upon the publication of a novel, but am just as nervous about this baby as I am about a book. People with names like to go along with your impression that the play might be a little too American for a British audience. Arthur Miller is going to see it this coming Wednesday with Francine and Chris Gray, and I’m interested in knowing his reaction.

But enough about the play. Suffice it to say that I’m considerably more [unknown] than I was when I wrote you the early news. Random House will have its version soon—complete with photographs—and I’ll send you the first copy.

I’m delighted that you enjoyed Africa, despite the customary annoyances. I had the feeling that it would turn you on as it did me. It’s astounding how Africa imprints itself on the memory in a way that no other place seems capable of doing.

Your
Sunday Times
articles continue to be greatly enjoyed. Our Man in London does an exceedingly good job. I was especially taken by the piece on Arden. What a wild tale, and you told it exquisitely.

Meanwhile, I keep working away in this amazingly mild and temperate winter, as much as I can eschewing the streets of New York, which more and more are beginning to resemble some hideous habitat of hyenas in the Ngonogoro Crater.

We miss you all and are looking forward to your early arrival on the Vineyard and picnics on Naushon, and other island delights. Al says she now wants to give Danny an all-over body massage while he reads to her from
Playboy
, which has become her favorite quality lit.

Love to all,

Willie

T
O
F
REDERICK
E
XLEY

November 30, 1972 Roxbury, CT

Dear Fred:

I received my fancy shirts in good shape, for which many thanks, also for the “Iowan” dispatches and your various communications. I thought Sharla did a very nice job indeed—despite the “homespun philosopher” tag, which vaguely makes me feel like James Whitcomb Riley—and I will write her a thank-you.
^‖EE

I’ve had time to reflect on our Iowa and Chicago escapade and feel it was an enormous success—especially the tab we laid onto Hugh Hefner. But those
Playboy
guys were genuinely nice and, God knows, generous and hospitable. I hope you had a good time again in Chicago on Thanksgiving. Terry Southern once told me about how, during the filming of
Dr. Strangelove
, Slim Pickens (the cracker Texas pilot who had really never left Texas or California before) arrived via BOAC in London where he was met by a Rolls-Royce full of J. Arthur Rank, button-down, very Oxford proper types. After being seated in the Silver Cloud, one of the flunkies, in a very proper British voice asked what Mr. Pickens would like to look forward to in London in terms of creature comforts. His reply: “Gennamun, all a man needs when he goes
anywhere
is three square meals a day, lots of tight pussy, and a warm place to shit.” Thereby cementing Anglo-American ties.

That thing about Linda and her poem and her hang-up is truly baffling,
though. However, it doesn’t seem to me too surprising. Remind me, when next I see you, to tell you some wise thoughts I have on the matter, gleaned from experience.

It doesn’t look as if we’ll be able to touch base on Christmas or thereabouts because of geography problems. However, do keep in close touch. My wife Rose tells me to remind you (she’s a great fan, pardon the expression, of yours) that you must come here and be a guest and we’ll throw you a party that will curl your toes. Also the Taft School nearby definitely wants you in the spring to be on the memorial program I told you about.

Kiss all the groupies for me.

Your pal in Jesus,

Bill

Styron’s play
, In the Clap Shack,
premiered on December 15, 1972, at the Yale Repertory Theatre
.

T
O
B
OB
B
RUSTEIN

January 2, 1973 Roxbury, CT

Dear Bob:

I trust you are back safe and sound from your African adventures. Let me know how it all went, as I am eager to learn whether your experience was as fine as mine when we went to Kenya and Tanzania with H.R.H. Khan several years ago. It was totally unforgettable and I hope you had the same kind of time.

Opening night for the “Shack” was a laff riot. Unbelievably hideous weather—mercifully no snow—and the curtain was 20 minutes late due to the fact that the busload of theatregoers I had invited up from New York got stranded somewhere on Bruckner Boulevard for a long time. Mercifully, they had plenty of booze and arrived only five minutes after the delayed curtain. Being classically nervous, I saw little of the show, skulking in the lobby or spending most of the time at the Ol Heidelberg downing doubles to soothe my psyche. But I was told on good authority
that it was a fine performance and that the audience loved it. The party at your place was a huge success. The caterers turned out a smashing supper and everybody (over 100 head) got drunk and it cost a fortune but what the hell. The busload of drunks got back to N.Y. at 3:30 AM during which trip my friend Bobby White tried to attack six of the lady guests, and I was told that Joe Fox indecently exposed himself.

I expect you’ve seen the clinker of a review by Clive Barnes.
^‖FF
I suppose I should be grateful to him for “admiring” me as a writer, but I found it pretty ghastly that the review was so totally negative. As I think you are aware, I had no ambition to write
King Lear
but I do think the play has some virtues, including a fairly original theme, some sharply drawn characters and a lot of moments of both pathos and comedy. The laughter I heard that night—and it was considerable—certainly didn’t come from a machine. Then what possesses a reviewer like Barnes that he offers not a solitary word of approbation, that he saw no value whatever in the work?… Rose and Susanna have been in Guatemala looking at the Mayan ruins and the other kids have been skiing. Meanwhile, Alexandra made the trip by plane
alone
from New York to Baltimore.

How is Norma? Hope all goes well with her physically-wise. Give her a hug and a kiss, and also tell Danny that Al is crocheting a jock strap for him to wear this summer on the fantail of the
Diabolique
. Incidentally, I’m enclosing two bills, one for storage and one for the installation of the hawse pipe, which is a dandy invention and will allow us to swing the anchor directly overside from the foredeck and to stow it permanently there. You can send me your check for ½ at your leisure.

Everyone sends love and we are panting to know about Africa.

Send us the gnus.

Jambo,

Pill

Styron abandoned work on
The Way of the Warrior
and began a manuscript entitled
Sophie’s Choice: A Memory.

T
O
B
OB
B
RUSTEIN

January 22, 1973 Roxbury, CT

Dear Bob, Happy to receive both of your communications. Your long letter cheered me up a great deal after the early and creepy reception from the distinguished members of the press. Jesus, what ignorant
pricks
! But things have improved immeasurably since then and I feel much better about the play on my own! For one thing, it actually got a couple of swell reviews—a rave in the
Hartford Courant
and a boff-o (or is it sock-o?) in, of all places,
Variety
. Then (from what I hear, since I haven’t been back since opening night) the performances have been knocking the audiences in the aisles. Our friend Phil Roth went a week or so ago with Howard and Alvin and all said that the effect was really tremendous. As you know, Philip is rather hard to please and he was wild about it, saying among other things that Schwartz was the best “stage Jew” he’d ever seen, but liking the whole thing enormously. And I know Philip well enough to feel that if he hadn’t liked it, his reticence would be vast. Howard and Alvin are both hugely delighted by the way things are going, so fuck Barnes and all the rest.

Also thanks for your letter from Boyd. I spoke to Howard about it and he said he would send him a copy of the finished version of the script immediately. It could be great fun to see it done in London.… I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Phillip, whom I thought I was going to put together a tape for the sordid part of the production. I’ve also sent an order off through the mail for “There’s A Star-Spangled Bannner,” as sung by the original troubadour, Elton Britt, but haven’t received it, mail order places being notoriously slow. If you or Norma are in touch with P., please tell him to contact me as soon as possible because I would love to get that part of the production grooved in, so to speak.

We saw the Miller play in a preview last night and it was, alas, all the frightful things that have been bruited about. There’s some really clever stage business here and there but that’s about all—mostly it’s a long Jewish
joke about God. Jews as playwrights shouldn’t joke about the Creation. It all ends up sounding like cheap lower East Side vaudeville, and I’m afraid that’s about the level of Arthur’s play. Mainly, though, it just doesn’t hold together, doesn’t have any
vision
; also it’s badly marred by the Augustinian assumption that sex really is the evil behind human misery. This aspect is also done joking but it doesn’t work since it was never a good message and especially hard to take in the 1970s.

Love and miss you all and are looking forward to your arrival in Dec, but tell Norma that our heart breaks at the thought that she can’t be here. Also Al is bereft at the thought of being deprived of those throbbing embraces of Danny’s, those wild nights of lust, that thrusting tool.

Oh well, there is always next summer and the decks of the
Diabolique
.

À bientôt,

Bill

T
O
P
HILIP
R
OTH

January 29, 1973 Roxbury, CT

Dear Philip:

I have not “committed the cruelty” of reading either Podhoretz or Howe more than once but I do have some lingering impressions.
^‖GG
As one who is no stranger to such all-out attacks, I think I can both analyze and judge the nature of this kind of knee-in-the-groin criticism with, possibly, a little bit more astute familiarity than some writers.

… The first was from Stanley Kauffmann, who blasted
Nat
in the
Hudson Review
. It was not really a rancorous piece like Howe’s but it was nearly as negative, saying that as literature the book was kaput, valueless. Shortly after this Kauffmann wrote a revealing review of another novel in the
Atlantic
. I can’t at the moment recall what novel he was reviewing but it was someone you and I would consider a respectable writer and was receiving much acclaim in the press. Kauffmann put the book down from the first word, saying that it fell into a category of novels like
Ship of Fools
,
In Cold Blood
(though not strictly a novel), and
Nat Turner
—“big” books by decent writers which nonetheless had gained fame and favor not through any intrinsic worth but because their reception had been “rigged” by publishers and the media. I remember that as I read this review I suddenly became aware of the reason for Kauffmann’s hostility in the long
Hudson Review
piece. It was really because
Nat Turner
had been such a smashing
success
, not only in literary but commercial terms. I had noticed this tendency in Kauffmann in his
New Republic
film reviews, to blast what I thought were pretty good movies (
Tom Jones
was one) when they were both popular and critical successes, and he was using the same old bludgeon on me. For the truth of the matter is that to say as he did that the success of
Nat Turner
was “rigged” is tantamount to saying that the favorable criticism it had received—from people like Philip Rahv and Alfred Kazin and Vann Woodward among others—was duplicitous and hypocritical, by men who were lying through their teeth. And then when it became clear to me how large a component in Kauffmann’s critical lexicon was the idea of “success,” I began to realize the motivation for his negative appraisal of my work. It is of course too glib and easy to accuse all critics of being afflicted with the vice of
envy
—but I’m positive given the evidence, that this was Kauffmann’s trouble. My “success.”