Selected Letters of William Styron (73 page)

The French accomplished their de luxe style much better on the mainland than in their far-flung outposts. This hotel is straight out of “The Clockwork Orange,” a super-Hilton all tricked out in plastic with hordes of package-tour trippers from Paris + Lyons (plus a large sprinkling of Italians), wretched service and (most profoundly ironic) abominable food. However, I did manage to climb to the peak of that splendid volcano, Mt.
Pelée, at risk of near-total exhaustion but with an exhilarating thrill of triumph somewhat like that of Hillary and Maurice Herzog.

Belated thanks for the photographs you sent some time ago. Rose was especially appreciative since they were very flattering. I don’t know when there will be a Styron visit to Paris—we feel a little déracinée since the Joneses moved away from the Île St. Louis—but do not be surprised if you receive a visitation within the next few months. I am eagerly anticipating not only seeing you both again but a delectable taste of those tamales Suzette.

Rose joins in fond regards to tout Fuentes.

Abrazos,

Bill

T
O
B
URKE AND
E
VANGELINE
D
AVIS
^‖XX

April 9, 1976 Roxbury, CT

Dear Folks:

That was a very lovely time you showed us, as they say in the vernacular, and me and my wife Rose are still glowing with the warm aftermath. Many, many thanks for your combined generosity.

Primary things first. Somewhere near Emporia, Va., we stopped at a Stuckey’s to let the girls pee, and I bought for $1.45 a bag of shucked pecans, idea in mind to fulfill the eggplant recipe. To make a long story short: it was
everything
you said it was. Up here in Roxbury last night we tried it out and it was a
triumph
. It is so good that it will have to go into the standard repertory.

We received the books (incidentally, Burke, all the way down Rt. 301 Rose read your Jefferson book to the kids and now I know more about T.J. and Virginia than I ever did; however, three miles beyond Skippers, Va., I
didn’t
feel that
ozone fix
you said I would passing the N.C. line, smelled more like hydrocarbons & tobacco); they arrived the day we got back and we are most grateful.
^‖YY
I have the
Va. Quarterly Review
here in my studio with young Burke’s story and will write him my reaction as soon as I read it in the next day or two.

My falling-down ankle, the result of those pre-revolutionary streets, is perfectly well now, after a brief swelling that night in Goldsboro. I just walked
seven miles
today to prove my resilience.

My dear old daddy is, at 86, pretty spaced out. After being in his great years a Jacksonian Democrat, he is now in his ancient age reverting to old ancestral fears, and thinks the niggers are going to do him in. Says one of them, named William, whom he hired to clip the hedge, has stolen the clippers and has
sold
them—a godawful thing he broods about 24 hours a day. Wants to kill the black sonofabitch. He used to be very gentle, an egalitarian.

Please come to see us on the Vineyard this summer. Any day, any time. My wife Rose will write you. Much thanks again for everything and fond best,

Bill

T
O
R
OBIE
M
ACAULEY

August 9, 1976 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear Robie:

I want to thank and congratulate you on the neat and, indeed, eloquent way in which your reply dealt with Ms. Ozick and her hysteria.
^‖ZZ
She is clearly a True Believer and the only way in which she can be handled is
through words like yours: cool, temperate and wise. I’m glad you underlined the fact that nowhere did I minimize the terrible suffering of the Jews. But you did me a favor and you also did a favor to people in general by pointing out that where totalitarianism is concerned
everyone
suffers ultimately and that it is not only shallow and naive but extremely dangerous to think otherwise.

Sincerely

Bill Styron

T
O
S
USANNA
S
TYRON

October 17, 1976 Roxbury, CT

P.S. I forged your signature on the automobile deed and Mrs. Vanderhoop is sending me the check next week, which I will deposit in your acc’t in Dry Dock.

Dear Susanna:

I love your letter from Heathrow, especially its safe and satirical remarks upon the Briddish—how completely I agree! Do send me more letters—with comments, please, upon the Spanish and the French, both of which I like more than the beastly Briddish with their mediocrity.

I am enclosing your Mass. ballot, in case you want to exercise your sacred and divine right to vote. I do think it might be a good idea even if it is a lot of trouble. Your trouble would involve, I think, having to go to the American Consulate in Madrid and having it witnessed by an official there. But hurry! Nov. 2 approacheth.

This afternoon Polly left all agog to fly to Nice, thence to Italy. She was so excited I thought she’d pop out of her skin. We had a fine time while she was here—fixing oysters and crabmeat. She has become so
adult
—it’s hard to believe, and she and her adored and adoring Charlie make a fine pair.

Your grandfather is now ensconced happily at River Glen in Southbury, about 10 minutes drive from here. I chartered a Piper Aztec from the Vineyard and Willie Morris and I flew down to N.C. to pick him up last Tuesday. He is pretty alert for his 87 years, cheerful, only now and then
vague or confused, and asks often for his beloved granddaughter Susanna whom he misses. Drop him a postcard now and then: c/o River Glen, Southbury, CT, 06488.

The N.Y. Times Magazine
wants to devote a whole Sunday issue (or nearly whole) to an article I intend to write on capital punishment.
^aaa
As you know, the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty and plans are afoot to execute large numbers of people, starting with three states: Texas, Georgia and Florida. I intend to go to one of these states (probably Florida) and do a long and detailed study of one of the condemned. In Florida there is a white boy exactly Tommy’s age awaiting the electric chair for murdering a little girl of 12. Chances are I’ll hone in on this case. It of course means an interruption of “Sophie” but my feelings are so strong about the awfulness of the death penalty that I think the time worth it—especially when it’ll be read everywhere (including Spain) and just may have some effect in altering people’s consciousness about the matter.

Out walking with Sundance and Aquinnah yesterday I happily lit up a post-lunch cigar which Aquinnah immediately snatched from my hand and chewed in half. In my rage I threw my walking stick at the little beast but the stick missed and broke in splinters on the asphalt. I could tell that Aquinnah was just laughing. Life in Roxbury goes on just as it always has.

Much love,

Daddy

T
O
S
USANNA
S
TYRON

November 16, 1976 Roxbury, CT

P.S. Mrs. Vanderhoop sent me her check for BMW, so all is O.K. in that department, thanks to various forgeries.

Dear Susanna:

Looks like the South is going to rise again. Thanks to your absentee vote in Mass and Polly’s absentee vote in Roxbury our peanut-picker won
and everyone is quite happy hereabouts.
^bbb
What Jimmy is
really
up to, however, remains to be seen. Your mother and I spent the election evening (I am reporting this as counterpoint to your description of election night in Paris, which I loved) at Michael and Alice Arlen’s on Firth Avenue. We drove in my swank new Benz and all sorts of old friends were arrayed around the five TV sets—Bruce Jay Friedman and Jackie Kennedy (you might mention this to Albina), Norman Mailer (we’re back on speaking terms), and a lot of other folks I can’t recall at the moment. It was an exhilarating thing to see Carter win, but there is a curious lull at the moment, as if people really can’t figure out what this odd farmer is going to do about China, the Russians, the Economy, etc.

I loved your letter from the beautiful city and indeed I was wrenchingly nostalgic by the notion that my little girl was writing me from the place where 25 years ago (God!) I had such a good-bad time. I say that because basically I loved it but I did have some weary and lonely hours. I’m so glad that you’ve found friends to enjoy. I did too but it took me a long time and I pined away at the Hotel Liberia (rue de la Grande Chaumière, right around the corner from the Dôme in Montparnasse) and some nights I got so homesick I thought my heart would bust in twain. I think that is why out of sheer necessity I was able to write
The Long March
in a burst of 5 or 6 weeks at that dinky little hotel—loneliness is sometimes fruitful, though not often. I know what you mean about “things going to happen to you,” that feeling of anticipation. Paris helps create that feeling on its own. What a gorgeous city. I also felt that there was “something big” and that I was going to find it. So I’m sure, you will. It’s a great time of life and I think that your passion for the movies will pay off. I’m not knocking on my own chosen profession—I still think that “the novel” when it is working on eight cylinders is a majestic form of expression—but I do think that films are marvelously exciting at their best and it must be tremendously exhilarating for you to be involved in movies, knowing that eventually you will do something that fulfills your “vision.” I’m babbling … I’m so happy for you to be having the time of your life in that wonderful metropolis. Even if you are a bit queer about food and only eat Granola and other unspeakables.

Sophie
is coming along well though as usual slowly and painfully. Along with its blessings, the wretched and insufferable part about “the Novel” is this dimension of Time—the sheer months and years it takes to get the thing finished. But I’m moving along with some sense of progress. I read some of it out loud to Bob Loomis and Hilary last week-end and I think they liked it a lot. It is so terribly weird to dare do what I am doing. I’m the only American writer (that is, writer as a member of my identifiable literary generation) who has faced the Holocaust head-on, the Concentration Camps, and I have made the amazing decision to embody the victim as a non-Jew. Certainly the hell I went through about
Nat Turner
will be a serene summer outing to what I will get for
Sophie
, or because of it. But I can’t go back. I’m committed like a bird in flight or a Boeing 747 in take-off and can’t go back! I have such an intense love-hate relationship with this work. Sometimes I can’t bear facing the pages, other times I feel it will be as good as anything written by anyone in this or any other decade.

Following are some random jottings and thoughts and reminiscences about happenings here since last I saw you.

Last week-end a fine masterpiece of a party here chez Styron for Francine Gray and her book (which has gotten excellent reviews generally and is doing very well).
^ccc
Big sit-down bash for 30 people. Among those present: Millers, Sadri and Katy, Matthiessen and Maria (lovely gal), Warrens (looking fine), Millers, Tom Guinzburg (with pretty gal who is a
Lie Down in Darkness
adorer, always makes me feel good), Allens, Ed Doctorow (a truly superb gent). Smashing event. Marqués de Cáceres Rioja wine went over big, also my Va. ham. I gave a beautiful toast to Francine and her book. Several of us stayed up until 4:30 AM. Woke next day to find to my horror that in my generosity I had given away to the male guests all of the Havana cigars in my humidor.

I’m taking Tommy down to see Duke soon. He’s such a bright boy with such poor grades (like his father). I hope he likes Duke, the best school now in the South (he’ll never make Yale or Harvard).

He got kicked in the foot by a horse, X-ray revealed only a bad bruise.
God, how I hate horses! I also hate that devilish Aquinnah, who can be charming but who chews everything in sight, worse than that goat Feather.

Sorry to hear that you want to do a film on a drop-out prostitute. Couldn’t you make a movie about a nice American boy who voted for Gerry Ford and wants to open a new Big Mac place somewhere near Danbury?

Grandpop is flourishing at River Glen (he loved your letter but can’t write back and told me to send love to you) and eats like a horse. Imagine, 87! It really turns out the poor sad Eunice in her dementia was starving him with Pepsi-Cola. Right out of Faulkner. But now he’s doing wonderfully, we pick him up and bring him here almost every day. Daphne is adorable to him and today, mirabile dictu! he and Terry ate
chitlins
together.

It is hideously cold, the coldest autumn all over the U.S. in 15 years. But
barta
to the weather, we’ll survive. I still take my walks.

In the Clap Shack
, my sole foray in drama, is going to be produced in—of all places—Barcelona! Can you imagine! Do you think we should all go to opening night, armed with ampoules of penicillin?

Looking forward enormously to the Xmas expedition. Right now it appears that we will show up in Paris on Dec. 17
^th
thence to Klosters, although I’ll be damned if I will be caught on skis. What a blessing to spend a Yuletide, without ulcers, in a foreign ambience. All I want you to do when I arrive in Paris is to take me to the nearest outlet for Belon #00 oysters. I’ll buy all that any of us can eat.

Must shut up now. Please tell Albina that I got her nice note a week or so ago and would have replied but lacked her address (she didn’t write it down). I send my fond regards chez Casati and am looking forward to a happy get together in December.

Polly sends adorable heartwarming letters from Italy. Can’t wait to see her as well as you, my beloved Numero Uno fille.

Much much love,

Daddy

T
O
W
ILLIE
M
ORRIS