The Devil at Large (35 page)

I send you a big hug, too, and hope to see you before too long.

Erica

P.S. Tell Twinka (who sounds like a darling girl) that I will write to her one of these days. I have been working all week at the Sherry Netherland Hotel here with the producer of the movie of
F of F.
It’s where you see famous movie stars talking on telephones plugged in behind the tables while they sip at their gazpacho, eye each other, overhear conversations about deals (“I know I can get him for you, but you better not bother him while he’s on location”) and watch the roaches crawl over the banquettes. With all that Hollywood opulence, the Sherry Netherland still has roaches!!!

Saturday—7/20/74

Dear Erica—

The Bradleys were here today. Suggested I write and tell you you can stay here in my house while in L.A. Erica, I’d gladly do that, but it all depends on how long my son will be absent. He has just taken on a job which will keep him traveling about the country, but I can’t be sure how long the job will last or he will last. In any case, there’s a nice place only about 2 miles away—The Santa Yenez Imo—at which you could stay if this is unavailable. I take it you can make your own breakfast, yes?

Did I tell you that I showed or lent your book to my heart doctor—Jewish, very serious and all that—and he liked it immensely. Then he said—“I can tell you what’s the matter with her!”

I said—“What’s that?”

He replied—“She can’t accept
romantic
love.” (sic) Curious observation, no?

I’m going out tonight to appear before about 100 people in an Actor’s Laboratory and answer questions—
on anything
(double sic)

Look for Playboy next month.

Cheers now! Henry

P.S. We have a well-heated pool here—bring your bikini, if you have one. You can also go in in the raw, if you prefer.

July 27, 1974

Dear Erica—

I am in a lousy mood today, so forgive me if I don’t respond in kind. The publicity the NAL are giving you is fabulous. Good for you! The bastards won’t even reprint my books. Can’t get anywhere with them, even thru my astrologer friend Sydney Ommar who is very close to some one at the top. (Incidentally he blames his multiple sclerosis on his women clients. Says they all made him go to bed with him! (Another sic.) “Oman’s complaint. “Anyway I took on his literary agents the other day. Maybe they can do something about my fading royalties. Strange about the royalties, because I seem to get more fan letters than ever—from all over the world. ( Yesterday I got 6 albums of Stockhausen’s music from an unknown fan in Iceland.)

I made a public appearance a week ago at the Actor’s and Director’s Laboratory here. Apparently it was a huge success! It was a “Question & Answer” evening. No lecture, no reading. I can’t do those things. Nor could I teach lit!

Tony is still away, so if you come soon, I can put you up in his room.

Forgive me for suggesting you read all those books—I can’t help it—you’re a born reader. May I add one more (to read only when you have plenty of time!)—

“A Glastonbury Romance” by John Cowper Powys.

That’s it for now. Cheers and a good hug. Je t’embrasse.

Henry

P.S. Did you know that the Japanese are not allowed to show the pubic hair? Witness the enclosed. And have you observed the difference between the Chinese and the Japanese erotic pix?

Dear Erica—

Enclose p.c. from my old friend Emil White of Big Sur who I persuaded to buy a copy. Forgive me for answering you by p.c. yesterday but I am overwhelmed with work.

I think it’s too bad you are giving so much time to writing script for your book. You know what those bastards usually do? At first they say—“Bravo, just what we wanted.” After a couple of months they write—“Sorry, but we deemed it best to turn over your script to our own script writers in view of their greater experience. They may make a few slight changes.” Which means that when you see your script again you won’t recognize it. It will be a professional piece of pure Hollywood shit! Think on it! Ask your Julia if I’m not right? Don’t listen if she says no. Ask around!

Cheers and a good warm hug.

Henry

September 10, 1974

Dear Henry,

Hope you’ll forgive the long delay in answering. To tell you the truth, I’m embarrassed to write you because of all the time I’m spending on the screenplay. I think you’re probably right that it’s a waste, and it is delaying my new book. It’s also delaying my trip out West and my meeting with you. At this point I expect to come more towards the end of September, September 25 or thereabouts. I will bring my rough draft of the screenplay and spend some time out there visiting you and the producers. As I said before, you don’t have to put me up.

Allan and I spent two weeks in Italy trying to recover from all the upheavals of this last year. We had been having a lot of problems coping with the book and each other and the demands of millions of new people entering our lives via
Fear of Flying
. Ours has been a rocky marriage from the start, but sometimes I think that rocky marriages are the only kind that survive at all. We scream and yell at each other and get all the shit out, and we’ve been doing a lot of that lately. One thing that seems particularly remarkable about our relationship is that we really do change towards each other—not merely in the sense of putting up with stuff silently—but really altering our expectations of each other. With all the crises, it’s been a good summer.

I was delighted that the
Times
ran your
Fear of Flying
piece and I thought their changes and deletions were hilarious. WHAT DID THEY HAVE AGAINST THE WORD
HORNY?
And what’s wrong with that good old-fashioned word “lay”? The
Times
is really antediluvian. Their little note under your piece made their exclusions all the more funny. Thank you for approving of mine. I thought you might not necessarily like my linking you with ancient tradition, but your link with Rabelais is clear and indisputable. One of my very favorite of your books is
Black Spring
and one of my favorite chapters in
Black Spring
is “A Saturday Afternoon” where you talk about dung and angels and Rabelais rebuilding the walls of Paris with cunts. From 1964 to 1969 I used to teach English literature to various college students. I taught a survey course of English lit from Chaucer to the eighteenth century, and my students always used to be astonished at how much sex there was in the poems I made them read! Of course I always chose the stuff that tickled my fancy. Year after year students used to say to me things like, “Wow, before I met you I never realized English literature was so dirty.” They were surprised to find out that farting existed in Chaucer’s time and that Shakespeare knew about cunts.

Monseiur Henry, I almost forgot to tell you how much I loved your “Insomnia” piece from
Playboy
. I love what you say about belonging to that tribe of human beings who never learn from experience. Me too. What you write about the devil rings absolutely true and your characterization of the entertainer needing that sea of silly drunken faces is brilliant. The piece starts in lightness and ends in profundity. It’s very moving—particularly imagining you writing on the walls at 5
A.M.
I know that impulse. You’re wrong, though, about women not liking to hear about the soul. Only some women are bored by soul. Where the devil comes in is that he always makes us fall in love with our opposite numbers—those people who will inevitably cause us pain. You could find any number of steadfast, beautiful women who would not keep you awake at night with their antics. But that would bore you because part of the fascination is the unattainability, and part of the intensity comes from pain. What you say about Buddhas and Christs being born complete is probably true, but the very idea of it bores me. They would also get down on their knees and talk to ants and cockroaches, but not about love.

After much thought on the matter, I’ve decided the strategy of hiding one’s love—the “good advice” friends always give—isn’t possible. If you’re really gaga for someone, they know it, no matter how you hold back and pretend not to call and pretend not to miss them. How do they know? The devil, I guess.

On this subject: I’m enclosing something that was sent to me by a man who has been pursuing me for about four years and has finally decided to give up the ghost. Of course I love him—but I love him like a great big teddy bear, and that isn’t exactly what he wants. I find myself doing to him all the cruel things that have been done to me so often. Not that I mean to be cruel, but just that when someone is obsessed by you, everything short of total surrender (as you say) seems cruel. But the trouble is, that the lover would be BORED by total surrender and the whole thing goes around in circles.

I can’t wait to read the whole Insomnia book. It’s marvelous.

Love,

Cheers,

Hugs,

Erica

Sept. 10, 1974

Dear Erica—

I hope the enclosed doesn’t dampen your spirits. It’s strange that the only two unfavorable reactions to your work came from women—young women too. I hear your piece and mine appeared the same day (last Saturday) in the N. Y. Times. I haven’t seen the paper.

When are you thinking of getting out here—soon? Tony is back home but his sister is still away—for how long I don’t know. Twinka is eager to meet you and make dinner for us. Did she tell you that her mother fell hard for your book—bought an extra copy to lend to friends. Is quite crazy about you. So is Midori, the Japanese (American) secretary to my Japanese Dr. Watanabe. I haven’t seen or heard from Bradley in several weeks. Have you?

Now I have
sciatica
, a nasty ailment that hurts like hell. Better see me before I collapse altogether! (Twinka just lent me Sylvia Plath’s novel.)

Hope all’s well with you and that you’re finished with the screenplay.

Cheers now and here’s hoping to see you soon.

Henry

Sunday—27th

Dear Erica—

I’m not surprised that you are thinking of returning soon! I remember how I made the same decision on my air-conditioned nightmare trip. After California nothing looked quite the same. And I never regretted the move from N.Y.

Of course, Big Sur is one place out of a million. You have to see it this trip. Too bad I can’t show you around, but I’m still a semi-invalid. (Sometimes I wonder if I have a good fuck left in me any more! I am full of erotic dreams and desires, if that counts for anything.

Did Hoki tell you that I wrote the lyrics for that first song in the cassette? She put it into Japanese, altering it somewhat. I forgot the title I gave it now, but it had something to do with the garden door and in Japanese you never refer to the garden door as that is only for servants and tradesmen. What a people, eh! So it became “Love in Osso Buco” or whatever that South American rhythm is.

Erica, I did receive a slew of publicity material from NAL but not the books as yet. Before I send those beautiful packets out to my foreign publishers I ought to know which foreign publishers have already taken the book. If you can’t tell me, please give me the name of your N.Y. publisher—and address. I have only the British edition here. If you have a literary agent, I’m curious to know why they haven’t done more work with foreign publishers. In any case, I am happy to do things, only I don’t want to duplicate any one else’s work.

Another request—do you mind giving me the names and addresses of magazines in U.S.A. which pay fairly well, including the N. Y. mag.? My agents, the Halseys, sent all my correspondence, problems, wishes and mss. to their “associate” agent in N.Y.—Scott Meredith. He wrote them on receiving these things and I read a copy of his letter. I have the feeling he is not too impressed by the chapters from my book—“not like the Tropics,” etc. Which to me is
shit
! A writer should evolve, not repeat himself, no? So I
may
have to place some of my work myself eventually. I don’t have much luck with Americans. (Except the few fans!)

And I need to make more money than I have been. My expenses now just about total my income. The Internal Revenue gets the bulk of it—am paying $40,000 this year. Too, too much!

But enough of this…. I hope to see you soon. Get out of N. Y. as soon as you can. Get into the sunshine and—take up tennis or ping pong. You need some sort of exercise. Of course, if you have a friend who has a warm, indoor pool, that’s the best of all. You’ll probably make a lot of new friends here.

Good luck, good cheer, love and continued admiration.

Henry

P.S. I still haven’t received copies due me of “Insomnia” nor advances from American or French publisher. Doubleday is the American distributor. The book is out, I understand, but I haven’t seen any publicity of any kind about it anywhere. I hate Doubleday!

10/31/74

Dear Erica—

Enclosed is from American writer I hoped would interest a Japanese publisher in your book. Now it seems unlikely. Strange to me that the Japanese tightening up on sex, eh? Anyway, this fellow wrote an article of 15–20 pages on the Japanese attitude toward pubic hair. Rather scholarly and amusing piece of work. Now, as you see, he asks me for editors’ names. This follows on my request the other day for names of good paying mags. (Send both, if and when you find time.) You may like to write Ron Bell (address in margin: Ronald V. Bell

6-8-15 Nakamo

Nakamo-pu

Tokyo 164-Japan)

and see his article on Hair. I feel quite certain he did not send it to Playboy, Oui, Penthouse nor the new one, Gallery. I am going to write one or two good Japanese friends there in Japan for you now.

(Incidentally, P.O. here not accepting any mail for France now. There is a strike there. Japan O.K.)