B007RT1UH4 EBOK (85 page)

Next—and this is the one that disturbs me—giving him a free hand with any reprint sale that may appeal to him to cut his losses, but which would do little or no good to me. Of course Bob is very shrewd (and frankly at this point I don’t know if he’s anything more than that), and may very well have exactly this trade in mind waiting for us to broach the matter of taking the next book elsewhere, as I have by now every reason to believe he would be glad to see us do, anyhow.

The point is, I don’t want to publish again with him any more, I think, than he wants to publish me. Sometimes I’m pretty slow thinking, Candida, especially when I have the idea that I’m held with confidence and respect. For a good many months there I thought the people at Knopf held me and my work in high regard, and it has taken a few real snubs to finally let me know that I’m considered simply somewhat of a nuisance. The NBA should certainly have made it clear, Bob too busy to take us to lunch, too important to take us to dinner and too chintzy to pay for it, he seemed simply embarrassed by the book’s showing a new breath of life when he’d already written it off. A few months ago the mails brought a steady stream of reviews, mentions &c from Goerner. Since the NBA, all I’ve had of that was the
PW
writeup that you sent me and a long piece from the
LA Times
from a friend in California, so I gather the word has gone down to stop bothering with those mailings too.

I guess what it comes down to is that Bob and I disappointed each other a good deal. He came in on
J R
at the last minute as sort of a spoiler—none of the long agonies and uncertainties Asher put up with me—gambled sixty thousand and when he didn’t make the bundle on the book that he’d hoped to, like a good gambler has moved right on to the next game. So I’ve disappointed him on the money side, but he’s disappointed me with his finally quite explicit show of non-interest and non-support. Of course (as JR knew clearly) that’s what business is; but even though I’ve been as disappointed as anyone on the money side, I’d thought there was more to it than that.

Curiously, I remember back when I applied for that Nat’l Endowment grant on the strength of turning the Civil War project into a novel which Bob on the board of judges helped me to get; but when once last year I tried to talk to him about the book, I was surprised and I guess a little hurt too that he showed no interest in it at all. In other words,
J R
for him was just a one-shot deal that didn’t pan out, and its author likewise. Though I can see his antipathy as partly my fault. I think he’s quite a thin-skinned guy who doesn’t like criticism and doesn’t like the source of any suggestion he’s not entirely right. Of course I never did tell him, in as forthright terms as I told you, what a half-baked job I thought they were doing in terms of promotion, sales and distribution with the hard/soft cover problem. But 2 big Times ads for the book within 4 days of each other, and then never another one when all the good reviews had come in, except for that obligatory obituary-looking admission that it had got the NBA? I did try a few times to get into the whole thing with him in a bantering way but he was having none of it, dried right up on me and I should have been bright enough then to realize that every word of mine was a nail in my coffin.

There. I’ve only gone on like this—aside from getting it off my chest—to clarify elements of this essential problem excluding anything else: that neither he or I wants Knopf as publisher of my ‘next book’. I would in fact, if you think it advisable, call or write him myself in a very straight low-key way to bring out exactly that, without reference to anything else. Then if he brings in some quid pro quo (I’ll trade you §14 for §1 a iii), we know where we stand. Or you might prefer to say to him yourself on the ’phone sometime —Bob? Incidentally there’s one other small item: you’re not really interested in seeing Gaddis through another book even if he should manage to write one, are you? (Then if he says —I’ll trade you §14 for §1 a iii, we’ll know where I stand.)

See the whole God damned problem is you’ve spoiled me in terms of support, loyalty, integrity—all those outmoded 19th century square notions. Ask JR.

[carbon copy; unsigned]

To John and Pauline Napper

[
A postcard from a hotel in Hong Kong. In August 1976 WG was sent by the United States Information Agency on a speaking tour from Thailand through the Philippines to Japan: see his letter to the
Times
of 21 February 1984.
]

The Peninsula Hong Kong

[23? August 1976]

dear John and Pauline—

how can I get to the other side of the earth but never manage a trip to England? The US State Dept is passing me off as an ‘American Specialist’, speaking to university people &c, painful but how else would I ever see Bangkok & Japan? Sort of a sop for the million $
J R
did not make I guess, will be home late September and try to write and explain all.

Love, Willie Gaddis

To Judith Gaddis

The Oriental

Bangkok, Thailand

Friday 27 August 1976

dearest Judith————

it is hard—impossible really—to realise I’ve been gone just a week? [...] here feeling helpless looking out on this calm brown river, rusted tin roofs on the other side and a gold temple roof sticking up from the confusion of modern buildings and (to western eyes) slums—though where I miss you constantly most is these people’s obsession with flowers, even in the worst market stalls fruit and nameless edibles cut to look like blossoms, you do look at all this and really wonder what in God’s name we were trying to win a war in this part of the world for.

Well I have been through my first 2 (and only) talks in Bangkok—I hope successful though these people are quite shy and so polite it is dificult to know. I’d been told I would be talking to university people—professors, instructors, some students—but no one in the State Dept thought to mention that these are 95% young ladies, so I’ve felt I was addressing a seminary—and my usual anxiety feelings that I’m not really earning my way. I do have the feeling that the State Dept operation is not the most efficient one in the world and perhaps should have pressed harder about meeting local writers (though there are few) but everyone has been most relaxed and kind—And this evening a young very soft spoken professor (man) is coming by and we are going for a walk in the city and probably a bite to eat, I feel he hasn’t much money and also believe he has some poetry to show me—so I’ll do my best and also hope for a closer look at the place and the people. And tomorrow expect to go for a real look at some of the temples. [...]

I just think about you constantly and miss you so much and love you always—

W.

To Sarah Gaddis

in flight [postmarked Tokyo]

4 September 1976

Dear Sarah————it is quite unreal to be 7 miles above the Pacific between Manila and Tokyo knowing that you have just left Saltaire and are all in Piermont—and Scarborough—today, and that by the time this reaches you I will have spent a few days in Japan and you will be at Swarthmore—and 21 years old. Of course you know how much I wish I were there for that, but all I can think is that this trip is a beginning of better things for us all, that it is as productive as it is fantastic. The people in Thailand and the Philippines have all been so generous and attentive and so wanting to hear anything I could tell them about “writing” or life or anything that I begin to think I may really have some things worth telling them——(I had 32 in my audience yesterday, 68 the day before!) hell Sarah this isn’t the way I thought your 21st birthday would be but of course the point is not the occasion itself but who you are at 21, and you know how happy and proud these things you are make all of us who love you — — — happy birthday and I will see you soon.

Love to you and Peter — — — Papa

To Judith Gaddis

Nishitetsu Grand Hotel

Fukuoka, Japan

11 Sept. 1976

Dearest
—

the hotel looks grand enough but the room is quite wee—but starkly nice, “I’ve grown accustomed to her (
your
) face” on the piped-in music radio, bottle of black beer and drying out in my kimono after taking Professor Miyamoto to dinner in pouring rain, part of a real typhoon passing through (they say)—I’m sure ruined both our shoes but seemed the least I could do since everyone has been so kind.

I flew down here this morning from Sapporo where I’d arrived yesterday morning and given my “talk” late in the day to about 35 people largely college professors, 4 of whom took me to dinner afterward so eager for me to be pleased (and very struck, I was told, at how natural and humble I was for someone who had won such an important prize!)—2 of them there this morning (men of about 60) to see me off all of course immensely touching & flattering, much bowing and smiling on all sides—

So now I have 4 more of these (‘talks’)—here in Fukuoka tomorrow, then Osaka, then Kyoto, then Nagoya—and then some sort of interview in Tokyo the evening before I come
back
and as intriguing and flattering as it all is I honestly cannot wait. [...]

In terms of making the ‘good’ impression I feel I’m managing, John Gardner apparently left everyone along this route with a really bad taste in their mouths, real pain in the neck I’d pictured (for my own obvious reasons)—[...]

Saturday morning—I realize you will get this barely a day before I get back—which seems silly but here it is seems like 6 months and I cannot wait!

with all kinds of love,

W.