Selected Letters of William Styron (10 page)

A Christchurch friend and I are planning a trip to England late in June, although we’re still in the planning stage. If we go we’ll leave from Montreal on a freighter, having learned that one can secure passage from that port for only $120, which is sure enough reasonable. Should the thing materialize I’d certainly like your advice on what to see, and where. I’ve always taken the advice you gave me to heart, and I remember your saying, in effect, that I might as well see England, and Europe, now, before life becomes too complicated.

I plan to stay here until around the middle of June and then I’m going to New York and pack up my things and remove myself from that most monstrous travesty of civilization. I don’t feel I’m escaping, beaten, because I did make a mild success of my year there. I just heartily believe that anyone who stays there when he doesn’t have to is a damn fool. On my way I hope to stop in Durham and I want to see you, if you are going to be there. I wish you’d drop me a short note and let me know. Please give my best to Mrs. Blackburn, and everyone.

As ever,

Bill S.

Styron left New York in July 1948 to live and write in Durham, North Carolina
.

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

July 11, 1948 814 Sixth Street, Durham, NC
^*b

Dear Pop,

Suzie sent all my stuff—records, books, etc.—down from New York, so I am now prepared to move into the apartment that Bill Switzer and I have rented. The apartment, just in back of the Woman’s College Campus, is in the first floor of a private home—two medium sized rooms, kitchen, bath, and large back yard, $40 per month. It is
not
furnished, and that is the big difficulty; we plan just to buy bare essentials at first—beds, chairs, kitchen utensils—and get the rest later. I’d appreciate it if you would send me a check for $150 as soon as possible, as I figure that is about what it’ll take to supplement the money I already have to pay the first month’s rent and buy a bed and maybe a lamp or two, besides food.
^*c

Switzer and I have, in the meantime, been staying with Brice. I have done some work on the novel, but I find it pretty rough going. I don’t seem to have the innate confidence in myself or my work which I suppose is a part of genius; consequently I am diverted too easily into less favorable channels—like reading
Time
magazine. Every word I put down seems to be sheer pain, and although I often am a victim of sloppy writing I have nonetheless too much of what I suppose is called artistic integrity to put down something I know is not true or merely a half-truth. Because of that, I suppose my sessions at the desk are doubly painful in that where someone else might put something—some idea or word-picture—to paper merely for the effect, I have to ponder and ponder and reject anything I sincerely believe at the time hints of fraudulence. Even so, I know there are many things in the work I’ve already accomplished that I didn’t mean to say. I think the crux of the issue is merely that I don’t know enough yet about people to be writing a novel. But I’m at least giving it my earnest application, and trying hard to put myself on an inflexible schedule. I realize that I’m among the favored few, that there are not many people my age who’ve been given the sort of encouragement I have and that it would be
both sinful and weak not to attempt to live up to the faith that has been put in me. I’ll have a novel finished next year this time—I hope a good one.

Durham is an ugly town but many of the people I know here are very fine. Last night, for instance, Brice had Frances Gray Patton
^*d
over. She’s married to a Duke professor of history, is an O. Henry short story prize winner (see “One and Twenty”) and is now a regular contributor to
The New Yorker
. A very charming lady. She lived as a girl in Newport News. Her father was editor of the
Daily Press
and
Times Herald
in the early twenties.

Write soon, and please don’t forget the check.

Your son,

Bill jr.

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

August 3, 1948 Durham, NC

Dear Pop,

It was nice seeing you the other week-end, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I and the others did. You and Mr. Switzer seemed to have gotten along fine, struck a common chord. Bill said that he hadn’t heard his father talk so much in years.

The novel is coming along at about its usual slow but steady turtle’s pace. I read part of it to Dr. Blackburn and his class, and he seems to be immensely and sincerely pleased by what I’ve done so far. It’s a tedious and agonizing process and I loathe writing with almost a panic hatred, but as I’ve said before I’m always restless when I’m not working at it. If ever I become well-known because of my writing, it may honestly be said by whatever person that chooses to tell about me: “he wrote in spite of himself.” I know that what I’ve written so far on this book is good, but that it
is far from maturity or perfection. I’ve noticed the maturation process taking place in me and I know I’ve barely started growing. I do hope to get the book finished by next summer, but I just don’t know, at the rate I’m going. A man just doesn’t realize, I believe, what self-doubt and despair are until he’s tried to express himself in a work of art. Perhaps that is a self-conscious and adolescent statement and maybe I use the word “art” too freely, but it’s the way I feel now. My moral and intellectual values are as yet far too undeveloped for me to be able to assess the worth of this novel I’m writing in terms of its conception. I hope when I’m finished with it people will read it, and I hope it’s at least a good start. Beyond anything, though, I hope that the writing of it will somehow enrich my own mind in that it may teach me perseverance and calm thought and make me more of a man. Writing a novel of course involves a good deal of contemplation—most of it, it is true, false or worthless—but it is my constant hope that this pure fact of contemplation, which wise men so cherish, may lead me into sunnier and wider avenues of the spirit. I don’t say that with pretension. I have somehow already felt vague intimations of the satisfaction that can come from working hard, sweating blood, indeed. If I come through it will only be at the price of a great deal of anguish, that price, I suspect, being worth the reward.

To get down to more practical matters, I would like for you to send me $50, if you will, as soon as you can. The first of the month brought a number of bills—telephone, milk, etc—which I’m unable to pay in my present financial status. So if you’ll send a check as soon as possible, I’ll be greatly obliged.

In the meantime I hope everything goes well with you and that I’ll get to see you sometime soon. Regards to all.

Your son

WCS jr

T
O
E
LIZABETH
M
C
K
EE

October 12, 1948 901 Fifth Street, Durham, NC

Dear Miss McKee:

Here is a carbon of what I have finished, or rather typed, so far on my novel. I hope you will enjoy looking at it, although if you have the sense of miserable failure upon reading it that I have it probably won’t make you too happy. There are a few good things in it, but I’ve found that one never gets around to saying the things he wants to say.

The story, in short, is nothing but that of a modern upper South middle-class family, and the daughter of the family, named Peyton Loftis. I’ve got no drum to beat, political or otherwise. I just want to give a picture of a way of life that I have known, and of the people therein. I probably have a moral purpose—the late Bliss Perry said that you
had
to have one—but it hasn’t quite yet emerged.
^*e
Anyway, Peyton, who is twenty-four and something of a bitch, has just died violently and I must say horribly in New York and is being returned to her home town for a hasty and unpublicized interment. What transpires on the one day of her burial is the burden of the novel. Gradually, through their memories, you get a picture of Peyton and, I hope, of the “way of life” of which I was speaking. If the story seems morbid it’s because I’m probably morbid myself, although I’ve got some good ghastly humor later on. Well, I’ll let you read it yourself, and I’d be most happy to hear what you have to say about it. Of course, there are probably incidents in this first part which don’t seem to tie together, but I plan to fill them out later on.

Thanks so much for relaying the comments on
AUBREY CRUMPLER
.
^*f
I hope we have success on that one, but if we don’t I hope I’ll have others for you soon.

Sincerely,

William Styron

Styron was in New York for the holidays and decided he should return to the city in 1949
.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

January 13, 1949 Valley Cottage, NY
^*g

Dear Professor Blackburn,

I want to thank you for the book of folk songs you sent me Christmas. It was indeed thoughtful of you, and you can be assured that it has been well-thumbed already. Now if I can just work up enough courage to learn how to play a guitar, I might turn professional. There’s a wonderful old guitar up here, made in 1880, a sort of Stradivarius among guitars, and I’ll have only myself to blame if I don’t learn how to use the thing. Incidentally, have you heard Leadbelly? I heard an album the other day of his, and went overboard for him. He’s the Louisiana negro convict who died just recently. If you can get a couple of records of his—especially “Midnight Special” (“shine your ever-lovin’ light on me”) and “Irene, Good-night,” I think you’ll see what I mean.
^*h

Well, half of the novel is all-typed, and Haydn has read it. As I wrote Brice, he thinks it’s very fine stuff and gave me an additional advance, which wasn’t much but better than nothing. I’ve sent a carbon to Brice and I’d be honored to have you read it and give me your opinion of it, provided you have time for such a frivolity. I’ve been so “close” to the novel all these months, that re-reading it gives me a severe sort of expression, so I’d be interested in hearing what you, a spectator, have to say about it. I’ve begun the second half of the novel, which I hope will progress a bit easier than the first half, now that I’ve gotten the sights lined up pretty well on all my characters. One thing I’m certain of—I shan’t ever attempt such a
complicated theme again, until I’m well aware of what I’m doing. But even having plunged so recklessly into this novel, I’m glad I did it. It’s been rather a strengthening thing, like swimming up the Colorado, or going into battle.

Sigrid and I both enjoyed seeing you when we were down in Durham. The breakfast you gave us on our departure was very heartening and enabled us to get all the way to Colonial Heights, Va., without hunger pangs. Hope that we can all get together again soon. Sigrid’s book is getting promoted with much exciting hoopla and everyone’s waiting breathlessly for the reviews which I think are bound to be good ones.
^*i
The final coup is the fact that the book has already been accepted in England by Eyre and Spottiswoode where, I understand, Christopher Morley’s brother is editor. Isn’t that fine?

I hope you had as pleasant a Christmas as I did, and that all is going nicely with you in this first part of the New Year. Thanks again so much for the book. I’ll sing “Shenandoah” for you tonight.

As ever,

Bill S.

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

March 31, 1949 Durham, NC

Dear Pop,

It was good to get your letter with all the fine encouragement and advice, and I would have written sooner, except for the fact that I’ve been giving your “proposition”—which was so generous—some serious thought. I know it isn’t easy for you to do it, and that’s one reason the thing troubled me, but I’ll gratefully accept, provided you take to my counter-proposition: that it be in the nature of an informal sort of loan, to be repaid when I’ve made some money at this writing game. That, of course, is a wild sort of statement, since heaven only knows when I’ll make enough to pay it back. But in this miraculous country of ours anything can happen, so it’s at least
worth the try. At least be assured of this: that with your backing I won’t stop until I’ve reached the goal. This time it’s all or bust, and it’s got to be
all
. And I’m grateful to you for your help, more than you can know.
^*j

Now here’s something which you may or may not take to. Between Haydn and myself we have finally—after much talking and letters back and forth—agreed that perhaps the novel I’m now engaged on is worth postponing, in favor of another project less ambiguous in conception, and perhaps less
ambitious
. This new novel I have worked out in my mind is, unlike the other, concerned with just a few characters (too many characters I fully believe, is the stumbling-block of a first novelist), is concise in its conception, and, best of all, is much shorter, viz., it can be worked out thematically in a more or less predetermined number of pages. It’s actually what I should have started on a year ago.
^*k

But all this only leads up to the fact that Haydn and I both think that I’d do better back in New York where, as Haydn puts it, “Uncle Hiram can keep an eye on you.” For one thing my work in the last few months seems to have slacked off down here; maybe it’s the atmosphere; maybe I need a change of scene. For another thing, sad but true, I guess I do need someone to throw a whip over me, someone like Haydn, until I get to the point of having enough confidence where I can wield the whip myself. At any rate, it’ll be the last move for some time for me. I do know that your environment doesn’t have too much to do with what you write, but I feel I’ve exhausted everything that Durham has to offer and that New York, with all its chaos, will be a better place to work off this first novel. The furniture I can keep in safekeeping at Brice’s until I have need for it.