Selected Letters of William Styron (63 page)

I am as appalled as you are by the senseless violence on television and the movies, in comic books and other forms of the mass media. But I think that an authority of your distinction is completely overstepping the bounds of his influence, or at least of good judgment, in so facilely equating a book which has been universally judged in terms of the canons of art with that gutter pornography which does in truth comprise “an invitation for lynching.” If psychiatrists like yourself seemingly relinquish the desire or the ability—perhaps both—to discriminate between literature and trash and under the aegis of television, with its enormous influence, fall into the habit of damning literature for that strain of violence which has been an integral part of narrative art ever since Homer, then you run the risk of not only a woeful philistinism but the even greater danger of falling into the posture of advocating what should or should not be in a book. This is a danger as ominous as the violence you deplore.

I knew Senator Kennedy and stood vigil beside his coffin in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He was an early and profound admirer of
The Confessions of Nat Turner
, and I am sure he would not have appreciated your totally unwarranted remarks about the book. It is largely because the remarks you made about the novel came during the grave and inflammatory hours following his death that I attach such significance to them, and write you now, asking that you elaborate upon or explain what you mean by this very serious charge. The spoken word is of course quite often not a very accurate means of communication, and it may be that the various people who heard you and spoke to me about it have misconstrued your remarks, just as I may have misread the rather disconnected transcript I
have at hand. This constitutes all the more reason why I must request most seriously that you explain in just what fashion
The Confessions of Nat Turner
comprises an “invitation for lynching.”

Very truly yours,

William Styron

T
O
J
AMES AND
G
LORIA
J
ONES

June 19, 1968 Roxbury, CT

Dear James and Moss:

… We have been thinking a lot about you during the recent troubles and figured that you had escaped harm, otherwise it would be in the newspapers.
^§gg

I went out to Oregon and California to campaign for McCarthy with Arthur Miller, Cal Lowell and Jules Feiffer. We of course won in Oregon but then as soon as I got back here Kennedy was murdered. A ghastly time. I stood vigil at his coffin in St. Patrick’s cathedral (along with, of all people, Gen. Maxwell Taylor the super-hawk and Mortimer Caplin, the Director of the Internal Revenue Service; they both had their eye on me, I felt); and then went to the funeral mass the next day. It was a terrible time. I think the world has gone totally cuckoo.
^§hh

We are very glad to hear that you are coming over. Give me a call as soon as you arrive; we will be in Vineyard Haven then, tel. 693-2535, also listed in Vineyard Haven information. Anytime you can come up for a visit will be perfect for me. Don’t fail to keep in touch. The U.S. + A. is in bad trouble and maybe no worse than anywhere else, so maybe you’ll find it pleasant this summer, even in Pottsville.
^§ii
I hope so.

We all send much love—

Bill         

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

June 25, 1968 Roxbury, CT

Dear Professor:

Before taking off for the Vineyard, I wanted to thank you (on Rose’s behalf too) for the splendid hospitality you and Roma offered us during our all-too-brief stay in Durms. We had a lovely time, your house is truly charming, and please tell Roma how much we appreciate all she did for us. It was good seeing the old gang again, smelling the Proustian scent of tobacco, and revisiting the old scenes.

The days after our departure from Duke were pretty hectic, what with the Kennedy monstrosity and all that.
^§jj
The day after it happened I got a call from George Plimpton (who had wrestled the gun out of the assassin’s hand) asking me to stand vigil by the coffin in St. Patrick’s, so I did (in heat hotter than that in Durham), an unbelievable scene with solemn and/or hysterical mourners filing by; the funeral the next day was also most impressive though it filled me with devastating gloom. What a weird and tragic country we live in.

I hope our paths will intersect up here before too long. It was good seeing you again and meeting Roma at last. My very best to her, and Rose joins in sending warm greetings to you and all.

As ever,

Bill S., D. Lit.

T
O
L
ARRY
L. K
ING

June 29, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear Larry,

I thank you for your card about the crazy professor who was putting down my black boy on television. His name is Doctor Fredric Wertham—a self-professed expert on violence who has made a living for 20 years
lambasting Comic books.
^§kk
Several other people mentioned that program to me and I have registered a very stiff protest.

I love your piece on Nashville in
Harper’s
.
^§ll
I think you captured the whole scene beautifully, and I am sending the article to all my friends for whom country music is the cup of life.

I hope things are not too rugged for you at the moment. I am thinking of you, and I trust that, in due time, we shall be able to lay hold of some wet goods with Willie and The Boys.

I also belatedly read your piece on Faulkner—a first-rate job, I thought, enormously evocative, very touching, at the end especially.
^§mm
I hope Holiday realizes how lucky they are to get an article as good as this.

Take care of yourself. I hope to see you soon.

All best wishes,

Bill      

T
O
E
UGENE
G
ENOVESE
^§nn

July 2, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear Gene:

I got the review today and just wanted to send you a brief note to tell you that I think it’s absolutely brilliant. Although you pulverized them, you did it with a certain gentility that I admire and I send my heartiest bravos.

I think it’s going to be an important essay over and above what it says about my book. You hit the nail on the head in the last two paragraphs, and your words to the effect that the book needs to be taken with profound seriousness is dead on target.

I will have more to say to you later about this splendid review, and I cannot help but feel that Silvers will be enormously enthusiastic about the light that you have cast on the psyche of part of the contemporary black intelligentsia.

Bravo for you, again. Hope to see you soon.

Aguri,

Bill

T
O
M
R
. J
IM
W
IGGINS

July 30, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear Mr. Wiggins:

Mr. Styron would like to thank you for your letter, and for your interest in obtaining a signed photograph of him.

Unfortunately, it is not his practice to send out photographs of himself, and he hopes that you will understand that he cannot make an exception, at this time.

In the meantime, you have his warmest regards, and again, his thanks.

Most sincerely,                  

Secretary to William Styron
^§oo

T
O
J
OHN
U
PDIKE

August 13, 1968 Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear John,

Sorry not to have made it to the beach the other night. My enthusiasm for N.Y. alas tends towards zero, or below, and I have informed Plimpton of our common reluctance. Hope to see you at the Friday night McCarthy Mini-Gala, or whatever it’s called. Yours, B.S.

T
O
R
OBERT
P
ENN
W
ARREN

August 26, 1968 Essex Inn, Chicago, IL

Dear Red:

I enjoyed your letter, which I received before coming out here to the convention; I’m covering the ghastly event for
The N.Y. Review of Books
and have credentials and all that but am so appalled by the scene that by the time you get this I may have packed up and gone back to the Vineyard.
^§pp
I came out here last Tuesday to be a “challenging” McCarthy delegate from Conn., presenting myself with 3 others before the Credentials Committee—all in unbelievably 95° heat and the whole try unsuccessful. Then I flew back for a few days to the Vineyard, thence on Saturday to Washington to fly in to Chicago (with Cal Lowell) on McCarthy’s plane. More travel than I ever thought I would do in a single week.

This place is a raving lunatic asylum—thousands and thousands of people jammed into hotel lobbies and rooms and bars, the whole scene rimmed by more police in baby blue shirts than you could ever imagine and of course the hippies. Big demonstration just now outside my window, which overlooks the park in front of the Conrad Hilton, where most of the action is. A brutal, crazy scene really—America at its best and worst—and I hope I bear up under the assault. But good weather now.

Good to hear about the progress on both of your novels and about the children. I’ll be back on the Vineyard around Thursday of this week and we’ll stay until the 14
^th
of Sept., I believe. It will be lovely to see you again in Conn.

Thanks for your kind words about my 10 black critics. Kindly keep an eye out for the next
N.Y. Review of Books
, which has a devastating review of the volume by Gene Genovese.

Love to all and à bientôt

Bill

T
O
J
AMES AND
G
LORIA
J
ONES

September 25, 1968 Tashkent, Uzbekistan, U.S.S.R.

Dear James and Moss: Me and my wife are enjoying ourselves here in Central Asia. The Uzbek S.S.R. is a little like Oz, with a lady president, wild tribesmen in the streets, the city very clean and modern though, and better fruits and melons than France even. We have seen a lot of Yevtushenko and tomorrow go to Samarkand and then to Siberia (Lake Baikal), afterwards Moscow and Leningrad.
^§qq
We are leaving Russia by way of Finland and will try to call you from Helsinki on Oct. 7
^th
. Flying to Paris on Oct. 8
^th
. Hope you don’t mind if me and my frau Rose stay with you for a few days.

Love, Bill

or get a hotel room if you’re
complet

T
O
P
UBLISHER
, T
HE
B
EACON
P
RESS

October 22, 1968 Roxbury, CT

Dear Sir:

I returned from a long trip abroad to discover that Beacon Press—in an advertisement for
William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond
in both
The New Republic
and
The New York Review of Books
—has used the following line: “Black critics reply to Styron’s bestseller with rage and contempt for its racist bias, factual distortion, and the increase in mistrust it has engendered.”

While it may be legitimate to express sentiments like these in a critical essay or essays, it is quite another matter when such a statement is employed without corroboration in a public advertisement, worded so as to leave the distinct impression that the accusation is true. At the very least it violates all ethical standards of book advertising; in actuality it is a scandalous falsehood.

This is to notify you that if in the future any such advertisement is repeated in any manner whatever in public print I shall not hesitate to prosecute Beacon Press for libel to the fullest extent of which I am capable.

Yours truly,

William Styron

Unless I can receive some immediate assurance that this advertisement with its present wording will not be repeated in the future, I will have to take steps to make sure that I am protected from such unfair misrepresentation.

T
O
A
RTHUR
S
CHLESINGER
, J
R
.

November 11, 1968 Roxbury, CT

Dear Arthur: Thanks for the clip from the
Pilot
. I had read Thomas Merton’s piece—a disgraceful display of white liberal guilt and piety.
^§rr
I have sent that clipping and your fine nationalism essay to the archives at Duke University, which is accumulating a mass of material about the “controversy” that in volume almost approaches the to-do over
The Origin of Species
.

As ever, Bill

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

November 14, 1968 Roxbury, CT

Dear Professor:

Under separate cover I’m sending you a tape recording of an interview I did last summer (by telephone from the Vineyard) with Mike Wallace for his CBS network radio show—the other participant being my perpetual
bête noire
, the nigra actor Ossie Davis.
^§ss
I never heard the original show or the tape but it was broadcast and thought it might be an interesting if aural contribution to the bibliography over the
Nat Turner
controversy, which still continues, and which, as someone has said, has approached in volume and passion the uproar over
The Origin of Species
.

A bug laid me low after coming back from Russia but not enough to prevent me from going, last week, to New Orleans, where with Vann Woodward, R. P. Warren + Ralph Ellison, I was on a panel before 1,500 members of the Southern Historical Assoc.
^§tt
I was also heckled, as usual, by Black Power representatives—imagine!—in New Orleans—but acquitted myself with restrained rage. Am now holed in here for a while to do the piece on Russia for
The N.Y. Review
.