Part 19 (1/2)

Marshall A. Best (1901-82) was editor and later chairman of the executive committee at the Viking Press.

To Marshall Best March 17, 1960 London Dear Marshall: Brooding about your letter, I can see the whole thing clear. You recommend me to the Ford Foundation, and my gay lark in Europe puts you in a tough position. But suppose it hasn't been a gay lark? Suppose I have been dutifully suffering my way from country to country, thinking about Fate and Death? Will that do as an explanation? And if, here and there, I gave a talk in Poland and Yugoslavia, did I violate the by-laws?

All jokes aside, what I saw between Auschwitz and Jerusalem made a change in me. To say the least. And that ought not to distress the Ford Foundation. I'm sorry to cause you any embarra.s.sment, but there ought not to be any in my going to Europe and the Middle East for a few months. Now I'm coming back to write a book, and I see nothing wrong anywhere. I might have written a thousand pages in Minneapolis and thrown them all away. I know I've done the necessary and proper thing and it annoys me to be criticized for it.

All best,

To Alice Adams April 9, 1960 Tivoli Dear Alice- They held your letter for me till I got back from Europe where I had gone for five months to get over the shock of divorce. This time it was done unto me (as I had done unto others). All this marrying and parting amounts to idiocy. n.o.body will do well, n.o.body is well. We all prescribe suffering for ourselves as the only antidote for unreality. So-I've emptied bottles and bottles, and now I'm going to dig in at Tivoli, my feste Burg, feste Burg, my asylum, and reconsider everything all over again. my asylum, and reconsider everything all over again.

Love,

To Susan Gla.s.sman May 5, 1960 [Tivoli]

Dear Susan: No, I haven't forgotten to write, only I've been so pressed, harried and driven, badgered, b.i.t.c.hed, delayed (and even-in Maryland-taken into custody by the State Police) that I haven't even had time to sit down and cross my legs. Till now, in Tivoli. Good old Tivoli. There are so many ghosts in this old joint that my own, in new sheets, are like laughable freshmen. Come, we'll cut the gra.s.s and play croquet with spooks.

Love,

To Stanley Elkin May 13, 1960 Tivoli, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Elkin: I approve very highly of your story and am sending it on to the other editors with the hope that they will share my admiration for it. I'll let you know their decision as soon as I know it myself.

Sincerely yours,

P.S. I particularly liked the grocery on 53rd Street and the employees and shoppers, but I was not at all sure that the last pa.s.sages really bore the acc.u.mulated weight. It is too easy to float to a conclusion with the support of certain Jewish symbols. I am a little bit suspicious of the use you make of them.

Elkin's story was ”Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.” It would appear in Perspective Perspective rather than in rather than in The n.o.ble Savage. The n.o.ble Savage.

To Herbert and Mitzie McCloskey [n.d.] [Tivoli]

Dear Herb and Mitzie, I'm sure you made the right decision abt Mpls. Time to bust out. It had given you about all it could give. Anyway, change is one of my elements-money for Morgan, fire for phoenixes and salamanders, and new addresses for me. Ergo! Ergo!

I'll spare you the sad details of my visit to Mpls. I crept back to Tivoli, where I'm by myself, with too much on my mind to fill the solitude yet. I'm winding up the play The Last a.n.a.lysis The Last a.n.a.lysis. I am getting ready to write a novel. Now that I've been thrown out of middle-cla.s.s security I can't avoid being a writer. Though I'm one of the finest avoiders in the land.

Greg and Adam are fine, and I'm not too bad. I miss all of you. I hope you're all well and have had an end of bad news. Send me a note or at least a copy of the Soviet book. Now the gov't. admits espionage, I don't see why they didn't supply you with material.

Much love to all of you.

On May 1, 1960, a U-2 spy craft had been shot down over Sverdlovsk by a Soviet surface-to-air missile. President Eisenhower initially claimed that it was a weather plane. When Khrushchev announced a week later that the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was alive and the aircraft mostly intact, Eisenhower was forced to acknowledge that the United States had been conducting espionage flights. McCloskey and John E. Turner had just published their book The Soviet Dictators.h.i.+p The Soviet Dictators.h.i.+p.

To Susan Gla.s.sman May 31, 1960 Tivoli Dearest Susie- Guilt smote me when I got back. The train looked seedy. I might at least have gone on it with you. I suppose I was exercising my power of autonomy. Anyway, love is better to feel than guilt. In future, I'll try to be reasonable though human.

When I returned the Ashers arrived. They might have phoned en route!

Susie, we had a beautiful time. A beautiful time is its own reward.

Immer dein [ [61],

To Susan Gla.s.sman June 9, 1960 [Tivoli]

I'm a little bit miserable today. Lillian H[ellman] admires what I've written but insists it's not a play. Well, perhaps it's not. It's a pity to have wasted so much time, but (I'm great at finding compensations-it's so Jewish) I wasn't fit fit to write anything else last year. to write anything else last year.

And then, one more reason for misery. I think Sondra is getting married [to Jack Ludwig] in October, which makes her conduct throughout even worse. She didn't have to try to demolish me in order to re-marry. Ach! It's not a great deal, but it's something and temporarily it depresses me.

You un-depress me. I feel better already, Susie. [ . . . ]

With kisses and only slightly sad smiles.

Yours,

Sondra Tschacbasov and Jack Lugwig would not marry in October, or ever.

To Susan Gla.s.sman June 15, 1960 [Tivoli]

Dearest Susie: The Burroughs [novel, Naked Lunch Naked Lunch] is shocking for a few pages and then becomes laughable because it's so mechanical. Grand Guignol. It doesn't have much human content, and I think it's just the other side of all the ”niceness” and ”cleanliness” and ”goodness” in the country. On one side the scrubbers and detergent-buyers, and on the other the dirty boys, equally a.n.a.l. Black and white are the colors of paranoia, nothing in between. If I'm using clinical language, it's because Naked Lunch Naked Lunch forces it on me. It's clinical. And that would be all right if it were the beginning of something. Raskolnikov must have been crazy, but he was more. Here there isn't more. But I was glad of a chance to read it. Do you want it sent back? forces it on me. It's clinical. And that would be all right if it were the beginning of something. Raskolnikov must have been crazy, but he was more. Here there isn't more. But I was glad of a chance to read it. Do you want it sent back?