LIVING WITH A WRITER Also by Dale Salwak KINGSLEY AMIS: A REFERENCE GUIDE JOHN BRAINE AND JOHN WAIN: A REFERENCE GUIDE JOHN WAIN A. J. CRONIN: A REFERENCE GUIDE LITERARY VOICES: INTERVIEWS WITH BRITAIN’S ‘ANGRY YOUNG MEN’ A. J. CRONIN THE LIFE AND WORK OF BARBARA PYM (editor) CARL SANDBURG: A REFERENCE GUIDE PHILIP LARKIN: THE MAN AND HIS WORK (editor) KINGSLEY AMIS: IN LIFE AND LETTERS (editor) BARBARA PYM: A REFERENCE GUIDE MYSTERY VOICES: INTERVIEWS WITH BRITISH CRIME WRITERS KINGSLEY AMIS, MODERN NOVELIST ANNE TYLER AS NOVELIST (editor) THE WONDERS OF SOLITUDE THE WORDS OF CHRIST THE WISDOM OF JUDAISM THE LITERARY BIOGRAPHY: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS (editor) THE POWER OF PRAYER A PASSION FOR BOOKS (editor) LIVING WITH A WRITER Edited by DALE SALWAK Professor of English Citrus College California Chapter 1 © Malcolm Bradbury Estate 1988 Selection, editorial matter, Preface and Conclusion © Dale Salwak 2004 Individual chapters (in order) © Ann Thwaite; Paul Theroux; Edmund Morris; Michael Holroyd; Margaret Drabble; William Golding Ltd and Judy Carver; John Halperin; George Howe Colt; John Updike; David Updike; Catherine Aird; Brian Aldiss; Kathleen Symons; Frances H. Bachelder; James J. Berg; John Bayley; Felix Licensing BV and Nadine Gordimer 2004 and by permission of Russell & Volkening as agents for the author; Amanda Craig; Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan; Jeffrey Meyers; Mary Ann Caws; Laurel Young; Betty Fussell; Rob Rollison; Hershel Parker 2004 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-0476-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Living with a writer / edited by Dale Salwak. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Authors, English—20th century—Family relationships. 2. Authors, American—20th century—Family relationships. 3. Authors, Commonwealth— 20th century—Family relationships. 4. Authors’ spouses—Commonwealth countries—Biography. 5. Authors’ spouses—Great Britain—Biography. 6. Authors’ spouses—United States—Biography. I. Salwak, Dale. PR107.L58 2004 820.9′0091—dc22 [B] 2004045622 10987654321 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 ISBN 978-1-349-72225-9 ISBN 978-1-137-07998-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-07998-5 Transferred to Digital Printing in 2009 For writers, their relations and friends Contents Preface x Acknowledgements xiii Notes on the Contributors xiv Part I The Pleasures 1 The Spouse in the House 3 Malcolm Bradbury 2 Living with Writers 13 Ann Thwaite 3 Lady Naipaul 25 Paul Theroux 4 Lady of Letters: Living with Sylvia Jukes Morris 27 Edmund Morris 5 Yesterday’s News 37 Michael Holroyd 6 The Open Door 40 Margaret Drabble 7 Harbour and Voyage: The Marriage of Ann and Bill Golding 44 Judy Carver 8 C. P. Snow and Pamela Hansford Johnson at Home 56 John Halperin 9 Hong Kong Time 65 George Howe Colt vii viii CONTENTS 10 Writers as Progenitors and Offspring 77 John Updike 11 My Grandmother’s Only Son 80 David Updike 12 I am Two Fools – Or Home Alone 85 Catherine Aird 13 Margaret 92 Brian W. Aldiss 14 Living with Julian 99 Kathleen Symons 15 When Writing Entered My Mind 107 Frances H. Bachelder 16 Pen and Ink: The Life and Work of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy 114 James J. Berg Part II The Problems 17 Forget She (or He) Is a Writer, and All May Be Well 131 John Bayley 18 Getting Along with Myself 134 Nadine Gordimer 19 The Pantomime Horse 137 Amanda Craig 20 Can This Collaboration Be Saved? 142 Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan 21 Maugham’s Marriage 146 Jeffrey Meyers 22 Being Two of Us 163 Mary Ann Caws 23 The Mystery of the Vanishing Wife 176 Laurel Young 24 Room for One 184 Betty Fussell CONTENTS ix 25 Peter Levi: A Corresponding Friendship 189 Rob Rollison 26 Damned by Dollars: Moby-Dick and the Price of Genius 202 Hershel Parker Conclusion: A Perilous Art 223 Dale Salwak Index 230 Preface ‘They wrote in the morning, they walked in the afternoon, they read in the evening.’ Quentin Bell’s description of the happy and productive life that Leonard and Virginia Woolf lived at Hogarth House in Surrey strikes many of us as ideal for the serious writer. ‘Despite madness, suicide, infidelities, resentments and betrayals’, said one commentator, ‘in some important ways these people had their priorities straight.’ It may be said of many authors that they refined their relationship at home into a work of art. In Donald Hall’s marriage to the late Jane Kenyon, for example, ‘loving to work’ became their nature: although the poets did not speak all morning, ‘her presence in her own study’, working on as he worked, meant everything to him, enabling him to concentrate on his own writing. Had he married someone who preferred society and conversation, Hall admits, he would have wasted his time at parties. Solitude won out over company because their personal and professional relationship thrived on it. But life with a writer can be troubling, too, especially when one partner is spending so many working hours wandering far off in a fictional landscape and the other is not. Estelle Faulkner never adjusted to her husband’s moods and closed-mouthed ways. ‘With- out open communication between them’, writes Stephen B. Oates, ‘they both drank too much: Faulkner when he wasn’t writing, Estelle when he was.’ And in her last years, Emma Lavinia Gifford, the first wife of Thomas Hardy, lived and died in two miserable attic rooms as her husband wrote Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure and other fine works in the study directly beneath. ‘He treated her with a cruel x PREFACE xi lack of understanding,’ says John Fowles. ‘You stand there and still feel the pain, their separate isolation, in those tiny upper rooms.’ The idea for a volume of essays on the subject of life with a writer had been percolating in my mind since 1985, when I read an interview with Fowles in which the questioner asked: ‘[Elizabeth] plays a very important role in your life as wife and critic, doesn’t she?’ To which Fowles responded, ‘A writer’s wife is vital. Always, without exception ... I wish someone would study novelists’ wives – or husbands now.’ With that challenge in mind, three years ago I invited twenty-seven people whose lives were intertwined in some way with authors to reflect upon the following questions: What does it mean to live with a writer? What makes the arrangement work, or not work, and why? How does life at home contribute to the creative process? What is the cost of a masterpiece or a caring relationship? In one way or another I suspect that most writers have asked these questions – though not necessarily of someone who might be able to answer with such insight and candor. Thus prompted, the contributors take us on journeys that are full of startling turns – oftentimes humorous, many times saddening, but always fascinating as they reveal some of the pleasures and problems of living with a writer or, in two instances, with them- selves as writers. As the title implies, I cast my net wide to include not only novelists but also poets, biographers, scholars, editors and collaborators. I provided the focus and theme for the book, made suggestions for possible approaches, but left it to each contributor to decide on a direction. Husbands and wives, other relatives and friends – all have a say about the sometimes volatile, sometimes magical chemistry that drives and shapes the creative process. The collection may seem eclectic, even somewhat random – certainly it does not aspire to be comprehensive. What the essays do have in common is a glimpse behind private doors into very private worlds. Twenty-one are entirely original; most of the others the authors have revised, some heavily, to fit the book’s theme and focus. As always, my task as editor has been much eased by my parents, Dr Stanley and Frances H. Salwak, by my wife, Patricia, and by my colleagues, Dr Reginald D. Clarke and Dr Laura Nagy. Above all, of xii PREFACE course, are my contributors, for whom I only provide a forum. This book is truly theirs, and I am very grateful for their eloquent essays. I hope that readers everywhere will experience what I have felt throughout the project from inception to completion: pure pleasure.