Sherrill Grace My dear Anton Myrer": A Late Lowry Letter Introduced, transcribed, and a n n o t a t e d by S h e r r i l l Grace When the American writer Anton Myrer (1922-93) wrote to Malcolm Lowry o n 29 January 1957, he d i d s o t o praise Under the Volcano a n d , "however belat- edly," to t h a n k Lowry for h i s e a r l i e r praise of Evil Under the Sun (1951), Myrer's first novel. Myrer could not h a v e known the d e s p e r a t e state of Lowry's life between 1954, when he a n d M a r g e r i e left Dollarton, and t h e w i n t e r of 1957, by which time both Lowrys had b e e n in and o u t of h o s p i t a l several times a n d Malcolm had o n l y a few m o n t h s to live. On 17 M a r c h 1957, Malcolm answered Myrer's letter, but M y r e r delayed writing back... until it was too l a t e . Shortly after hearing of Malcolm's death on 27 J u n e 1957, Myrer wrote to Margerie. In this 30 J u l y 1957 letter he sent much more than respectful con- dolences; he wrote again about the i m p o r t a n c e of Under the Volcano, a n d he described his d e e p regret at not a c k n o w l e d g i n g Lowry's letter to him: I can't tell you what a d e l i g h t it was to receive that letter from him this spring, with its g e n t l e exhortation—and the m a g n i f i c e n t and generous offer of t h e use o f the cabin, which I was planning to write in thanks for (though unfortunately w e couldn't have availed ourselves of it)—and then procrastinated over, to my immense sorrow. And now of course I w i s h to God I had w r i t t e n — i f only so t h a t I were not o p p r e s s e d with such a sense of dereliction. 1 Myrer's procrastination, over writing the first letter, as w e l l as t h i s reply, is reminiscent of Malcolm' s hesitation in 1919 over approaching Conrad Aiken. Indeed, it is p e r h a p s not a n exaggeration to suggest that Lowry's impact on Myrer's psyche resembled Aiken's on Lowry. Of course, Lowry had already had j u s t that kind of i m p a c t on David Markson, who in s o many ways is Lowry's spiritual son (see Markson, and Sursum Corda II, 398 and 974)· 11 Canadian Literature 165 I Summer 2000 Lowry Letter The mutual admiration of M y r e r and L o w r y goes back to 1951, when Lowry read Evil Under the Sun ( p r o b a b l y in pre-publication copy) for Random House. Shortly after that, Myrer read Under the Volcano f o r the first time and was deeply impressed, even awed, by i t s quality. However, t h e two men n e v e r met. If they had, I can i m a g i n e that they would have forged a friendship carried out (as w a s Lowry's habit) by l e t t e r . According to Patricia Myrer, the w r i t e r ' s widow, the y o u n g e r man " l i t e r a l l y worshipped Lowry's work," and h e w r o t e an a r t i c l e on Lowry for t h e i 9 6 0 Lowry issue of Les Lettres nouvelles i n which he c l a i m e d that Under the Volcano was as g r e a t and i m p o r - tant as Ulysses.2 C e r t a i n l y Lowry found much to praise in Evil Under the Sun, and i t is n o t e w o r t h y that in 1957 he r e m e m b e r ed the b o o k so positively. There are t w o L o w r y letters to Albert Erskine, both written in November 1951 (see Sursum Corda I I , 4 8 0 a n d 4 8 1 ) , in which Lowry speaks about Evil Under the Sun. It would seem that Erskine, who was with Random House at this time, must have sent the b o o k to Lowry sometime earlier in 1951 and asked for his o p i n i o n of it. Unfortunately, however, I have not l o c a t e d an in- coming letter from Erskine with references to Myrer or his b o o k ; nor h a v e I found a separate assessment oí Evil Under the Sun b y L o w r y . 3 Until the dis- covery of t h e letter to Myrer published here, Lowry's only surviving com- ments are i n the t w o N o v e m b e r 1951 l e t t e r s to Erskine. In the 2 4 N o v e m b e r 1951 letter, Lowry states that he loves the n o v e l , although he finds Myrer "stylistically often Joyced in his o w n p e t a r d . " He g o es on to describe his reaction as divided a b i t between what I f e e l you ought to say to him, & conviction it deserves wide audience (not much doubt—perhaps all t o o l i t t l e — i t will get that!)—but make no mistake, it does d e s e r v e sincere salutations. Indeed it makes me feel like Father Mapple. And it has sent me on s e v e r a l long swims already. (Sursum Corda I I , 458) Whether by w o r d of m o u t h — E r s k i n e reporting directly to Myrer—or by means of a written assessment, Myrer learned about Lowry's comments. In Myrer's 29 J a n u a r y 1957 letter to Lowry (published below), he refers to Lowry's warning that there was too m u c h Joycean stylistics in Evil Under the Sun, and h e insists that he paid attention to Lowry's "Mapple-esque caveat." In his r o l e as Father Mapple (the s e r m o n i z i n g whaler in Moby-Dick), Lowry offered the y o u n g e r writer precisely the k i n d of advice he should have h a d with Ultramarine, though in Lowry's case the o b v i o u s influences are Conrad Aiken and T . S . Eliot. Despite Lowry's advice, and M y r e r ' s claim to have c u t "most... of the Joycean hawsers," Evil Under the Sun w a s panned in the New York Times (16 December 1951. D 1 7 ) . 12 Canadian Literature 165 / Summer 2000 Myrer's hero, Paul Kittering, is a would-be artist recently returned to the States after active service during World War II, but he is unable to escape his memories of war or to recover his lost innocence. In a montage style, com- bining stream-of-consciousness with quotations from newspapers, Myrer creates a hero and a narrative that inevitably recall Joyce and—as Lowry must surely have noticed—Fitzgerald. Moreover, the somewhat heavy- handed use of Freudian concepts fails to anchor or explain Kittering's psy- chological state. Evil Under the Sun, for all its biblical allusiveness, was Myrer's first novel and it is derivative. Nevertheless, Lowry clearly found it a powerful enough treatment of a young man's struggle with the demons of war and social injustice to praise it to Erskine and to remember it in 1957. Myrer's passionate critique of war, waste, and human cruelty, and his belief in individual dignity were, after all, shared by Lowry. Anton Myrer, who was born in Massachusetts, began his university edu- cation at Harvard before enlisting with the American Marines and serving in Guam during World War II. After being wounded, he returned home to complete his degree in 1947. Several of his early novels draw upon his war experiences: for example, Evil Under the Sun, The Big War (1957), and The Violent Shore (1961). The Big War was made into the 1996 film In Love and War, d i r e c t e d by Richard Attenborough and starring Sandra Bullock and Chris O'Donnell.