The following abbreviations appear in these notes:
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BU-MM |
Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University, Monica McCall Collection |
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BU-RY |
Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University, Richard Yates Collection |
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CSH |
Cold Spring Harbor |
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CSRY |
The Collected Stories of Richard Yates |
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DP |
Disturbing the Peace |
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EP |
The Easter Parade |
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GS |
A Good School |
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RR |
Revolutionary Road |
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RY |
Richard Yates |
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SP |
A Special Providence |
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UM-SL |
J. D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi, Seymour Lawrence Collection |
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YHC |
Young Hearts Crying |
Most of the letters to Richard Yates cited below are from his personal papers, and I’m deeply grateful for permission to quote from them. With the signal exception of Yates’s letters to Sheila in 1953 (copies of which were found among his papers), letters from Yates are in the hands of the recipients unless otherwise noted. Quotations are only cited when the source is not explicitly given in the text. Interview subjects are cited initially, and thereafter only when needed for the sake of clarity; otherwise the reader may assume that uncited quotations are from personal interviews.
Prologue
“a touch of emphysema”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“Can you believe it?”: Int. Tom Goldwasser.
“Getting out of here”: Elizabeth Venant, “A Fresh Twist in the Road,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1989, section 6, page 8.
“The Host of Yates fans”: Don Hendrie Jr. to RY, April 27, 1989.
“We were touched”: Int. Tony Earley.
“The implication”: Int. Allen Wier.
“Not much for one”: Quoted in Steve Featherstone, “November 7, 1992,” Black Warrior Review 21, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1994), 157–158.
Chapter One The Caliche Road: 1926–1939
“My little legs”: Int. Grace Schulman.
“I must’ve had the most”: Ms. of “A Natural Girl,” BU-RY.
she later spelled Darke: Ruth Yates misspelled the name of her home county on her application for a Social Security number, April 21, 1943.
“He says I am the best clerk”: Amos Maurer to Fannie Walden, July 29, 1873, papers of Rev. Peter Rodgers.
“I should like to have seen”: F. Walden to A. Maurer, August 3, 1873, ibid.
“[He] was buried”: F. Walden to A. Maurer, October 10, 1873, ibid.
“I know thine’s no worldly heart”: A. Maurer to F. Walden, October 16, 1873, ibid.
“Uncle Dick never liked”: Ruth Rodgers to Peter Rodgers, May 21, 1964, ibid.
For Ruth Maurer Yates’s misdated entry see Who’s Who of American Women, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Marquis, 1962), 1091.
“[S]he had probably grown up”: CSRY, 184.
“I know,” he replied: Int. Peter Rodgers. The Reverend Mr. Rodgers was kind enough to share his considerable genealogical research on the Cleveland and Bradford lines of the Yates family.
Details of Horatio Yates’s career are derived from his obituaries in the Auburn Citizen and the Auburn Daily Advertiser, April 4, 1912.
Such a life was conducive: Warden Gershom Powers is quoted in John N. Miskell, “Offering Hope: The Connection between Auburn Theological Seminary and Auburn State Prison,” unpublished manuscript, papers of John N. Miskell.
Details of Kemmler’s friendship with Chaplain Yates are derived from the Auburn-Cayuga Patriot, August 5, 1890; for the description of Kemmler’s electrocution, I’m indebted to Ted Conover’s account in his book, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (New York: Random House, 2000), 187–188.
“[H]e came upon his father”: “Lament for a Tenor,” Cosmopolitan, February 1954, 50–57.
“Dook knew right away”: Sheila Yates to RY, July 22, 1953.
“I didn’t give a shit”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“because [he] could scarcely”: CSRY, 179.
As he explained in a 1972: DeWitt Henry and Geoffrey Clark, “An Interview with Richard Yates,” Ploughshares 1, no. 3 (Winter 1972), 69. Hereafter cited as Ploughshares.
she even pretended: Int. Peter Rodgers.
“broaden his horizons”: Letter to author from Barbara Beury McCallum.
“confused and unpleasant”: SP, 123.
Her family hadn’t approved: Ruth Rodgers to Peter Rodgers, May 21, 1964, Rodgers papers.
“Elsa was very sensible”: Int. Sheila Yates.
“Dook’s fantastic schemes”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 15, 1953.
“hysterical odyssey”: SP, 10.
“the only new boy”: Ibid.
she smelled bad: E-mail to author from Gina Yates.
“cruel, bullying voices”: Int. Frances Doel.
“I wasn’t a bookish child”: “Some Very Good Masters,” New York Times Book Review, April 19, 1981, 3.
Dookie and “Cush” became friends: Ruth Rodgers to Peter Rodgers, undated letter, Rodgers papers.
“they would get together and trash things”: Int. Stephen Benedict.
“Richard, we are growing old”: Elisabeth Cushman to RY, May 8, 1945.
“liked to use words like ‘simpatico’”: SP, 138.
“a sad-eyed, seven-year-old philosopher”: CSRY, 195.
“Yates felt enraged”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.
“the most stable”: CSH, 46.
“They were comrades”: Int. Martha Speer.
As a teenager she joined: Int. Peter Rodgers.
BUST GIVEN ROOSEVELT: New York Times, April 16, 1933, section 2, page 3.
“had a wife in England”: SP, 143.
“the question of whether or not”: Ibid., 157.
lest he seem a sissy: Int. Nancy Cushman Dibner.
Background about the Vanderlip estate in Scarborough, as well as Cheever’s time there, is found in Susan Cheever, Home Before Dark (New York: Pocket Books, 1985), and The Letters of John Cheever, ed. Benjamin Cheever (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988).
“He used to speak of it”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
Yates submitted a blank sheet: Int. Nancy Cushman Dibner.
“He doodled on everything”: Richard Yates: An American Writer (New York: Seymour Lawrence, 1993), 17. Hereafter cited as RYAW.
“I remember how you used to delight us”: Mary Jo McClusky Sup to RY, March 7, 1977.
“The only noise I hear all day”: RY to Stephen Benedict, April 2, 1940.
“We energetically rehearsed”: RYAW, 18.
“Dookie hired a Mr. Bostelman”: Int. Nancy Cushman Dibner.
Russell Benedict … started a weekly newspaper: Int. Russell Benedict.
“Had dinner tonight with an old boyhood”: RY to Barbara Beury, February 15, 1961.
“I guess I sort of love her”: Quoted in Geoffrey Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” Northeast Corridor 1, no. 2 (1994), 34.
Chapter Two A Good School: 1939–1944
“We’re celeberaties”: RY to Stephen Benedict, March 7, 1940.
“‘blow-by-slug’ description”: RY to Benedict, February 13, 1940.
“just like a big kaht”: RY to Benedict, September 16, 1939.
“I really wrote you the verra nite”: RY to Benedict, November 14, 1939.
“It will be peachy”: RY to Benedict, March 7, 1940.
“My school is peachy (oh-so)”: RY to Benedict, October 24, 1939.
“Aubrey Beardsley mouth”: Int. Murray Moulding.
“You might be inerested”: RY to Benedict, December 5, 1939.
“Me and another guy who swings”: RY to Benedict, October 24, 1939.
“You’re invited to a peachy joint”: RY to Benedict, c. June, 1940.
“Bud Hoyt is getting”: RY to Benedict, July 6, 1940.
“You can still come”: RY to Benedict, July 28, 1940.
Background on the Rodgers family, Ruth’s courtship with Fred, and life on “Genius Row” is mostly derived from my interviews with Ruth’s sister-in-law, Louise Rodgers.
“Oh, I believe in humanity”: EP, 74.
“and I only passed History”: “Ten Americans to Watch,” Pageant, February 1963, 43.
“Such ‘movie-haunted’ stories”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 3.
“conceived in the studios”: GS, 5.
Background on Theodate Pope Riddle and Avon Old Farms: Brooks Enemy, Theodate Pope Riddle and the Founding of Avon Old Farms (Avon, Conn.: Avon Old Farms School, 1973); Clarence Derrick, “Recollections of Avon Old Farms School 1935–1941,” unpublished manuscript, papers of Daniel Gates; Gordon Ramsey, Aspiration and Perseverance: The History of Avon Old Farms School (Avon, Conn.: Avon Old Farms School, 1984).
“in aging they would warp and sag”: GS, 5.
“Given good-enough clothes”: YHC, 347.
“‘FRANKLIN SIMON!’ the students yelled”: Int. Lothar Candels.
“That’s me, all right”: Int. Harry Flynn.
“What a flood of memories”: Mason Beekley to RY, December 11, 1978.
“almost unalloyed in its misery”: SP, 12.
“the pain implicit”: Quoted in Writer’s Choice, ed. Rust Hills (New York: David McKay Co., 1974).
“held together by safety pins”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“Thin, haggard, disheveled”: Int. David Bigelow.
“Dick was obviously poorer”: Int. Hugh Pratt.
“He was fragile”: Int. Jim Stewart.
“‘Sue the bastard’”: Richard E. T. Hunter to RY, February 19, 1979.
Yates was not actually masturbated: Int. Irv. Jennings.
“wondering how he was going to live”: GS, 27.
Details relating to the wedding of Ruth Yates and Fred Rodgers are derived from my interviews with Louise Rodgers.
“mutual admiration society”: Int. Lothar Candels.
“I suppose you know Ruth is married”: RY to S. Benedict, August 24, 1942.
“Re-reading the Cold Spring Harbor letter”: Letter to author from Stephen Benedict.
“All I do is rush around”: RY to S. Benedict, August 24, 1942.
Yates was at Van Nordan’s bedside: Int. Sheila Yates.
A mutual friend described Pratt: Int. David Bigelow.
“Dick ran everything”: Letter to author from Gilman Ordway.
Information about Ernest “Bick” Wright is derived from my interviews with his widow, Ann Wright Jones, and his friend Don Nickerson.
Family lore has it: Int. Fred Rodgers Jr.
“Emily fucking Grimes is me”: RYAW, 21.
“All I’m really qualified to remember”: GS, 177.
“Cigarettes were a great help”: Uncertain Times ms., hereafter cited as UT.
“learning how to behave in college”: GS, 94.
“quite good”: Int. David Bigelow.
“struggling artist”: Int. Hugh Pratt.
This account of summer 1943 is mostly based on pages 13–16 of A Special Providence, whose essential accuracy has been corroborated by letters and interviews. Dookie’s employment at the Optima Optical Company is noted on her Social Security application, likewise RY’s employment at the New York Sun, which he later also mentioned in Pageant magazine (February 1963), 43.
“I think you’re pretty good”: Elizabeth Nowell Perkins to RY, November 7, 1943.
It was a bad Christmas: Int. Ann Barker.
Chapter Three The Canal: 1944–1947
“People don’t recover”: Quoted in David Streitfeld, “The Great Unknown,” Fame, Summer 1990, 30.
“Do you like girls?”: E-mail to author from Gina Yates.
“[They] tend to sort in large groups”: Quoted in Kay Redfield Jamison, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (New York: Free Press, 1993), 107.
“mild and pampered”: SP, 29.
“Dick was hilarious”: Int. Pat Dubus.
“Dick cultivated an anti-intellectual manner”: Int. DeWitt Henry.
Basic information about Yates’s military service is taken from his honorable discharge, dated June 19, 1946.
“He took pride in delivering”: SP, 86.
“I mean after this Horbourg business”: Ibid., 89.
A doctor … poked him in the chest: Int. Sheila Yates.
peculiar stench of the pneumonia ward: Int. Dan Childress.
“shut off [his] mind”: UT.
Knorr had been the B.A.R. man: Int. Janis Knorr.
Yates … would occasionally claim … B.A.R. man: Int. Franklin Russell and Edward Hoagland.
“more goddamn trouble”: CSRY, 375.
“out of badly made shoes and boots”: Seymour Krim to RY, September 24, 1978. In the letter Krim paraphrases Yates’s remark to this effect.
Dookie and Elisabeth Cushman’s boozy celebration of VE-day is recounted in Cushman’s letter to RY, May 8, 1945.
“seriously afraid something had happened to [him]”: Ernest B. Wright to RY, May 31, 1945.
“enjoy good food, women”: Davis Pratt to RY, May 17, 1945.
“Your knowledge … mayhap”: Hugh Pratt to RY, June 2, 1946.
“one of the brethren”: H. W. Harwood to RY, February 22, 1946.
“Connie says … plaything”: “Joan” [last name unknown] to RY, February 2, 1946.
“He was full of … joie de vivre”: Int. Tony Vevers.
“Yates, please tell me”: “F. G.” [?] to RY, March 9, 1946.
“You don’t sound very keen”: “Joan” to RY, February 18, 1946.
Details of Yates’s morose homecoming to High Hedges are derived from my interviews with Louise Rodgers and Fred Rodgers Jr.
Yates’s postwar stint at the radical York Gazette and Daily were mentioned in interviews with two people otherwise unknown to each other, Ken Rosen and Natalie Baturka.
“At twenty, fresh out of the Army”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 3.
“dumb, arrogant thing to do”: Pageant, February 1963, 43.
“God, you can’t mean that!”: Quoted in Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 30–31.
“Wishing I’d Gone Myself”: RY to Peter Najarian, September 24, 1960.
it just wasn’t “real journalism”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
RY’s postwar freelancing escapades with Russell Benedict are based on my interviews with the latter.
“No, I didn’t know”: Virginia Shafer Cox to RY, July 8, 1961.
“Bick was right about that, too”: Int. Ann Wright Jones.
“I am sorry to hear”: “Joan” to RY, November 15, 1946.
“‘back on [her] feet’ in no time”: CSRY, 298.
According to records provided by Pen and Brush, Ruth Yates was named “Resident Sculptor” in June 1944.
“oddly satisfying”: CSRY, 299.
“utterly defeated”: Ibid.
Chapter Four Liars in Love: 1947–1951
Russell Benedict … beginning to pall: RY had suggested as much in a letter to Sheila Yates, June 29, 1953.
“young, poor, bright”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. June 1953. Sheila was clearly expressing an ideal coveted by both her and RY.
“trying to figure out”: CSRY, 300–301.
plerb (“a synonym for…”): from the 1944 Winged Beaver yearbook. Macaulay’s role in introducing RY to Sheila was mentioned by the latter.
For background on Sheila’s father, Charles Bryant, I’m greatly indebted to Gavin Lambert, Nazimova (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).
Marjorie would go on … John Birch: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“very good at acting the actress”: Int. Ann Barker.
“the movies had proved”: CSRY, 301.
“terribly good-looking”: Int. Doris Bialek.
“half-phoney art talk”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 1, 1953.
found the two in bed together: The friend was Jerry Cain, and the anecdote was supplied by a May 17, 1953 letter from Sheila to RY: “Do you know why [Cain] was so cool to me when we first knew them? Well, it seems they thought I was some loose Village girl you’d got mixed up with who was ruining your life and sleeping around for laughs.”
“[Y]ou had [my writing] figured”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 8, 1953.
“I borrowed three hundred dollars”: CSRY, 304.
Blanchard “Jerry” Cain: E-mail to author from Robin Cain.
Cain would later remark: Ibid.
“Hansel and Gretel cottage”: Int. David Bigelow.
“Unusual free-lance opportunity”: Sheila Yates confirmed that Yates did indeed ghostwrite for a cabbie as described in “Builders.”
The editors of Harper’s: Letters from the magazine to RY, December 7, 1949, and January 3, 1950.
“in meekness and urgency”: CSRY, 304.
“sweating out the ax”: Ibid., 161.
“right in the middle”: Ibid., 168.
winding up toy kittens: Robin Cain confirmed that Yates actually held such a job.
“badly printed”: CSRY, 72.
“unabashed worshiper”: Robert Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” North Stone Review 12 (1995), 215.
“formal introduction to the craft”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 3.
“to Fitzgerald and Lardner”: “Authors Comment on Living Author They Most Admire,” New York Times Book Review, December 4, 1977, 3.
“the essence of aplomb”: Letter to author from Natalie Bowen.
Yates attempted suicide: Int. Sheila Yates.
“big, ambitious, tragic novel”: CSRY, 169.
“Mr. Yates may understand”: RY to Barbara Beury, October 24, 1960.
“[A]ll I knew then”: CSRY, 317.
“I think death was on”: Ms. of “Regards at Home,” BU-RY.
“Harvard, Yale, and Princeton”: RYAW, 61.
“without whose work”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 21.
“that cat belongs”: Int. John Kowalsky.
“grass widow”: Int. Ann Barker.
“wait-and-see basis”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 10, 1953.
“you’re the only person”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 11, 1953.
“anywhere in the world”: CSRY, 317. Letters to RY from the Veterans Administration confirm the exact monthly sum of $207.
“steer clear of the conventional”: RY to Stephen Benedict, March 8, 1951.
“Our only plans”: RY to Stephen Benedict, March 25, 1951.
“cramped farewell … I had luck”: CSRY, 318–19.
Chapter Five The Getaway: 1951–1953
“walked himself weak”: RR, 132.
“[grind] out short stories”: RY to Stephen Benedict, April 10, 1953.
“that awful feeling”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 7, 1953.
“[Pinner’s] old broken espadrilles”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 10, 1953.
“Yates is without question a writer”: Monica McCall to Charles Bryant, January 15, 1952.
Background on Monica McCall: Int. Mitch Douglas, Robert Gottlieb, and Richard Frede; also McCall’s Social Security SS-5 form.
“please call [him] Dick”: McCall to RY, February 1, 1952.
McCall responded … critique: McCall to RY, March 6, 1952.
“At its best and sunniest”: E-mail to author from Stephen Benedict.
“semi-separation in Cannes”: Sheila Yates to RY, January 17, 1962.
“Yates has a lot of talent”: this and other rejections were quoted in McCall’s letter to RY dated April 4, 1952.
“perfectly handled”: Quoted in McCall to RY, October 22, 1952.
“Why does he have to write”: Quoted in McCall to RY, c. September, 1952.
“What a good story”: McCall to RY, April 24, 1952.
“[T]he playboy setting”: Quoted in McCall to RY, c. September, 1952.
“The cruelty which forms”: Quoted in McCall to RY, February 1, 1955.
“let-down”: Quoted in McCall to RY, July 15, 1957.
“Hope you … will let us”: Quoted in McCall to RY, February 20, 1958.
“Rust Hills did have the grace”: McCall to RY, May 15, 1958.
“too pat”: Quoted in McCall to RY, May 28, 1958.
“for fairly obvious”: Quoted in McCall to RY, May 21, 1958.
“I’m a jazz snob”: Int. Vance Bourjaily.
“It is a good story”: McCall to RY, April 4, 1952.
“Close, but no cigar”: Quoted in McCall to RY, September 16, 1952.
“You are progressing well”: McCall to RY, July 1, 1952.
“swell story”: McCall to RY, July 8, 1952.
“an esoteric little”: Quoted in McCall to RY, September 16, 1952.
“[they] should be more acted out”: McCall to RY, August 18, 1952.
“readable and amusing”: Quoted in Rosalie Becker to RY, July 28, 1953.
“on the basis … God’s sake”: RY to Sheila Yates, c. August 1953.
“suffers from a confusion”: Quoted in McCall to RY, October 1, 1952.
play games like: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“snarky and sick”: Sheila Yates to RY, July 22, 1953.
“perfect … outside aspects”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 11, 1953.
“quarreling had belonged”: CSRY, 240.
“Number 15 off the production”: RY to Stephen Benedict, April 10, 1953.
“Oh the new one”: McCall to RY, September 16, 1952.
“by the narrowest margin”: Quoted in McCall to RY, October 15, 1952.
ATLANTIC BUYING JODY: McCall to RY, October 21, 1952.
“Sweet of you”: McCall to RY, October 27, 1952.
“That was one grand”: Frances Phillips to RY, January 30, 1953.
“I should like … opportunity”: Jacques Chambrun to RY, January 28, 1953.
“I want to tell … Jody”: Seymour Lawrence to RY, February 6, 1953.
“Stand in the stream”: from the class notes of RY’s student, Loree Wilson Rackstraw.
“You’ve done it with ‘Jody’”: J. S. Dorsey to RY, c. February 1953.
“sensitive … basic trainee’s”: Lt. Col. Roger Little to RY, July 26, 1965.
“prick with ears!”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“If he were free”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 7, 1953.
“Bryant family emergency”: RY to Stephen Benedict, April 10, 1953.
“Talk about missing”: RY to Sheila Yates, March 26, 1953.
“Dear Rich … I felt so sad”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 2, 1953.
“Sheila and Ruth and Sheila’s mother”: Elsa Maurer to RY, May 3, 1953.
“knick-knacky and scatter-ruggy”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 7, 1953.
“Charlie’s hate is making him sick”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. April 1953.
“far, far too American”: Dorothy Daly to RY, April 17, 1953.
“[she] showed … Sweetheart”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 12, 1953.
“I know nothing … pictures”: McCall to Sheila Yates, April 23, 1953.
“[M]ost of my ideas”: RY to Stephen Benedict, April 10, 1953.
“trying to explain … sentimentality”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 10, 1953.
“Oh that is a wonderful story!”: McCall to RY, May 18, 1953.
“ever seems to talk about”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 1, 1953.
“[I]t’ll be nice … to share”: RY to Sheila Yates, March 31, 1953.
“In the past three months”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 23, 1953.
“a beautiful sunlit garden”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 7, 1953.
“completely recessed”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 12, 1953.
“Haf a chicherette, gramer”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 7, 1953.
“‘innumerable things’ he didn’t write”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 20, 1953.
“a far cry from the drab”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 5, 1953.
“decidedly not queer”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 10, 1953.
“seem[ed] to spend … money”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 21, 1953.
“Here’s this month’s alimony”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 5, 1953.
“I sort of forgot”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. May 1953.
“Charlie’s offer of the $165”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 10, 1953.
“Everything you say about us” Sheila Yates to RY, May 17, 1953.
“income just over the horizon”: Sheila Yates to RY, late May, 1953.
“pray that the time comes soon”: Elsa Maurer to RY, May 3, 1953.
“pretty childish attitude”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 30, 1953.
“wasteland”: Sheila Yates to RY, May 17, 1953.
“The Levittown houses”: Sheila Yates to RY, late May 1953.
“creative slump”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 21, 1953.
“completely aimless, pointless”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 16, 1953.
“bitter astringency of tone”: Jean Malcolm to RY, June 11, 1953.
“[didn’t] have room … boy”: Quoted in McCall to RY, June 12, 1953.
coronation … “terrific show”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 8, 1953.
“grubby, homely Village type”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 16, 1953.
“about a million … biddies”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 8, 1953.
“wolloping good party”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 23, 1953.
“there mightn’t be anyone”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 29, 1953.
“We’re never going to get rich”: RY to Sheila Yates, May 30, 1953.
“If you had a job”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 4, 1953.
“violent opposition”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 8, 1953.
“demand[ing] restitution … rights”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 23, 1953.
“rush around trying to do their best”: Ploughshares, 69.
“stay of execution”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 19, 1953.
“I am praying”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 29, 1953.
“She’d never stimulate me”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 1, 1953.
“If I do come home before August”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 8, 1953.
“[kick] up an awful row”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 29, 1953.
“feed [Mussy] lots of ice cream”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 9, 1953.
“For a while … zenith”: Ms. of “The Game of Ambush,” BU-RY.
“pretty good B-plus”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 16, 1953.
“[I]t’s technically as good”: RY to Sheila Yates, June 23, 1953.
“as good or perhaps better”: Sheila Yates to RY, July 9, 1953.
“It came to me in a flash”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 9, 1953.
Sheila changed “(‘pretty good’)”: Sheila Yates to RY, July 1, 1953.
“I remember thinking … cliché”: Sheila Yates to RY, mid-July 1953.
“I love the story”: McCall to RY, July 14, 1953.
“stubborn as a mule”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 24, 1953.
“funny and nice letter”: Rosalie Becker to RY, July 28, 1953.
“continue[d] to be interested”: Quoted in McCall to RY, August 27, 1953.
“drearier and drearier”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 1, 1953.
COSMOPOLITAN BUYING: McCall to RY, July 14, 1953.
“How much money … stand?”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 17, 1953.
“[McCall] has left me … jam”: RY to Sheila Yates, July 24, 1953.
“what an odd view”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 11, 1953.
“Absence … grow fonder”: RY to Sheila Yates, August 17, 1953.
“quaint and Villagy”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 9, 1953.
“it might be a bit awkward”: RY to Sheila Yates, early September.
“all about meats”: RY to Sheila Yates, August 21, 1953.
“with some temerity”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 20, 1953.
“The main illustration”: RY to Sheila Yates, early August, 1953.
“quite tasteful”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 11, 1953.
“So I looked into cat-baskets”: RY to Sheila Yates, August 21, 1953.
“a coloring book with water”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 20, 1953.
“best-looking kind of suit”: RY to Sheila Yates, early August 1953.
“[they’d] been … 1066”: RY to Sheila Yates, August 12, 1953.
“I don’t think … depressed”: RY to Sheila Yates, early September.
the food was “wonderful”: RY to Sheila Yates, September 12, 1953.
Chapter Six A Cry of Prisoners: 1953–1959
Andy Borno (the physical model…): Int. Robert Riche. Riche, who also wrote freelance PR for Remington Rand, was very helpful in explaining the nature of Yates’s assignments.
“All this … boring stuff”: Contemporary Authors, vol. 10, ed. Deborah A. Straube, New Revision Series (Detroit: Gale, 1981), 535.
“no different than I ever was”: Riche to RY, March 21, 1991.
there was no flirtation: Int. Pamela Vevers.
“You know … mother works?”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
Background on Dookie and the City Center: Jean Dalrymple, From the Last Row (Clifton, N. J.: James T. White and Co., 1975); “City Center Adds an Art Gallery,” New York Times, September 15, 1953; “Art Gallery Opens in City Center Corridor,” New York Times, September 30, 1953; Int. Louise Rodgers.
Twice a week … WGSM: Int. Fred Rodgers Jr.
“crack The New Yorker”: Ruth Rodgers to Peter Rodgers, undated, Rodgers papers.
“a mellow sort of man”: Int. Ruth Rodgers Ward.
“we would order … Jack Daniel’s”: RYAW, 55.
“a big deal for me”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
“The first time I met Sam Lawrence”: Joseph Kanon was quoted thus in Lawrence’s obituary in the New York Times, January 7, 1994, A22.
Background on Lawrence: Int. DeWitt Henry, Merloyd Lawrence, and Dan Wakefield.
“The psychology … true”: Lawrence to McCall, February 10, 1954.
“frankly stumped”: McCall to RY, December 23, 1954.
“a little masterpiece”: McCall to RY, September 24, 1954.
“The B.A.R. Man … New Yorker”: McCall to RY, November 1, 1954.
“a beauty as usual”: McCall to RY, December 6, 1954.
“Oh Bob,… better-looking”: Int. Robert Riche.
“get the hell out”: Int. Ann Barker.
“engineering square”: Int. John Kowalsky.
“Stop this clownlike behavior”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“In Connecticut you … cops”: Ibid.
“I hate the thought”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 14, 1962.
“He kissed her … a little uncertain”: Ms. of “The End of the Great Depression,” BU-RY.
“get so involved … daydreams”: Quoted in McCall to RY, January 3, 1955.
“The Walter Mitty scenes … clichés”: Quoted in McCall to RY, November 15, 1957.
“Are you aware—you must be”: Richard Mitchell to RY, undated. RY’s response was written on the back of Mitchell’s letter, and may not have been sent.
“I never thought of that”: Int. Tim Parrish.
“that absolutely supreme … editor”: McCall to RY, March 22, 1955.
“Like all publishers”: McCall to RY, April 14, 1955.
“daily watching the mails”: McCall to RY, October 21, 1955.
“I hope your silence”: McCall to RY, January 10, 1956.
“real ability and … worth”: Quoted in McCall to RY, May 8, 1956.
“I thought of the girl dying”: Ploughshares, 66.
“Very much impressed”: Lawrence to McCall, May 31, 1956.
“as a vote of our confidence”: Lawrence to McCall, June 8, 1956.
“one of the many imitators”: RYAW, 56.
“narrative competence”: Quoted in McCall to RY, August 8, 1956.
“Most of my first drafts”: Ploughshares, 68.
“Who’s got my arm…?”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“felt like a million dollars”: RY to Booghie Salassie, December 29, 1979 (unmailed).
“your best [work has] … writer”: Lawrence to RY, April 25, 1957.
“gotten away … women-hating”: Quoted in McCall to RY, July 15, 1957.
“encouragingly”: McCall to RY, September 9, 1959.
“I used to get a headache behind my eyes”: Int. Robert Andrew Parker.
Background on the stomach-punching episode: Int. Tony and Elspeth Vevers, Peter Kane DuFault, Robert Parker, and Robert Riche.
“They seemed to connect”: Int. Dot Parker.
singing a ribald ditty: Int. Robert Riche.
“Ever since I first met you”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. January 1962.
Conrad Jones affair: “Bright Young Men in America,” Esquire, September 1958.
“Greetings! I feel a little pale”: Conrad Jones to Robert Parker, September 8, 1958, papers of Robert Andrew Parker.
“I surely do say ‘yes’”: Parker to Jones, undated. This letter and the ones that follow, though signed by Parker, were all but entirely written by Yates. Parker was kind enough to send me both the typed, polished versions of these letters, as well as holograph drafts (lovingly preserved) in Yates’s handwriting.
“Margaret Truman” … “druggist’s daughter”: E-mail to author from Robert Riche.
precise ugly grimace: Int. Tony Vevers.
“kept cracking each other up”: RY’s memories of his first meetings with R. V. Cassill are contained in “Appreciation,” December 23, nos. 1–2 (1981), 41–44.
“a happy and peaceful solution”: McCall to RY, March 7, 1958.
“I have absolute faith”: Lawrence to RY, April 30, 1958.
“I fully appreciate your longtime”: McCall to Lawrence, May 13, 1958.
Reviews of Short Story 1: William Peden, New York Times Review, October 26, 1958; Granville Hicks, Saturday Review of Literature, September 13, 1958; R. H. Glauber, New York Herald Tribune, January 18, 1959; Kenneth Millar, San Francisco Chronicle, October 19, 1958.
“I can’t remember when”: Gina Berriault to RY, October 8, 1958.
“Richard Yates is my guardian angel”: RYAW, 19.
“It seems to me now … Frank’s idea … psychoanalyzed”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. July 1962.
“needless expense” of divorce: RY to Barbara Beury, September 9, 1960.
“other commitments”: RY to Paul Engle, c. August 1959.
Chapter Seven A Glutton for Punishment: 1959–1961
“thirty-three years ago”: Peter Najarian, The Great American Loneliness (San Francisco: Blue Crane, 1999).
“My New School class”: RY to Barbara Beury, September 30, 1960.
“If you were teaching”: Int. Sidney Offit.
“Emphasis is on the craft and art”: Yates’s course description in the New School Bulletin, Fall 1960.
“He didn’t seem into teaching”: Int. Peter Najarian.
“a nineteen-year-old … delinquent”: RY to R. V. Cassill, May 5, 1960.
“Theodore Schwertheim”: RY to Peter Najarian, undated.
“You are worth a thousand”: Najarian to RY, September 2, 1960.
“I’ve had a real ball”: RY to Cassill, May 5, 1960.
“There was something broken”: Int. Betty Rollin.
“I thought I was witnessing”: Int. Gail Richards Tirana.
“It was exhausting”: Int. Warren Owens.
“I felt we deserved … contempt”: Susan Grossman to RY, c. March 1961.
“Baked Alaska!” … A Star Is Born: Int. Warren Owens.
“some of the finest autobiographical fiction”: Ploughshares, 71.
“the greatest cocksman”: Int. Anne Bernays.
“Dick was forthright … Broyard was the opposite”: Int. R. V. Cassill.
“one of the most fruitful”: Lawrence to RY, October 2, 1959.
“[T]his option was very important”: Charles Scribner Jr. to RY, October 22, 1959.
“every sentence right”: RYAW, 56.
“Although you may not learn”: Lawrence to RY, March 30, 1960.
“Congratulations on your Bread Loaf”: Lawrence to RY, June 22, 1960.
“funny evening”: Lawrence to RY, July 8, 1960.
“[I]’s practically impossible”: Lawrence to RY, July 12, 1960.
“Owing to its autobiographical”: RY’s undated Guggenheim statement, BU-MM.
“a work of history and not”: Lawrence to RY, July 12, 1960.
“We have a terrific novel”: Int. Dan Wakefield.
RY’s various titles for Revolutionary Road are among his notes at BU. Robin Metz was the friend to whom RY mentioned his favorite, The Bullshit Artist.
“He used to stand around”: Robert Parker, “A Clef,” unpublished ms., papers of Robert Parker.
Kay Cassill remembers … “awe”: Int. Kay Cassill.
“A deft, ironic, beautiful novel”: Styron’s comment was used by Little, Brown in promotion of the first edition, and appeared as a cover blurb on most later editions of the novel.
“grubby little writing for hire”: YHC, 168.
“I smoke too much”: Styron is quoted in Streitfeld, “Book Report,” Washington Post, December 27, 1992, X15.
“Dick was always lubricating”: Int. William Styron.
“He’s a great guy”: RY to DeWitt Henry, January 20, 1972.
met the poet Marianne Moore: Int. Robert Parker.
“Booo, Dartmouth!”: Int. Robert Riche.
“drunken and frantic”: RY to Barbara Beury, September 23, 1960.
“Dreadnought Dick”: Int. John A. Williams.
“I well remember”: John Williams to RY, November 5, 1970.
“And speaking of incredible”: RY to Barbara Beury, September 30, 1960.
“premature ejaculation”: RY to Grace and Jerry Schulman, May 18, 1962.
Yates’s “Lost Soul quality”: Int. Edward Kessler.
hallucination? “Because that’s”: RY to Beury, December 22, 1960.
“A massive lethargy”: RY to Cassill, May 5, 1960.
The NIMH study on manic-depressive disorder is discussed in Jamison, Touched with Fire.
“Zelda and F. Scott FitzYates”: Int. Barbara Beury McCallum.
“drunk and self-absorbed”: RY to Beury, September 30, 1960.
“The worst possible way”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.
“Tell this dumb son of a bitch”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“real beds, chrome-and-leatherette”: DP, 55.
“I have given the Bellevue authorities”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.
“Bellevue was an epiphany”: Int. Grace Schulman.
“Yates was always the smart one”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.
“For God’s sake, take it easy”: RY to Najarian, September 24, 1960.
“beautiful” … “very well-written”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.
“I wish you wouldn’t ‘worry’”: RY to Beury, September 23, 1960; Beury’s side of the exchange is surmised from RY’s reply.
“I think it’s a very swell”: RY to Beury, September 30, 1960.
“This excellent novel is a powerful”: Kazin’s edited blurb appeared on the first edition of RR; the whole quote was included in Little, Brown promotional material found among RY’s papers.
“After Little Brown got that letter”: RY to Beury, September 23, 1960.
“delighted to work with [Yates]”: Saul David to McCall, October 27, 1960.
“never read a more brilliant”: Quoted in RY to Beury, November 11, 1960.
“The Presentation today”: RY to Beury, November 21, 1960.
“very nice and un-awesome”: RY to Beury, September 30, 1960.
“a gruesome failure”: RY to Beury, November 11, 1960.
“[Anatole] has expressed”: Ibid.
“The whole three days”: RY to Beury, October 24, 1960.
“formal divorce talk”: RY to Beury, September 23, 1960.
“The only nice thing”: RY to Beury, November 11, 1960.
“big Celebrity Interview”: RY to Beury, December 22, 1960.
“shocking”: Gingrich to McCall, January 22, 1961.
“You are free to remarry”: Leonard Golditch to RY, February 9, 1961.
“Got my final divorce”: RY to Beury, c. February 15, 1961.
“Dick would hand you a tumbler”: Int. Alan Cheuse.
“For God’s sake”: RY to Edward Kessler, March 6, 1961.
“Maureen seemed like a tough”: Int. Edward Kessler.
“I was fascinated”: Updike’s blurb for RR was included in Little, Brown promotional material found among RY’s papers.
“Here is more than fine writing”: Lawrence mailed RY a copy of Tennessee Williams’s remarks on February 27, 1961; Williams’s blurb has appeared on most subsequent editions of RR.
“Oh yes,” he responded: Contemporary Authors interview, 1981.
Reviews of Revolutionary Road: J. C. Pine, Library Journal, February 1, 1961; R. D. Spector, New York Herald Tribune, March 5, 1961; W. E. Preece, Chicago Tribune, March 5, 1961; Martin Levin, New York Times Book Review, March 5, 1961; Orville Prescott, New York Times, March 10, 1961; “Briefly Noted,” The New Yorker, April 1, 1961; David Boroff, Saturday Review of Literature, March 25, 1961; Jeremy Larner, New Republic, May 22, 1961; Dorothy Parker, Esquire, June 1961; F. J. Warnke, Yale Review, June 1961; Theodore Solotaroff, Commentary, July 1961.
“remains one of the few novels”: James Atlas, “A Sure Narrative Voice,” Atlantic, November 1981, 84–85.
“a cultish standard”: Richard Ford, “American Beauty (Circa 1955),” New York Times Book Review, April 9, 2000, 16.
“strikes too close to home”: Fred Chappell, essay on RR, in Rediscoveries, ed. David Madden (New York: Crown, 1971), 247.
“Doesn’t it sound like a real name?”: Int. Robin Metz.
“You threaten the intellectuals”: Andrew Sinats to RY, March 16, 1961.
“If this was indeed”: Donn C. McInturff to RY, April 5, 1962.
“Not knowing where else”: Thalia Gorham Kelly to RY, May 30, 1961.
“very healthy indeed”: Lawrence to RY, March 7, 1961.
“We are over 9,000”: Lawrence to RY, April 4, 1961.
“I cannot recall … launched”: Lawrence to RY, May 1, 1961.
“the lousy way the book”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
“[I]n my more arrogant or petulant”: Ploughshares, 74.
Chapter Eight The World on Fire: 1961–1962
“re-read Fitzgerald’s ‘Crack Up’”: RY to Beury, c. January 1961.
“The idea of the writer”: Int. David Milch.
“Dick was both melancholy”: Int. James Whitehead.
“How’s the schoolteaching”: Int. Robert Riche.
“When Emma dies, I die”: Int. Grace Schulman.
“It takes many amateur writers”: Contemporary Authors, 1981.
“Don’t worry if it comes slowly”: RY to the Schulmans, April 16, 1962.
“[I] still feel like a turd”: RY to the Schulmans, April 2. 1962.
“PAY NO ATTENTION”: RY to Grace Schulman, April 28, 1966.
“I always thought Dick was incorruptible”: RYAW, 48.
“Best regards to Cyrilly”: RY to the Schulmans, April 16, 1962.
“I got turned down for that job”: RY to Beury, May 4, 1961.
“knowing you both”: RY to the Schulmans, November 23, 1971.
“It was the nicest thing”: Int. Natalie Bowen.
“Before the meal was over”: Dan Wakefield to RY, July 2, 1976.
“You make … uncomfortable”: Susan Grossman to RY, March 17, 1961.
“You’d be bored”: Quoted in Grossman to RY, late March 1961.
“incurable keeps-player”: RY to Beury, September 9, 1960.
“How dare that crook”: Int. Natalie Bowen.
“Forgot to tell you that my mother”: RY to Beury, May 4, 1961.
“I guess I was a bit of a bastard”: RY to Beury, mid-February, 1961.
“Even if you end up marrying”: RY to Beury, June 26, 1961.
“This confident, good-looking”: RYAW, 39.
“soulmate drinker”: Int. Franklin Russell.
“Outrageous!” he shouted: Ibid.
“Beverly who?”: E-mail to author from Robert Riche.
Yates felt certain that his “effeminate”: Int. Natalie Bowen.
“experimental warm-up”: Ploughshares, 70.
“[about] a ‘colorful’ character”: Rust Hills to McCall, May 24, 1961.
“Jerome Weidman writes three”: Saturday Review of Literature, July 1, 1961, 14.
“No culture has placed”: Yates’s course description in the New School Bulletin, Spring 1961.
“Had a dreary class”: RY to Beury, April 26, 1961.
“a considerable amount of dough”: RY to Beury, June 26, 1961.
“[They] are talking … ‘wait and see’”: RY to Beury, July 23, 1961.
“physically stronger but mentally”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.
“I am not, as you so neatly”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, c. October 1961.
“It was Bob Jones”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, c. September 1961.
painted lipstick on her reflection: For the real-life basis of this memorable scene in The Easter Parade, see RYAW, 22.
“The deaths of parents”: Quoted in American Voices, ed. Sally Arteseros (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1.
“I sweated blood”: Ploughshares, 67.
“[W]e don’t mark our bottles”: Rella Lossy to RY, September 9, 1961.
“He had … spoiled child”: Int. Julia Child.
“Dick never praised simply”: Int. Miller Williams.
“I can’t tell you how impressed”: Lawrence to RY, September 8, 1961.
Broyard … avoided Yates as … drunk: Int. Alexandra Broyard.
“lively if somewhat confused”: RY to Miller Williams, January 20, 1962.
“endless sophomoric discussions”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.
“Christ, Dick, you’re no cad”: Beury to RY, January 23, 1962.
“a perfect gentleman”: Int. Sandra Walcott Eckhardt.
“On the first day of class”: Int. Lee Jacobus.
“hole-in-corner deal”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. January 1962.
“I have learned what it is”: Sheila Yates to RY, January 17, 1962.
“a hell of a lot of trouble”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 14, 1962.
“rather exaggerated emptiness”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.
“the two terrible traps”: Ploughshares, 70.
“special type of writer”: Int. John Frankenheimer.
“The Movie Deal that seemed”: RY to Beury, November 26, 1961.
“no whiff of a contract”: RY to Miller Williams, January 20, 1961.
“Mr. Yates, how can I make sure”: Charles Leap to RY, January 2, 1961.
“the book was a shattering”: Lawrence to RY, January 30, 1962.
Yates … Wallant … commiserate: Int. Lee Jacobus.
Background of the 1962 NBA controversy: Gay Talese, “Critics Hear Tale of Novel’s Prize,” New York Times, March 15, 1962.
“a beautiful writer”: Ploughshares, 77.
“a pathetic lush”: Letter to author from Carolyn Gaiser.
“Want it? Want it?”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 36.
“Just to save you anxiety”: Int. Grace Schulman.
“I spent the first week”: RY to the Schulmans, April 2, 1962.
“Do you think Hollywood”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. March 1962.
“Baby, this is Crazyville”: RY to Kessler, April 23, 1962.
“the drug I’ve been needling”: Jerry Schulman to RY, April 5, 1962.
“He’s probably some semi-literate”: RY to Schulmans, April 16, 1962.
Reviews of Eleven Kinds of Loneliness: Peter Buitenhuis, New York Times Book Review, March 25, 1962; Richard Sullivan, Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1962; Hollis Alpert, Saturday Review of Literature, April 21, 1962; J.C. Pine, Library Journal, April 15, 1962.
A translated version of Cabau’s review of EKL in the French weekly Express was mailed to RY on October 24, 1963, by Monica McCall: “You are now a pet of the French critics,” she wrote.
“stands at the pinnacle”: Jonathan Penner, New Republic, November 4, 1978.
“the mere mention of its title”: Robert Towers, New York Times Book Review, November 1, 1981, 3.
“he believes this light to be a lie”: CSRY, XX.
“economics of publishing”: Lawrence to McCall, April 16, 1962.
“They’re there, and now all”: Lawrence to RY, April 24, 1962.
“a kind of literary snow-blindness”: Stories for the Sixties, ed. RY (New York: Bantam, 1963), vii.
“quite impressed”: Rust Hills to RY, April 17, 1962.
“Maybe the little bastard”: RY to the Schulmans, May 18, 1962.
“It was almost as if he knew”: Ploughshares, 75.
“At the rate Yates is going”: Malcolm Stuart to McCall, May 25, 1962, BU-MM.
“discovering endless problems”: RY to the Schulmans, May 18, 1962.
“Don’t think I’m neglecting”: RY to Robert Parker, May 13, 1962.
The birthplace and maiden name of Catherine Downing are found on her Social Security SS-5 form; other details about Downing were cobbled together from epistolary evidence in RY’s papers as well as interviews with Frances Doel and others.
“You didn’t leave anything”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“a whole new avalanche”: UT.
“Good novels—let’s say great novels”: Ploughshares, 72.
“delivering great globs”: William Styron’s “Lie Down in Darkness”: A Screenplay (Watertown, Mass: Ploughshares, 1985).
“At a distance in time”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 14, 1962.
“old, reliable tranquility”: Sheila Yates to RY, c. March 1962.
“I will never—and I mean”: Sheila Yates to RY, April 14, 1962.
“I should, damn it, have known”: John Ciardi to RY, September 10, 1962.
“ugly fucking battle-ax”: Int. Grace Schulman.
“You can take my word”: Ciardi to RY, September 13, 1962.
“After it’s over I wince”: Quoted in Jamison, Touched with Fire, 32.
predicted he’d kill himself: Marilyn Renzelman to RY, February 20, 1963.
“Any hope that we can work”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 10, 1963.
Chapter Nine Uncertain Times: 1962–1964
“revolutionized the treatment”: New York Times, February 14, 1983, D10.
“This is what keeps your old daddy”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.
Frankenheimer had assured: Frankenheimer to RY, October 2, 1962.
“ninety-eight per cent sure”: Cassill to RY, October 9, 1962.
“Miss Wood’s agent decided”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.
“Frankenheimer’s mills”: Styron to RY, March 14, 1963.
“I’m working hard as hell”: RY to Cassill, February 7, 1963.
“spasm of writing”: UT.
Background on Ruth’s marriage: Int. Fred and Peter Rodgers, Ruth Rodgers Ward, Sheila Yates.
“mentally ill, incompetent”: Cassill to RY, April 3, 1963.
The meeting was a fiasco: “Kennedy and Baldwin: The Gulf,” Newsweek, June 3, 1963, 19.
“turn them into words with a snap”: RYAW, 43.
Prettyman called … Styron: Int. E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., Styron.
“I don’t even know if I like”: UT.
“short, clipped sentences”: Ibid.
“We’re living in very uncertain”: Venant, “A Fresh Twist in the Road,” sec. 6, p. 8.
“School is out, girls”: UT.
“more of an honorarium kind of thing”: UT.
“I couldn’t resist”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.
“Dick composed the most memorable”: RYAW, 43.
“He used RFK as a ventriloquist’s”: Int. Kurt Vonnegut.
“Dick was respectful”: Int. Jack Rosenthal.
“Sorry I’ve been so elusive”: UT; Int. Wendy Sears Grassi.
“The FBI wheels”: Sheila Yates to RY, June 10, 1963.
“a fine-looking young man”: UT.
“hunched and impassioned”: Ibid.
“Dick, I recall feeling”: John A. Williams to RY, November 5, 1970.
“If my questioning you”: RY to Williams, c. early 1971.
“There! I wrote that!”: Int. Janis Knorr.
“White people of whatever kind”: Robert F. Kennedy: Collected Speeches, ed. Edwin O. Guthman and C. Richard Allen (New York: Viking Penguin, 1993), 98–100.
“a little heavy in the leg.”: The phrase was used to describe Sears’s fictional alter ego Holly Parsons in UT.
“it hurt to listen”: Int. Joseph Mohbat.
as a matter of principle it rankled: Int. Noreen McGuire.
“When I’m writing, I’m writing”: Int. Jack Rosenthal.
a stock anecdote in Yates’s repertoire: Int. E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., Carolyn Gaiser.
“After searching for months”: “Periscope,” Newsweek, September 16, 1963, 16.
Was this Richard Yates the writer: Int. Dan Wakefield.
“suave, expensive and quiet restaurant”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
Yates shook hands … ran out of cigarettes: Int. Wendy Sears Grassi, Joseph Mohbat.
“and just about that time the president”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.
“Richard Yates, the novelist … did not like”: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1978), 876.
“Never look for political ideas”: UT notes.
“glad it happened”: Wendy Sears recounts this exchange in her letter to RY, c. June 1964.
“this makes [my husband]”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, August 14, 1964.
“There are of course a number of elements”: McCall to RY, January 30, 1964.
“I’m working like a bastard”: RY to Miller Williams, March 14, 1964.
A representative artifact: “QWERTYUIOP
,” Esquire, October 1966, 98.
during a boozy night with Styron: Styron to RY, January 12, 1965.
“you work all day and carouse”: Lawrence to RY, March 3, 1964.
“Yates was pleasant enough”: Int. Richard Frede.
Charlie was now working: Sheila Yates to RY, July 15, 1964.
“I’ll put a dime”: Grace Schulman to RY, July 15, 1964.
“rich, waspy”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“The damn place [MacDowell]”: RY to the Schulmans, August 8, 1964.
“Brendan Behan drank”: Wendy Sears to RY, August 18, 1964.
“There’s a good writer who goes”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
Chapter Ten A New Yorker Discovers the Middle West: 1964–1966
Background on the Iowa Writers Workshop: Seems Like Old Times: Iowa Writers Workshop Golden Jubilee, ed. Ed Dinger (Iowa City: 1986), hereafter cited as SLOT; The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers Workshop, ed. Tom Grimes (New York: Hyperion, 1999), hereafter cited as Workshop; John Hess, “Where Have All the Writers Gone? To Iowa City, That’s Where,” Holiday (June 1970), 60–68.
“The business of teaching”: Venant, “A Fresh Twist in the Road.”
“I must admit I’m a little leery”: RY to Cassill, February 7, 1963.
“few places interesting to eat”: Cassill to RY, February 25, 1964.
His car … caught fire: Tom Gatten, Workshop, 731.
“I found myself talking”: Int. William Kittredge.
“Turn at the sign”: Int. Loree Wilson Rackstraw.
cartoon of a sad daddy: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“I think we all wanted”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 211.
“What’s this … club tie?”: Int. Robin Metz.
“sublime, rugged presence”: Luke Wallin, SLOT, 66.
“rhetorical style … ‘Flowering Judas’”: Int. Loree Wilson Rackstraw.
“I’m going to the Airliner”: Int. James Crumley.
“Now that is fucking good writing!”: Int. Murray Moulding.
“Now, if that’s Daisy talking”: Int. Robert Lacy.
trashing of All the King’s Men: Int. James Crumley.
“Oh c’mon, you don’t really mean that!”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.
“smelly and shy”: Int. Dan Childress.
“Yates had no doubt”: Robert Lehrman, Workshop, 746.
Mark Dintenfass was startled: Int. Mark Dintenfass, Robert Lehrman.
“Dick demonstrated the keenest”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 29.
“They’re rushing you”: Int. John Casey.
“I hope this won’t … sore”: RY to DeWitt Henry, May 13, 1968.
“I simply can’t imagine”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
“Hm, did you really”: Int. William Keough.
“You motherfuckers”: Int. William Kittredge.
“Milch was a slasher”: Int. Robin Metz.
“That many writers”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“Andre wanted … tough guy”: Int. Peggy Rambach.
“Most of the clowns here”: RY to Miller Williams, October 3, 1964.
“Getting a letter from Richard Yates”: Dubus to RY, July 1, 1970.
“Richard Yates is one of our great writers”: Andre Dubus, “A Salute to Mister Yates, Black Warrior Review 15, no. 2 (Spring 1989), 160.
“God, how we loved that song!”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 217.
“If that goddamned movie”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.
“hug [him] to pieces”: Wendy Sears to RY, October 26, 1964.
“Steve Salinger sneaked in”: Jonathan Penner, Workshop, 724.
“I don’t think I’m at all cut out”: RY to McCall, November 1, 1964, BU-MM.
“Dick saw more in me”: Int. Lyn Lacy.
“He talked of prospects”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
“I resigned from Knopf”: Lawrence to RY, November 7, 1964.
“Sam’s attitude … deplorable”: McCall to RY, November 19, 1964.
“I know apologies are a bore”: RY to the Schulmans, January 10, 1965.
“people don’t stop caring”: Grace Schulman to RY, March 4, 1965.
“lonesome as hell”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.
“a crash program”: RY to the Schulmans, January 10, 1965.
“[T]he ‘teaching’ routine”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.
“tinkered and brooded and fussed”: Ploughshares, 74.
“Verlin Cassill’s verdict”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.
“What will you do?”: Int. Robin Metz.
“a cherry when I got married”: Dubus to RY, February 2, 1967.
“I’ve wanted to publish you”: Robert Gottlieb to RY, February 15, 1965.
“Was Sam ever useful”: McCall to RY, March 22, 1965.
“mustn’t worry”: McCall to RY, March 4, 1965.
“making notes and … spooky”: RY to the Schulmans, February 28, 1965.
“If calling me when … panic”: McCall to RY, May 7, 1965.
Yates scribbled on his bill: found among RY’s papers.
“ridiculous amounts of money”: RY to Schulmans, July 11, 1965.
“Hitler’s car”: Int. Frances Doel. As a patriotic vet, RY deplored his having bought the Führer’s infamous “people’s car.”
“grubby white edifice”: DP, 210.
“the Goddamn movies”: Int. Frances Doel.
“Guess what, hey”: RY to Wendy Sears, July 2, 1965, BU-RY.
“[W]hatever kind of place”: RY to Schulmans, July 11, 1965.
“[Corman] turns out to be”: Ibid.
“I poke around trying”: RY to Robert and Dot Parker, July 24, 1965.
“funny Hollywood story”: RY to Schulmans, July 11, 1965.
“friendly but reserved”: Int. Roger Corman.
“There’s really not much”: Catherine Downing to RY, September 12, 1975.
“West Hollywood Sheriff’s Office”: Discarded draft of DP, BU-RY.
Bill Reardon, who caught a flight: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“In the bughouse”: Int. Frances Doel.
“We have had a wonderful”: Sheila Yates to RY, August 22, 1965.
“the right thing”: Bowen to RY, September 13, 1965.
“spread any unfortunate”: Marc Jaffe to RY, August 30, 1965.
“The fact of talent”: Rust Hills to RY, August 27, 1965.
“he is not my doctor”: RY to McCall, October 6, 1965, BU-MM.
“the kind of place … suicide”: Int. Frances Doel.
“People found it very warm”: Rust Hills to RY, August 27, 1965.
“There are several good things”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.
“fine well-focused script”: Dubus to RY, February 10, 1966.
“This is your third breakdown”: Sheila Yates to RY, September 29, 1965.
“He’s a very, very touchy”: RY to DeWitt Henry, July 24, 1972.
“never seen such a change”: RY to Cassill, March 23, 1966.
“I’m John Gregory Dunne”: Letter to author from Carolyn Gaiser.
“you are one of the very few”: Joan Didion to RY, September 13, 1970.
hourly tormented … Portis: Int. Murray Moulding.
“Haven’t done any more wrestling”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.
“Is just ‘functioning’”: Quoted in Dubus to RY, February 25, 1966.
“I’m feeling pretty jaunty”: RY to Cassill, March 23, 1966.
“Not an unhappy experience”: Marc Jaffe to RY, June 1, 1966.
“[Yates] has been in Hollywood”: Cassill to Carolyn Kizer, c. May 1966.
“take the curse off”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.
“Is this some kind of AA thing?”: Int. Jerry Schulman.
“The purpose of this letter”: Craige ——— to RY, May 28, 1966.
“[The story] is all tricked out”: RY to Cassill, January 18, 1966.
Wolper … fired Yates: RY wrote to Frances Doel (September 7, 1966), “It’s [i.e., a $10,000 grant] the same amount I lost in being fired from the Remagen Bridge flick.” The details of RY’s dismissal are unknown.
“I wouldn’t want to try it”: Contemporary Authors, 1981, 536.
“We are delighted”: Bourjaily to RY, June 7, 1966.
“Still hate [Hollywood]”: RY to Cassill, March 23, 1966.
“Forgive me … but I called”: Frances Doel to RY, July 15, 1966.
“brilliant,” an “emotional genius”: Carole ——— to RY, c. June 1970.
Chapter Eleven A Natural Girl: 1966–1968
“Dick’s helplessness”: Int. Mark Costello.
“get [his] brains … focus”: RY to Frances Doel, September 7, 1966.
“If we stick together”: Ruth Rodgers to RY, September 15, 1966.
“bowled over”: Int. Martha Speer.
“I’m sorry your friend”: Martha Speer to RY, September, 1966.
“traumatic and cowardly”: Carole ——— to RY, c. June 1970.
“I was afraid to face”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.
“As an occasional palindromist”: Roger Angell to RY, October 3, 1966.
“one of the best books”: Vonnegut wrote this blurb for the 1971 Dell reprint of RR, and it has appeared on perhaps every edition since.
“a very unpopular lecture”: Int. Kurt Vonnegut.
“From Coover I learned”: Kittredge, SLOT, 66.
“Well, I’m just a dumb guy”: Int. Mark Dintenfass.
“a seething mix”: Robert Lehrman, Workshop, 745.
“faggots” and worse: Int. Robert Lehrman.
“in the past four or five”: RY to Cassill, April 2, 1967.
“Good work to you”: Dubus to RY, February 28, 1967.
“Dick, guess what we’re doing?”: Int. Joseph Mohbat.
“We would be prepared”: Lawrence to RY, September 16, 1966.
“I do know that the pressures”: McCall to RY, April 5, 1967.
“repay the outstanding”: Lawrence to RY, January 6, 1968.
“In the end I told Sam”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
“lugubrious” … “roaring drunk”: Int. Gordon Lish.
“clear impression”: Int. Peter Davidson.
“The Workshop … incestuous”: Int. William Murray.
“Where’s the pencil pusher?”: Ibid.
“[He was] clearly upset”: Robert Lehrman, Workshop, 746.
“I thought ‘this is life’”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.
“No chance of finishing”: RY to Cassill, April 2, 1967.
“I hope you’re not sorry”: Sheila Yates to RY, July 9, 1967.
“about the sex lives of graduate”: RY to Dewitt Henry, May 13, 1968.
“I have so many daughters”: Int. Grace Schulman.
“She’s twenty years younger”: RY to Cassill, January 7, 1968.
“We wanted … happier life”: Lehrman, Workshop, 746.
Chapter Twelve A Special Providence: 1968–1969
“chummy, bubbly, tolerant”: Int. Martha Speer.
“wiped out with admiration”: RY to E. B. Prettyman, February 23, 1968.
“Straight ahead: don’t look right”: Int. Martha Speer.
“sick, in shock”: Int. Fred Rodgers Jr.
“Your brother killed”: Int. Louise Rodgers.
“more hopeful now”: RY to Prettyman, May 9, 1968.
“hideous loss”: RY to Prettyman, August 4, 1968.
“that scares the shit”: RY to Cassill, December 1, 1968.
“[The novel] may not … good”: RY to Prettyman, February 20, 1969.
“idle, boozy”: RY to Robert Lehrman, June 10, 1969.
“very high on [his] book”: McCall to RY, June 11, 1969.
“moving and sensitive”: McCall enclosed Rosenthal’s letter with hers of September 4, 1969.
“because it is much harder”: Carole ——— to RY, c. June 1970.
“What kind of guy … Bennington?”: Int. William Keough.
“With time on my hands”: Sharon Yates to RY, December 7, 1968.
“dropping [his] pants in Macy’s”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.
“I imagine you are now”: Vonnegut to RY, September 24, 1969.
“It is a beautiful book”: Joan Didion to RY, October 14, 1969.
HOPE YOU SAW: Styron to RY, October 27, 1969.
“I remember how many times”: Dubus to RY, November 12, 1969.
“What do Alice Prentice’s dreams”: Robin Metz to RY, November 25, 1969.
“a lot of people … much of it”: RY to Prettyman, December 14, 1969.
Reviews of A Special Providence: Joyce Carol Oates, The Nation, November 10, 1969; John Thompson, Harper’s, November 1969; Elizabeth Dalton, New York Times Book Review, December 14, 1969.
“the true enemies of the novel”: Quoted in Ronald Baugham, “Richard Yates,” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook (Detroit: Gale, 1992), 301.
“the two terrible traps”: Ploughshares, 70.
considered omitting it: RYAW, 59.
“better and easier”: RY to Prettyman, December 14, 1969.
“Let’s see”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 34.
Chapter Thirteen Fun with a Stranger: 1970–1974
“But you must not brood”: McCall to RY, January 21, 1970.
“most desirous of establishing”: Howard Gotlieb to RY, April 14, 1970.
“the added disadvantage”: Ploughshares, 74.
“I’ve sort of decided”: RY to DeWitt Henry, December 13, 1967.
“require the same kind”: Contemporary Authors, 1981, 534.
“had it in for him.”: Int. Jack Leggett.
“slinking around with a secret”: Int. Martha Speer.
“Martha seemed a nurse”: Int. William Harrison.
“A problem has come up”: William Murray to RY, June 15, 1970.
“80% of the writing faculty”: Hayes B. Jacobs to RY, July 6, 1970.
“progressively, irredeemably crazy”: Ploughshares, 73.
“Hollywood writers”: Int. Jayne Anne Phillips.
“I recall trying to say”: RY to John A. Williams, October 26, 1970.
“the ‘book’ might be in the form”: Ibid.
“the mediocre … soldiers”: Williams to RY, November 5, 1970.
“about the hideous whim”: RY to Williams, early 1971.
“Do you know … out of print”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 40.
“All the time I praise”: Vonnegut to RY, September 14, 1970.
“deep” into his new novel: RY to DeWitt Henry, May 7, 1971.
“There’s a great deal of interest”: Bruce Cutler to RY, June 22, 1971.
“dream up an original”: McCall to RY, October 27, 1971.
“break [his] heart”: Quoted in McCall to RY, November 9, 1971.
“in something of a muddle”: RY to the Schulmans, November 23, 1971.
“Say, Geoff, tell me”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 33.
“I felt like a teenybopper”: Int. Ellen Wilbur.
“I seem to recall … clown”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, April 9, 1972.
“fragmentary, diffuse”: DeWitt Henry to RY, April 12, 1972.
“chances [were] very good”: David Milch to RY, June 27, 1972.
“must be beautiful”: Gina Berriault to the Yateses, July 14, 1972.
“Believe it or not”: RY to DeWitt Henry, July 24, 1972.
“A popular writer, a writer”: from Henry’s transcription of original interview, found among RY’s papers.
“cogent and back-to-work”: Int. DeWitt Henry.
“in all its carefully-edited”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
“I’ve just finished reading”: Lawrence to RY, November 13, 1972.
“So who knows?”: RY to DeWitt Henry, November 21, 1972.
“devilishly hard”: Hayes Jacobs to RY, February 13, 1973.
Various drafts of RY’s résumé were found among his papers.
“a lot of commitment”: Arthur Roth to RY, January 30, 1973.
Yates’s review of The Morning After: New York Times Books Review, January 28, 1973, 6.
“putting the story through”: McCall to RY, February 20, 1973.
“Dick—I’m doing … trust me”: Gordon Lish to RY, February 22, 1973.
“Your performance was an appalling”: Lish to RY, February 28, 1973.
“I am your daughter”: Monica Yates to RY, March 5, 1973.
Martha prepared a list of symptoms: found among RY’s papers.
“Those monthly payments”: RYAW, 59.
“How much do you need”: Int. Dan Wakefield.
“at his best he’s a solid”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, October 26, 1978.
Yates would mimic him: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“become … whiskey-head”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, July 22, 1973.
“Three thousand articles”: E-mail to author from John P. Lowens.
“taking his enormous success”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, July 22, 1973.
“What’s most important … right”: Lawrence to RY, February 7, 1974.
“lovable Irish alcoholic”: RYAW, 29.
“Trouble with me and my friends”: Dubus to RY, July 12, 1976.
“Women have been oblique”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.
Chapter Fourteen Disturbing the Peace: 1974–1976
“that loneliness shit”: Dubus to RY, June 18, 1974.
“It always made me pleased”: Loree Rackstraw to RY, February 11, 1975.
“PERSONAL RECORD”: found among RY’s papers.
“Whatever you do”: Int. Mitch Douglas.
“Yates was absolutely nonfunctional”: Int. Dr. George Hecht.
“What little I’ve accomplished”: The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ed. Andrew Turnbull (New York: Dell, 1963), 96.
“the desolate wastes”: “Some Very Good Masters,” 21.
“It may be an old one”: Lawrence to RY, September 14, 1974.
“I think about you often”: Martha Speer to RY, September 10, 1974.
“[M]y mind just wants things”: Martha Speer to RY, November 20, 1974.
“Jesus Christ,” he’d gasp: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“We should approach”: Ted Maass to Lawrence, January 24, 1975.
“You and I were the only”: Int. Marjorie Owens.
“call girls, dope addicts”: Quoted in Natalie Bowen to RY, February 22, 1965. As a matter of odd coincidence, Bowen dated Krim briefly in the mid-sixties.
“Oh, I just give everybody an A”: E-mail to author from Geoffrey Clark.
“Oh, bullshit!” he sneered: John Gilgun to RY, February 25, 1972.
“Where’s my mail?!”: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“envious but scornful”: Letter to author from Loree Rackstraw.
“My mother … Dutch Act”: Krim to RY, November 7, 1975.
“Richard Yates has regained”: Quoted in Lawrence to RY, June 7, 1975, UM-SL.
“the best novel [he’d] read”: George Garrett to RY, August 30, 1975.
“I think it’s okay”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, August 26, 1975.
“Things I regret”: RY to Joseph and Nancy Mohbat, September 15, 1975.
Reviews of Disturbing the Peace: Gene Lyons, New York Times Book Review, October 5, 1975; Anatole Broyard, New York Times, September 9, 1975; William Pritchard, Hudson Review, Spring 1976; Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek, September 15, 1975.
“that literary work … achievement”: Dwight MacDonald to RY, February 20, 1976.
“Oh, what the hell … $2,000”: RYAW, 30.
“in the home stretch”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, December 8, 1975.
“about that second-rate”: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“The tenants were on rent-strike”: Int. John P. Lowens.
“This is not a rush book!”: Delacorte office memorandum from Lucy Hebard to John Carter, found among RY’s papers.
“pay and pay and pay”: Fitzgerald to Hemingway, September 9, 1929, Letters of FSF, 333.
“As I fled down the street”: RYAW, 30.
“whiskery old bullshit artist”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 30.
“When do I see the head honcho?”: Int. William Pritchard.
“Went … sweaty business”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, April 26, 1976.
“tepid” … “climbing all over”: Ibid.
“Three guesses how”: Streitfeld, “The Great Unknown,” 28.
Details of RY’s fire are mostly derived from interviews with his daughters.
Russell soaked the manuscript: Int. Franklin Russell.
“Aren’t you celebrating”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“You look fabulous in green”: Int. Joan Norris.
“I’m looking for a girl”: Int. Galen Williams.
asked Ruth to pick up a broom: Int. Ann McGovern.
“ennobling brotherhood”: Arthur Roth to RY, September 21, 1976.
“My father spent years in Northport”: Ibid.
“The abandonment of Yates, tied”: E-mail to author from Franklin Russell.
“the most intensely dramatic”: Arthur Roth to RY, September 21, 1976.
“I was surprised and disappointed”: Grace Schulman to Arthur Roth, August 18, 1976, papers of G. Schulman.
Chapter Fifteen Out with the Old: 1976–1978
“ugly and humiliating”: Quoted in Arthur Roth to RY, September 21, 1976.
“You know several people”: Lawrence to RY, August 7, 1976, UM-SL.
“dashed it off in eleven months”: RYAW, 21.
“Ask me about The Easter Parade”: Quoted in Galen Williams to RY, July 6, 1976.
“we murmured together”: Cassill to RY, July 17, 1976.
“You write so damn well!”: Michael Arlen to RY, September 23, 1976.
Reviews of The Easter Parade: A. G. Mojtabai, New York Times Book Review, September 19, 1976; Ross Feld, New Republic, October 9, 1976; Richard Todd, Atlantic, October 1976; Anatole Broyard, New York Times, September 7, 1976.
“If I were you … Bermuda”: Int. Richard Levine.
“Henri Troyat, the biographer”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 212.
yogurt … “great discoveries”: Int. Sharon Yates Levine.
“Dick’s glass”: Int. Jennifer Hetzel Genest.
only times … “rowdy”: Int. Michael Brodigan.
Yates referred to her as a personage: Int. DeWitt Henry.
“I’m not calling back just now”: Penelope Mortimer to RY, undated.
Yates had a fascination … answering machine: “Please call any time if you feel like it, either to talk to me or the machine (you’re good at that),” Mortimer to RY, January 20, 1977.
“it’s a lot like a lot of Updike”: Mortimer to RY, undated.
“Two scared people”: Ibid.
“exceptionally courteous” author: Int. Lynn Meyer.
“I was impressed … persevered”: Int. Madison Smartt Bell.
a party was given for Penelope Mortimer: Int. Sayre Sheldon.
“Please will you understand”: Mortimer to RY, c. June 1977.
“He couldn’t grasp”: Int. Dr. Winthrop A. Burr.
“Imagine going to California”: Int. William Keough.
“I have gotten the impression”: Martha Speer to RY, November 2, 1976.
“Does an apple tree give skirts”: Martha Speer to RY, April 20, 1977.
“I was so pleased”: Contemporary Authors, 1981, 535.
“Thanks for the invitation”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, November 7, 1977.
“As soon as I finish [a story]”: Monica Yates to RY, undated.
“She was the one … crush on”: Int. Susan Braudy.
“What’s that over your head”: Int. Carolyn Gaiser.
“I was told at a very early age”: E-mail to author from Gina Yates.
“I am planning to make”: Bonnie Lucas to RY, December 13, 1977.
“gentle passion”: Tommie Cotter to RY, June 5, 1978.
“salvation not mere pussy”: Dubus to RY, February 25, 1974.
“You’ve heard me say”: Quoted in Dubus to RY, August 22, 1973.
“For fifteen years”: RYAW, 45.
“There are many things … thank you”: Mary Robison to RY, undated.
he’d been “used”: Int. Robin Metz.
“I’ve loved you for a decade”: Robison to RY, July 20, 1986.
“soft-edged and idealized”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“It’s this combination”: Krim to RY, January 17, 1978.
“various stages of partial”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, April 16, 1978.
“A Good School is magnificent”: Lawrence to RY, February 19, 1978, UM-SL.
“the mellow Yates”: Krim to RY, September 24, 1978.
“so moving and so perfect”: Hannah Green to Seymour Lawrence, October 15, 1978.
“I’m moved by a blessed irony”: Cassill to Lawrence, undated.
“The best free advertising”: Lawrence to RY, June 11, 1978, UM-SL.
Reviews of A Good School: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, December 8, 1978; Julian Moynahan, New York Times Book Review, November 12, 1978; “Briefly Noted,” The New Yorker, September 4, 1978; Jonathan Penner, New Republic, November 4, 1978; John Skow, Time, August 21, 1978; Nicholas Guild, Washington Post,September 10, 1978; Thomas R. Edward, New York Review of Books, November 23, 1978.
“If writing were baseball”: Jerome Klinkowitz, The New American Novel of Manners: The Fiction of Richard Yates, Dan Wakefield, and Thomas McGuane (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986).
“complex, generous voice”: Stewart O’Nan, “The Lost World of Richard Yates,” Boston Review, October/November 1999, 45.
“I want to reassure you”: Lawrence to RY, December 17, 1978, UM-SL.
“Since reading your book”: Richard E. T. Hunter to RY, February 19, 1979.
wrote … mollifying letter: E-mail to author from Geoffrey Clark.
“She knows that I also read”: Mary Nickerson to RY, undated.
accepted an invitation: Int. Mary Nickerson, Ann Wright Jones.
Chapter Sixteen Young Hearts Crying: 1979–1984
“Since then I’ve read all the novels”: Laura ——— to Margaret Blackstone, June 20, 1979.
“I’m the one … stalking you”: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“[I worried] your friend Mary”: Laura ——— to RY, undated.
“Dick was bombed”: Int. Booghie Salassi.
“too academic”: Lawrence to RY, March 5, 1979, UM-SL.
“Nobody’s eyes light up”: RY to Booghie Salassi, December 29, 1979 (unmailed).
“I wanted to tell you”: Raymond Carver to RY, September 17, 1979.
“a few traces of roach shit”: RY to Joseph Mohbat, September 23, 1979.
“horrified” … “guide him about”: Clark, “The Best I Can Wish You,” 36.
“I think this … last foray”: RY to Joseph Mohbat, September 23, 1979.
“Notes Toward an Understanding of Laura M—”: found among RY’s papers.
“She’s offered ample assurance”: RY to Booghie Salassi, December 29, 1979 (unmailed).
“Ahh, mind your own”: Int. Geoffrey Clark.
“You guys … grownup clothes?”: Int. James Crumley.
“I just love your work”: Int. John Casey.
“He was a wonderful source of solace”: RYAW, 53.
one nurse reported seeing: Int. Ivan Gold.
“The mere presence of sweet”: papers of Wendy Sears Grassi.
“That was … literary parties”: Lawrence to RY, November 25, 1980, UM-SL.
“a homosexual novel in disguise”: RY to Geoffrey Clark, October 26, 1978.
often given a “snitty” lecture: Int. Monica Yates Shapiro.
“All I want … goddamned New Yorker!”: Int. William Keough.
“John fucking Cheever”: E-mail to author from Joseph Mohbat.
“I don’t know if you usually”: RY to McCall, September 7, 1979, ICM files.
“This is written with admirable”: Quoted in McCall to RY, September 25, 1979.
“magnificent … perceptive”: Lawrence to RY, December 30, 1980, UM-SL.
“false and hollow”: Roger Angell to Mitch Douglas, February 23, 1981.
“This didn’t come close”: Angell to Douglas, February 26, 1981.
“I know these rejections”: Douglas to RY, March 6, 1981.
find Angell’s letters … shaky voice: Int. Robin Metz.
“Dick drew me into labor”: RYAW, 37.
“Ivy League wino”: Int. George Garrett.
“What does your character”: Elizabeth Cox, “Meet Richard Yates,” Pif (www.pifmagazine.com), February 4, 2001.
“I don’t watch out for Dick”: Int. Loree Rackstraw.
Reviews of Liars in Love: James Atlas, Atlantic, November 1981; Robert Wilson, Washington Post, November 29, 1981; Robert Harris, Saturday Review of Literature, November 1981; Peter LaSalle, America, January 30, 1982; Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, October 15, 1981; Robert Towers, New York Times Book Review,November 1, 1981.
“Liars in Love … highly praised books”: Lawrence to RY, November 16, 1981, UM-SL.
He sat in the silent lecture hall: Int. Shaun O’Connell, Chet Frederick.
“There aren’t many books”: Int. Leslie Epstein.
“Oh, it’s just a mix”: Int. Jon Garelick.
“I want to write porn movies”: Int. Natalie Baturka.
“He was the finest reader”: Int. Melanie Rae Thon.
“Goddamn it, Rosen”: Int. Ken Rosen.
“Am I a monster?”: Int. Richard Levine.
“By God, I’m sending her to Harvard”: Int. Dan Wakefield.
“I think he’s wonderful”: Int. Kurt Vonnegut.
“On impulse [I] hoped”: Gloria Vanderbilt to RY, June 8, 1983.
“Scared, perhaps, a little”: Vanderbilt to RY, June 27, 1983.
“could have talked on and on”: Vanderbilt to RY, November 28, 1983.
“Ahh that’s ridiculous!”: Int. Wendy Sears Grassi.
“More than two decades … publication”: Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, April 25, 1983, C15.
“It’s nice that Barrett Prettyman”: RY to Lawrence, June 30, 1984, UM-SL.
“The people at Dutton”: Lawrence to RY, August 30, 1984, UM-SL.
“That’s great,” Yates replied: RYAW, 25.
“I think Young Hearts Crying”: Lawrence to RY, August 30, 1984, UM-SL.
“one of America’s least famous”: “The Right Thing,” Esquire, August 1984.
Reviews of Young Hearts Crying: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, October 15, 1984; Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, October 7, 1984; Brian Stonehill, Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1984; Jay Cocks, Time, October 15, 1984; Anatole Broyard, New York Times Book Review, October 28, 1984.
“At a time when a wider public”: Letter to The New York Times Book Review, January 6, 1985.
“Anatole assassination”: Cassill to RY, November 2, 1984.
“I hope you’re being corrupted”: Broyard to RY, April 12, 1962.
“Anatole died as he lived”: Lawrence to RY, October 16, 1990, UM-SL.
“One day around Christmas”: “A Clef,” papers of Robert Parker.
“a very strange telephone conversation”: Prettyman to RY, February 12, 1985.
“As you probably know”: RY to Prettyman, May 15, 1986.
Chapter Seventeen No Pain Whatsoever: 1985–1988
“His short-tempered, fragmented ravings”: DeWitt Henry, Arrivals, unpublished ms., papers of DeWitt Henry.
That night at the armory: DeWitt Henry kindly provided me with an audiotape of this event.
“depleting [Yates] mentally”: Mitch Douglas to Jackie Farber, August 21, 1985, ICM files.
“I will respect your wishes”: Douglas to Monica Yates, January 13, 1986, ICM files.
“Since breaking off with you”: RY to Douglas, March 13, 1986, ICM files.
“I didn’t want to meet him or anybody”: Int. Larry David.
“Look, I’m an alcoholic”: Int. Seymour Epstein.
“busy in the best sense”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
“It’s a small novel”: RYAW, 36.
“may help take the edge”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
“You are one hell of a good writer”: Vonnegut to RY, June 14, 1986.
Reviews of Cold Spring Harbor: Elaine Kendall, Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1986; Howard Frank Mosher, Washington Post, September 28, 1986; Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, September 27, 1986; Lowry Pei, New York Times Book Review, October 5, 1986.
“See and show both of these people”: “Notes on The Getaway/Revolutionary Road,” BU-RY.
“stubborn and difficult”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
“the best novel I know … writing”: “R. V. Cassill’s Clem Anderson,” Ploughshares 14, nos. 2–3 (1988), 189.
“Spent most of the day”: RY to Barbara Beury, May 17, 1961.
“Nine’s not so bad, is it?”: RYAW, 36.
“Do you have to go”: Raymond Abbott, “Richard Yates,” unpublished ms., papers of Raymond Abbott.
“He kept up a brilliant”: Martin Jukovsky, “Richard Yates—A Meeting,” www.channell.com/users/martyj/yates.html.
“charm[ing] the audience”: “The Friends of Andre Dubus,” Boston Globe, February 20, 1987.
“the world … throat”: RY to Prettyman, July 21, 1986.
Chapter Eighteen A Cheer for Realized Men: 1988–1992
postmodern Brady Bunch: The two treatment ideas given in the text are to the best of Monica Yates Shapiro’s recollection.
“I remember Milch well”: Vonnegut to RY, July 13, 1988.
“That little shit!”: Int. Robin Metz.
“was the kind of place … law”: Streitfeld, “Book Report,” X15.
“Things to Do”: Streitfeld, “The Great Unknown,” 30.
“There’s just no whore”: Ibid., 28.
“Why has surrealism been chosen”: Memo from RY to Ned Leavitt, papers of E. Barrett Prettyman Jr.
“proposal for a screenplay”: found among RY’s papers.
“huge fans and would like to develop”: from William Morris Agency memo to Irene Webb, May 24, 1989.
asked the young Don Lee: Int. Don Lee.
“want[ed] to give her stability”: Int. James Ragan.
a “disaster”: Int. Noreen McGuire.
“Seymour Krim was a champion”: RY to Bruce Ricker, September 9, 1989, papers of Bruce Ricker.
“return visit”: Venant, “View staff pays a return visit,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1989.
“a labor of love”: Int. Susan Braudy.
“The book was first given”: Susan Braudy to RY, c. December 1989.
“I’m delighted … ‘Easter Parade’”: Woody Allen to Braudy, December 4, 1989.
“Woody Allen [had] highly”: Bruce Ricker to Dianne Wiest, January 11, 1990.
“damn near dead”: Int. Kathy Starbuck.
“trashed the Strode House”: E-mail to author from J. R. Jones.
those who begged to differ “were screwed”: Int. Dan Childress.
“That’s the understatement”: Quoted in Featherstone, “November 7, 1992,” 150.
“I wish I had a little girl”: Int. Tony Earley.
“What’s that got to do”: E-mail to author from J. R. Jones.
called one student “a pantywaist”: Int. Nikki Schmidt.
the Seinfeld episode: Larry David kindly provided me with a videotape of this episode.
“scalded”: Int. J. R. Jones.
“I’d like to kill that son of a bitch!”: Int. Tim Parrish.
“a bomb on wheels”: Quoted in Featherstone, “November 7, 1992,” 161.
“I loved and hated Richard Yates”: RYAW, 21.
The details of RY’s adventure in New York were mostly provided by Susan Braudy, RY’s daughters, Ned Leavitt, and one or two others.
“He couldn’t seem to finish it”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 218.
“drop a hint”: from Prettyman’s personal diary, July 18, 1991.
“She’s gone and married an electrician”: Int. Mark Costello.
“Congratulations,” he wrote: RY drafted his reply in holograph on Martha’s announcement, dated July 11, 1991.
He told Prettyman … “performance”: Prettyman’s diary, July 18, 1991.
“I feel like taking a gun”: Int. Susan Braudy.
“vintage Yates”: Quoted in Lacy, “Remembering RY,” 219.
Yates was appalled: Int. Tony Earley.
The manuscript of Uncertain Times is now part of the Richard Yates Collection at Boston University. An excerpt from the novel was published in Open City 3 (1995), 35–71.
“He ended the conversation”: Letter to author from Loree Rackstraw.
“I got smashed last night”: Lacy, “Remembering Richard Yates,” 220.
“Dropping the telephone”: RYAW, 22.
“Richard Yates … finest post-war novelist”: Scott Bradfield, “Follow the Long and Revolutionary Road,” The Independent, November 21, 1992, 31.
“Sam, I’m dying”: RYAW, 61.
Epilogue
“two inches in the Times”: E-mail to author from John P. Lowens; Robert Lehrman, Workshop, 746.
“Dick let himself die”: Int. Pat Dubus.
“forced march”: RYAW, 13–15.
Gaiser … startled the crowd: Int. Grace Schulman.
“He drank too much”: RYAW, 61.
“[He] managed to squeeze out”: Robert Riche, What Are We Doing in Latin America? (Sag Harbor, NY: Permanent Press, 1990), 75.
“Reading about ‘Pritchard Bates’”: RY to Riche, March 3, 1991.
“So big deal Bob Parker”: Monica Yates to Robert Parker, undated, Parker papers.
“painful conclusion”: Lawrence to Monica Yates, March 8, 1993.
“many important writers”: Seymour Lawrence’s obituary appeared in the New York Times, January 7, 1994, A22.
“one of the few good voices”: RYAW, 31.
“the descriptions of things, like a hanger”: Edwin Weihe, Workshop, 743.
“finally the British reading public”: Paul Connolly, The Times (London), January 27, 2001.
“I remember how much you laughed”: RYAW, 27.