raze my will to speak. I couldn’t write for a week after reading the book. But I know Bernard wants beauty and truth, and the truth is getting a little mangled by the whirring blades of his mind.
And now—I think, after writing this to you, I can write these things to Bernard.
Love,
Frances
February 11, 1959
Frances—
Thank you for your letter.
How I wanted you to love what I had done. That was very childish of me, wasn’t it? I think I knew what you would think of it. I think I wanted you to tell me what you told me, which is why I referred to your judgment as God’s grace.
But you do think it’s beautiful, even while in error, and that means a great deal to me. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done. I’m still pleased with it. To turn on it would be to despair over it, which, as you know, is a sin. And I have you as a reader. So that’s joy. And this is just my second book. So there’s hope.
Thank you for not referring to me in your critique as the Sounding Brass.
Love,
Bernard
February 15, 1959
Dear Bernard—
Please always remember this: that whatever else I think about your poems, I will also be thinking that they are beautiful. If I didn’t make it as clear as I should have that I was honored to read them: I was honored to read them. Very, very honored. I’m a little ashamed, because your letter reminded me of the flak I used to get in workshops for not being as complimentary as I could be. At the time I couldn’t give a rat’s ass because I didn’t care about anyone in the workshop but Claire. Now things are very different. I should have perhaps been a little less forceful in pressing my point of view.
February in New York City is the very heart of darkness. Spring seems as far away as Fiji. I am wondering—would you come to visit in the next few weeks to liven it up around here? If you come, we can talk more about your poems. The offices are cold. People are wiping at their noses and look as if they haven’t slept or washed their hair in days. On Friday, I snapped at Sullivan when he asked me for the third time where he was supposed to go to lunch. I’ve been reading too much because it’s too cold to go out. I’ve gone through three Hardy novels in two weeks.
But I have some good news. There is a prospect of getting published in the New Yorker. They have one story and want another. Although: a pox on the New Yorker. John was told that they already have a Catholic woman writer—probably Elizabeth Pfeffer, because I think she’s published with them two or three times—with a story slated to run this year, and they don’t know if they can have two Catholic women in it within twelve months, so either my story will bump hers or hers will bump mine, and they’ll hold on to what I’ve given them if I let them. But the two of us are so very different, as you know—she does the domestic ecstatic—so there’s no chance that publishing us in what they consider to be rapid succession will make it look like the Vatican has annexed the New Yorker’s fiction department and is using it as a back office for nihil obstating. Perhaps you or John should write and tell the New Yorker editors that several prominent Catholics refuse to believe I’m Catholic! Thank goodness that working in publishing has made me privy, and therefore inured, to the unrelenting boneheaded arbitrariness that is supposed to pass for good taste. Thank goodness I at least have the stamina to write around a job. And, ahem, at the job. When Sullivan dies, I am in trouble. If they keep me, they might decide to give me to someone who actually needs my help.
Please do come and visit. I will bake you a cake that I have been itching to conquer.
Yours,
Frances
February 20, 1959
Frances, dear—
I would love to plunge with you into that heart of darkness. Alice and Tom will put me up. I’ll be in on the Friday night train on March 6. Is that too soon? Or too far away? I’ll call you when I get in.
Frances, my dearest dear, don’t trouble yourself so much about the New Yorker. There’s room for everybody when the work is at your level. Actual talent