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His Editor's Hand: Hiram Haydn's
Changes in Styron's Lie Down in Darkness
by
Arthur D. Casciato
A study of the relationship between a writer and his editor can be revealing. Knowledge of the career of Maxwell Perkins, for instance, contributes significantly to our understanding of Wolfe, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway—all three of whom were Perkins' authors. The same is true (though in a less positive sense) of Faulkner and his first editor at Random House, Saxe Commins. Yet this bond between an author and his editor is at best fragile, if only because of the author's sensitive ego. Often an author minimizes
William Styron seems not to suffer from such delusions. He has always acknowledged the important role that his Bobbs-Merrill editor Hiram Haydn played in the composition of Lie Down in Darkness, the novel which rushed Styron suddenly to prominence on the American literary scene in 1951. Haydn's influence on Lie Down in Darkness predates Styron's conception of the novel. In 1947, with only William Blackburn's creative writing classes at Duke University under his belt, Styron enrolled in Haydn's fiction-writing seminar at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Impressed by his new pupil's short-story efforts, Haydn challenged Styron "to cut out the nonsense and start a novel."[2] Styron immediately conceived a story about "a girl who gets in a lot of trouble."[3] When Styron had written only twenty pages, Haydn took out an option on Lie Down in Darkness for Crown Publishers, then his employers. But after about thirty more pages, Styron's writing bogged down completely. The young Virginian returned to the South and spent an unproductive year among his familiar haunts at Duke University. Haydn sensed that Styron was foundering and urged him to return to New York. Styron did so, and after a short stay in New York City he took up residence in Nyack, New York, with the family of another novelist named Sigrid de Lima. Later Styron moved to West 88th Street in Manhattan, and approximately a year and eight months after his return he finished Lie Down in Darkness. During this period he frequently visited the Haydn home, receiving the encouragement due a "de facto member of the family."[4] More importantly, Haydn interceded when the Marine Reserve board recalled Styron to active service before he had finished the concluding section of Lie Down in Darkness. As a result of Haydn's efforts, Styron received a three-month deferment and finished the novel. Meanwhile Haydn changed publishing houses; Styron and Lie Down in Darkness followed him to his new position as editor-in-chief at Bobbs-Merrill.[5]
Haydn contributed more to Lie Down in Darkness than advice, support, and intercession with the military. Many of his suggested emendations and deletions were incorporated into the published version of the novel. Again Styron has indicated candidly, if not quite accurately, the presence of Haydn's hand in Lie Down in Darkness:
Styron remembers sending the novel to Haydn in four or five installments. Haydn, recognizing Styron's native ability and not wishing to dampen his enthusiasm, refrained from suggesting any changes during the initial composition of Lie Down in Darkness. A working typescript was prepared from the complete holograph manuscript, and Styron made changes and cuts throughout this typescript. A second typescript was then prepared from the emended one, and this clean "editorial" typescript was given to Haydn who marked his own suggested deletions and emendations on it. Finally, Styron approved each of Haydn's suggestions individually by incorporating them back into the first typescript. The end product is two typescripts which have almost identical texts. A third typescript was apparently prepared from Styron's twice revised "working" one and was sent to Bobbs-Merrill to serve as printer's copy. Though this typescript and the proofs for Lie Down in Darkness do not survive, a collation of the "working" typescript and the published novel shows that the usual changes in punctuation, spelling, and other accidental features, as well as some small revisions for style, were made before publication.
Haydn made several kinds of minor emendations: deletion of italics, word changes, trifles of phrasing, and grammatical niceties. His deletion of italics throughout the editorial typescript, in fact, is rather significant. Styron himself has spoken often of having to rewrite the initial third of Lie Down in Darkness in order to rid the novel of Faulkner's influence.[7] Obviously, the use of italics to highlight a character's thoughts is pure Faulkner. Haydn's deletion of italics, then, is a good example of his helping Styron to exorcise the "Faulknerian ghosts" from Lie Down in Darkness. Haydn suggests twenty-eight of these cuts in the first third of the "editorial" typescript; and Styron incorporates each of these suggestions in the published novel.
Sometimes Haydn's minor changes emphasize an effect. In the first chapter, for example, a middle-aged Helen Loftis dreams of her family's visit to her brother Eddie's farm in the Pennsylvania mountains. At the age of twenty-four she is already neurotically attached to her crippled first-born daughter Maudie. Both the editorial and working typescript versions of this section originally read: "The baby, waking from strange darkness into unfathomable light, began to cry but became quieter, after a while, in her mother's arms."[8] In the editorial typescript Haydn reduces this passage simply and more directly to "Helen crushed the child into her arms." This change more powerfully suggests the cloying and destructive nature of Helen's love, and Styron wisely adopts Haydn's emendation in the published novel.[9]
At other times Haydn merely adds new phrases or sentences without deleting the novelist's original wording. One such example occurs in the second chapter where Loftis invites Pookie and Dolly Bonner to his home for late Sunday afternoon drinks. In this scene Loftis wants to indulge his own lustful but as yet unrealized itch for Dolly. His initial overture to her is a cruel ridiculing of her husband. The editorial and working typescripts originally read this way:
"The hell with that," Loftis repeated to Dolly. "Somehow, somewhere, you got stuck."
With what seemed infinite tenderness she gazed at him. She was discontented, she had had too much whiskey, and she was vulnerable to about any emotion, especially that of lust. "You're beautiful," Dolly whispered. "You're wonderful."
Immediately following Loftis' remarks, Haydn adds: "They sat there for a few minutes in silence. Then Dolly stirred" (p. 61). By slowing down the movement of this passage for several beats and by freezing these two would-be
Still, these are only minor alterations in the text. At other times Haydn's emendations are more clearly significant. He supplies what Styron calls "accuracies" to an intricate plot structure, sometimes pointing out certain narrative and rhetorical inconsistencies. Haydn also suggests numerous deletions and emendations in Peyton's interior monologue in an effort to temper that section's sexual explicitness. Most important among these are the cuts and changes muting the incestuous relationship between Peyton and her father.
Successful books almost always display narrative consistency, but often the novelist may lose sight of his grand plan: inextricably caught in the web of his own creation, he lacks the distance and objectivity necessary for close artistic control. Many times the chore of refining and ordering a work falls to the novelist's editor. The best-known example, of course, is Maxwell Perkins' reshaping of Wolfe's Of Time and the River. In Lie Down in Darkness Haydn occasionally performs a similar function, but the shaping hand in the novel is always Styron's; Haydn merely points out small confusions in the narrative in order to assure consistency in the plot, characters, and rhetoric of the novel.
Haydn's editorial ability is clearly illustrated in the letter that Loftis receives from Peyton shortly after her death. In this letter she tells him about the terrifyingly abstracted thoughts that plague her. In both the working and the editorial typescripts, the passage in its unrevised state reads:
Another example occurs in the chronology of Lie Down in Darkness. In both the holograph manuscript and the working typescript, Styron begins the desolate journey of Llewellyn Casper's hearse and limousine on "a weekday morning in August in the nineteen forties." In the editorial typescript, however, Haydn specifies the date as "1945." Styron's editor again remembered from his reading of the manuscript that Peyton kills herself on the day of the bombing of Hiroshima—6 August 1945. No matter how one views this bit of gratuitous symbolism, the ambiguous dating of the novel at the beginning is inconsistent with its exact dating at the conclusion. Haydn recognized the disparity, and Styron changed the date to "1945" (p. 11).
Haydn again supplies both narrative and rhetorical consistency in the letter from Peyton to Loftis. Although it appears early in the novel, this letter accurately represents Peyton's pre-suicide mental state. In the working-typescript version of the letter Peyton complains to Loftis about the poignant disorientation which is characteristic of her breakdown:
Haydn makes one other seemingly minor change that demonstrates his keen eye for consistency. Early in the same letter, Peyton tells her father about the noisy taproom that she lives above: "There's a bar downstairs (I remember you haven't seen this apartment since I moved up from the village) full of the loudest Irishmen imaginable." Haydn realizes that "Irishmen" is inconsistent. Peyton's lover Anthony Cecchino is Italian; her land-lady Mrs. Marsicano is Italian; and she meets another Italian, Mickey Pavone, in the same bar that she describes to her father. Peyton must be living
Haydn's most important emendations are his sexual cuts in Peyton's interior monologue. In 1951 when Lie Down in Darkness was published, America was still in many ways a repressive society, especially in the presentation of sexual matters. Haydn's changes reflect these inhibited attitudes: the editor repeatedly tones down the explicit nature of the sexual passages that fill Peyton's rambling monologue.
Haydn first censors the passages in which Tony Cecchino, the milkman lover, forces Peyton to make love during her menstrual period. The editorial typescript of this passage reads:
Several of Haydn's emendations in Peyton's tragic soliloquy concern the Hungarian abortionist who comes to her aid. Peyton's promiscuity has already been established for us through her affairs with the mystery-writer Earl Sanders and with Cecchino. Haydn apparently felt that an additional sordid interlude with an oily and lascivious abortionist would be unnecessary and unattractive. He therefore deletes from the text all mention of a sexual encounter between Peyton and her doctor. The initial allusion to the Hungarian abortionist in the editorial typescript suggested Peyton's desire for him:
In her interior monologue Peyton's disorientation centers on the various men in her life—Milton Loftis, Dickie Cartwright, Harry Miller, Earl Sanders, and Anthony Cecchino. We observe her frenzied mind jumping from memory to memory of her lovers, distorting each affair into a jumble of sexual allusions. Haydn edits these passages carefully. For example, in the editorial typescript, Haydn censors the passage in which Peyton compares the sexual organs of three of her lovers:
The most important of Haydn's sexual emendations concern the incestuous relationship between Peyton and her father. Their incestuous urges, though sublimated and never actualized, are implied throughout the novel—the playful fondling between father and daughter, Peyton's sugary nickname ("Bunny") for Loftis, her father's jealousy of her beaus, and his boyish excitement when Peyton returns home and his corresponding depression when she leaves. All these are tinged with feelings apart from mere paternal love. The incestuous action of the novel culminates with Loftis' sexual anxiety at Peyton's disastrous wedding, climaxed by his openly affectionate kiss that permanently shatters whatever familial ties still bind the Loftises together.
But several times in the editorial typescript of Peyton's interior monologue, Styron does more than imply subconscious feelings of incest: he indicates that Peyton and Milton may have made abortive attempts at sex. The first instance occurs when Peyton describes a summer night in Lynchburg, Virginia, with "Bunny."
An even more explicit example occurs later in Peyton's interior monologue when she pleads with her husband Harry to return to her. The editorial typescript reads:
Haydn's sexual emendations, then, range in importance from his significant muting of the incestuous relationship between Peyton and Milton to his rather prudish substitution of "other things" for "brassiere and pants" at the conclusion of Peyton's soliloquy (p. 385). Ironically, Haydn was accused by David Laurance Chambers, president of Bobbs-Merrill, of "sexual obsession" because he championed Lie Down in Darkness (Haydn, p. 49). One might logically assume that Haydn's suggested changes were the result of censoring by Bobbs-Merrill or pressure from Chambers. Styron, however, feels otherwise:
Much of Lie Down in Darkness, then, is the end product of a unique cooperation between novelist and editor. Styron himself was intimidated neither by Bobbs-Merrill nor by Haydn. In fact, many of Haydn's suggestions were rejected by the novelist, and none of them, sexual or otherwise, was incorporated into the novel without Styron's full approval ("A Bibliographer's Interview," p. 24). Instead of chastising Styron, as Bernard De Voto did Wolfe for his collaboration with Perkins on Of Time and the River,[12] we should applaud the then young novelist's good sense and maturity in relying from time to time on his editor's experience and judgment. Lie Down in Darkness is a stronger, more consistent novel because of Styron's wise acceptance of Haydn's help.
Haydn's Changes in the "Editorial" Typescript of Lie Down in Darkness
This table lists a representative selection of those changes suggested by Haydn and accepted by Styron. The organization of the table is as follows: each entry begins with a page-line reference to the Bobbs-Merrill first edition of the novel. The page-line reference is followed by Haydn's emended reading from the "editorial" typescript. (This same reading appears at the given line in the Bobbs-Merrill text.) Next there appears a bracket which should be read as "emended from." Finally, Styron's original reading is given. For example:
- 18.9 whistle gave a loud blast] whistle made a shattering blast
- 18.3 up this was no day—] this was no day to mess up
- 19.1 hair. As he bent over a] hair. Peering, bending over, a
- 30.21 that—How] that it was he she was yearning for. How
- 30.12 up Maudie sat alone, her braced leg outstretched on a stool. Helen crushed the child into her arms. ¶ "There] Maudie slept amid dolls and woolen dogs and familiar baby smelling bedclothes. The baby, waking from strange darkness into unfathomable light, began to cry but became quieter, after awhile, in her mother's arms. "There
- 30.3 up threatening rain] threatening death and rain
- 31.6 spreading wood?] spreading and trembling wood?
- 32.12-13 up window. Oh, take me now. She slept. ¶ A] window. And she slept, though uneasily. ¶ A
- 40.13 skirt. She heard the swollen notes of a mournful guitar; she] skirt. The notes of a mournful guitar, immensely magnified, fell on her ears; she
- 66.2 up because there was something wrong with her—but] because she was sick, because they both were sick—but
- 67.4 reading Winnie-the-Pooh. He] reading The House at Pooh Corner. He
- 73.14-15 up heart. His shirt unwashed. And] heart. October 21 come soon. And
- 75.2 sweat: Forswear adultery and other such iniquities. It] sweat: Thou shall not forswear adultery and such iniquities. It
- 76.6 over October twenty-first. ¶ Sometimes] over (date). ¶ Sometimes
- 85.13-15 up her." She looked up at him, paused and shook her head. "Bunny," she said again, "I just don't think I love her." ¶ She] her." ¶ She
- 85.7 up home." ¶ "No] home." Her voice was sad and muffled, tickling his chest, and seemed to rise from great distances through his body. "No
- 87.20 made one over par] made two under par
- 98.20 room, and from his faltering, only half-willing hands. ¶ Charlie] room, and his soul, fainting with sudden despair, from all of the difficult, imponderable things which had gone before. ¶ Charlie
- 101.1 What had he done?] What have I done?
- 101.4 desolation. Then he knew. Standing at the door, he figured, she must have seen, or known, something frightening and terrible. ¶ Later, when] desolation. After that evening he saw Peyton only once or twice again for they both went off to school, but the particular tenderness of that evening lay for many years in his memory, sweet and disconcerting. He remembered how later, when
- 138.16-17 up that." She threw a dollar on the table. ¶ Then she wheeled] that." Dolly wheeled
- 143.19 up of psychology and] of Freud and
- 148.3-4 up sence dat weddin' you wouldn't have no truck wid him. Like] sence you come back from when po' little Maudie passed away you wouldn't have no truck with him. Like
- 151.15-16 up nobly. Mr. Casper thanked him kindly, gave Barclay a dirty look and hustled back to the limousine. ¶ Now] nobly. It was sheer expedience, but it worked, and Mr. Casper thanked him kindly, gave Barclay a dirty look and hustled back to the limousine, his heart aching at Ella Swan's soft high moan which still issued from within. ¶ Now
- 152.6 up by the dull unalleviated pain of guilt. Had] by vastly unsatisfying pain. Had
- 152.3 up not, he assured himself, alcoholic] not alcoholic
- 156.21 to Army Colonel] to Marine Colonel
- 156.20 up stationed at Camp Pickett. Loftis] stationed in Norfolk. Loftis
- 161.19-20 up I'll get my degree and then go into the Navy. I'm in the Reserve." They] I'll finish out this year at the university and go into the Navy." They
- 163.19 but it was Peyton who would suffer the most if there were a fight, and] but a fight would have bounced over more violently back upon Peyton, and
- 167.16 way down from Blackstone on] way over from Norfolk
- 168.10 up filled, in the careful fold] filled, the carefree fold
- 173.6-8 up her. From his law practice he received a marginal income, and the practice itself, involving as it did contracts and drafts and mortgages, was an increasing bore. Gradually] her. Gradually
- 207.9 up him! Or—do you? It depends." "Like] him!" "Like
- 207.6-7 up baby! Gimme a drink. Mmm. No, I don't really think you do." ¶ Loftis] baby!" ¶ Loftis
- 207.4-5 up Loftis took back his bottle from her, dipping the flagstaff, which he gripped in the other hand, in] Loftis held out his bottle to her, dipping the flagstaff, which he gripped in the same hand
- 208.1 smiled; there was a smear of lipstick on one of her large front teeth. ¶ They] smiled and shot out her fangs, smeared with lipstick. ¶ They
- 210.17-18 as a long forward pass, which seemed to spin endlessly] as the football, spinning endlessly
- 210.16 up and he lost his] and someone had stolen his
- 210.15 up around someone else's neck. Loftis turned] around Hubert McPhail's neck. Loftis heard her call him "Admiral Sheridan." He turned
- 231.14-15 up clear some of the qualities about him that she loved. It was partially that] clear, that
- 241.10-11 up hats, they chatted for a moment, understanding each other. ¶ But] hats, a gentle, sure understanding sprang up between them, for although they had known each other professionally for many years, neither had, until this moment, suspected the other of such well-springs of compassion, of patience and humility in the face of God's most awful judgement. Their gentle hearts were, after a fashion, formed in the same mold, and each suddenly admired and respected in the other the wisdom which waits in reverent service upon those who suffer, only by accident of time, the same fate which would befall each of them, too, someday. But
- 260.18 up Warwick. All] Warwick; she had invited them by mail. All
- 262.6 up silly. After Maudie died I wanted—" ¶ He] silly. The thing I mean is that—well, when I quit school and went to New York I was all set to go wild, you know, after what happened in Charlottesville—" ¶ He
- 261.1 up eyes. There] eyes, with the faint breath of sorrow on her lips, and behind his own eyes. There
- 363.2 years; with] years; grave innocent promises made to a youngish father now grown older, a little wiser; with
- 269.7 necessity. ¶ "O.K., baby," he said. ¶ The] necessity, and he felt his heart scattering slowly away, like all the leaves of a book. ¶ The
- 269.15 it get] it—these people frequently become Unitarians or Christian Scientists—get
- 269.20 service. The] service. Whatever its shortcomings, if any, the
- 272.1-3 up mannerisms. Throughout the ceremony, she had forced herself to conceal her joy, revealing it, she knew, only in the light of triumph which flashed briefly across her eyes. It] mannerisms. The look Loftis had seen on her face had not been one of studiousness, but had reflected just an effort to conceal her joy. Only in the light of triumph which flashed briefly across her eyes had he made the right guess. It
- 273.1 triumph. Life] triumph. There are some people who can't stand joy unless it is a joy in which they themselves may participate, and Helen was participating to the hilt. Life
- 280.19 which (so Loftis' New York classmates told him) many] which many
- 291.18 little. ¶ Carey felt benevolent after three glasses of sherry, and] little ¶ Three drinks—straight bourbon—which, because he was a sherry man, he was unaccustomed to—had made Carey tighter than he would have wished, and
- 306.13 up for eight months he] for a year, nearly he
- 326.10 up monoliths; near] monoliths certainly something fantastic; nears
- 333.5 up said. "If I'd just known what was going on inside her. Why? Why?" "Sh-h-h] said. "If she just hadn't done it that way. The final sordid horror! The waste. Just a note! She could have told me!" "Sh-h-h
- 333.3 up easy." "I could have stopped her." "Cut] easy." "This was their fault, too. Perhaps mine. Yes, perhaps." "Cut
- 334.13 me." ¶ "I could have stopped her." ¶ There] me." ¶ "God." ¶ There
- 337.3 up too; he] too; I looked at it; it was limp and small now. He
- 339.13 down at me, his] down on my face like Pride or Doctor Faustus, his
- 340.11 up with dead spirits." I] with the dead spirits of Suckling, Herrick and Donne." I
- 342.9 his shoulders there] his back there
- 342.10 and I] and I beat them until the blood came out: I
- 342.14 up big birds with] big animals with
- 345.1 up play someone said] play the muse said
- 348.13 hard. There] hard—and avoided the bowel movements everywhere along the curb, of dogs. There
- 358.19 up face. and] face like Magdalene's tears, and
- 363.15 up home. Albert] home. We moved off past the stop-light: nostalgia not longing was not like that, God the suffering: could he never know? How one part of me said, not he, but I, shall never come again, for he has had no guts at all. And Albert
- 363.7 up ethos—Call] ethos in the name of a funzoid, call
- 364.8 up gone? "Why] gone? And where had he gone, and will he never come again? I couldn't help thinking now: blessed Beatrice, and we lay down in the darkness—featherless, wingless, guiltless, so many years ago: blessed Beatrice, upon a day came sorrow into me, saying I have come to stay with thee awhile. "Why
- 365.19 up a metal bird. "Come] a pterodactyl. "Come
- 367.20 up a young man leaned] a colored fairy boy leaned
- 371.15 up down with] down in the darkness with
- 371.4 up address. "There] address. Soft and tender is my Harry, but will he never come again? "There
- 372.10 washing in] washing, her stink rank like scallions and hones in
- 372.19 down with] down in darkness with
- 378.15 time. Then I] time. It perished in my soul then, I knew he would never come again. Yet I
- 384.1 with pain: that] with a pain that passes all understanding: that
Notes
Jack Griffin, Jerry Homsy, and Gene Stelzig, "A Conversation with William Styron, The Handle (undergraduate magazine of the Univ. of Pennsylvania), 2 (Spring 1965), 17.
Interestingly, Styron again followed Haydn to his next publishing firm, Random House, which today remains Styron's publisher. But in 1960, Styron declined to accompany Haydn to Atheneum, the firm of which Haydn was a founder. Of Styron's defection Haydn writes, with what appears to be a bit of pique, that the novelist "was tired of having people think and say that he owed everything to me; he wanted to stand on his own feet." See Haydn, p. 281.
James L. W. West III, "A Bibliographer's Interview with William Styron," Costerus, N.S. 4 (1975), 23-24.
See, for example, E. P. H. [Eloise Perry Hazard], "The Author," Saturday Review of Literature, 34 (15 Sept. 1951), 12; and Hutchens, p. 2.
Quoted from the "working" typescript of Lie Down in Darkness at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. This and subsequent quotations from the typescript are published here with Mr. Styron's kind permission.
Lie Down in Darkness (1951), p. 30. All future quotations from the novel are cited parenthetically.
Haydn's one remaining emendation to Peyton's letter is also important. At the end of the paragraph describing her fear of "floating," Haydn adds the line "then when I see the birds it seems [something crossed out]." This addition enhances the passage in two ways: first, Haydn's phrase "[something crossed out]" enables Styron to reap the full benefit of his epistolary technique. These crossed-out words are tantalizing to both Milton and the reader. Second, Haydn introduces the crucial image of the "birds" into the novel for the first time. Peyton speaks often of these wingless and hairless creatures in her interior monologue. The typescript sheet bearing Haydn's emendation is facsimiled in "A Bibliographer's Interview," p. 25.
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