Decca, p.45
Decca, page 45
Darling Bob,
Note the belle enclosure. I had a time prying it loose because they wanted to make us wait to see the proofs which are due next week (jacket proofs) and which will be in color; the wreath53 will be in what Bob Gottlieb54 calls nauseous reds and greens.
Yesterday I got back from New Haven and went over to S. and S. for me appointment. I do wish you had been there. It exceeded my fondest hopes; the shoe store swinging into action. Present were Nina55 and two fellows whose names I didn’t get (but will today) and whose roles are, respectively, promotion and publicity directors. …
For the annual booksellers convention in Washington (May) they really are going to try to get a casket; I suggested that W.W. Chambers might lend one; do you think he might? In any case they are ordering a giant wreath to be made exactly like the jacket design. Also, getting some Builders Creeds,56
This was, in a way, the least of it. Discussion turned on how to create national news stories around the book, how to make it the cover story for Newsweek or Time etc etc. How to get legislation introduced, how to get somebody to sue us (“Once they’re in court, it’s bound to be news!”), how to get the morticians to apply for an injunction to stop the book so they (S and S) can counter with another injunction. How to get the book attacked as subversive and me attacked as a red (surprising how little trouble they are going to have in this regard, I was thinking to myself), how to stir up the John Birch Society57 to go for us. Goodness you’d have roared.
They are making up a brochure of all the attacks in the funeral press, and they are longing for more; also, a special clergy letter with quotes from the Nosy Clergy chapter,58 possibly a trade union letter, and a letter to the Memorial Societies. They are ordering a special printing of paperbound ones, not for sale but stamped “Advance Copy” to be sent round to Key People. All these special letters and special approaches did so remind me of CRC. They are trying to get David Susskind59 to have a Raether/Treuhaft debate on his telly program. They have various ideas for television. They are talking of hiring outside P.R. agencies to stir up the legislation etc. They really are a riot, and if ¼ their plans come off or 1/10 of them all will be rather marvellous.
Next week there’ll be various appointments with book page types, interviews to be written now and saved for publication time…. After all this is over I’ll come home; but you can see these plots are worthwhile. Wed, I’m having some new pics taken by their good photographer.
They say that 6,000 copies have already been ordered by the book shops, that their goal is to sell more advance copies than D. and Rebels sold altogether…
If you’ve got any promotion ideas not covered in the above, do write (or ring up, I’m beginning to feel rich), as they are being most receptive. …
[T]onight, a party at Dinky’s. She really is marvellous, came home yesterday from work and before going to the ballet to clean up all. She is a 1st rate and effortless housekeeper. There goes the ribbon.60 Goodbye.
Lo, Decca
To the Duchess of Devonshire
Oakland
May 25, 1963
Dearest Hen,
That must have been a terrible, terrible fortnight.61 I did so agonize for you all; and it was extremely good of you to find time to write and send the t.grams as I was so longing for news, could think of naught else.
I know that you, specially, will miss Muv so dreadfully; I always thought you were easily her favourite child, she relied so much on you and when letters came from you (while we were staying there) she’d absolutely light up.
I’m so glad that we did go to stay with her last year. We rather thought at the time that it would be to say good-bye.…
Various mothers of friends have died in the last year or so but all in beastly hospitals, sometimes in what’s known as the “intensive care” ward (the horror of it) where all they do is concentrate on prolonging life a few weeks or months—while knowing perfectly well the person can’t ever really recover. Thank goodness Muv didn’t have to go through that sort of thing but was at Inch K which she loved so much and with all of you there and the nice nurses instead of the Intensive Carers.
Hen, this is just to send masses of love,
and from Bob and Benj.
Decca
Dinky is terribly sad; the only time she really knew Muv was when she was 14 that time, and we stayed at the Mews one autumn. They hit it off amazingly well (considering their difference in background as school teachers here say).
To Aranka Treuhaft
Oakland
May 27, 1963
Dearest Aranka,
Thanks so much for telephoning. The past two weeks must have been such a nightmare for Debo and the others. She wrote or cabled to me almost every day, so did Nancy. First news of Muv’s illness was about May 10 (her 83 rd birthday), and all the sisters assembled at Inch Kenneth. They had 2 nurses, and the sisters also took turns to sit up with her at night. The weather was simply ghastly, in fact the whole lot of them were storm bound for 3 days, the Dr. unable to cross; but the Dr. could anyway do no good in this situation, for one thing because Muv always refused to take any medicine. She had had a small stroke, which triggered this illness. For the last week she was unconscious most of the time, they said. So in a way her death was a great relief to all.
I felt like a terrible shirker not to go. I cabled Debo immediately to say I would come if she thought advisable; but in view of the changing situation and imminence of Muv’s death, which could be any minute, she urged me not to come; for which I was most grateful.
Nancy always manages to crack a joke or two in any situation; she wrote to say all her clothes were getting so dirty, so she asked Pam to teach her to wash them. “She did the washing while I stood and looked. Now I’m going to get her to teach me to iron them.” …
I was working hard on the index for the book; all finished last week. To my horror, I found I had forgotten to send the W’s! They were lost in the confusion on the table. I rushed them by airmail special, so hope they got in. I am not cut out for indexing I fear.62
Much love, and to Edith, Decca
To the Duchess of Devonshire
Oakland
June 2, 1963
Dearest Hen,
You are an angel to keep on writing. If it hadn’t been for your letters (and Nancy’s) I should have felt so v. lonely. Your description of the funeral in the letter that just came—talk about floods. It was absolutely as though I’d been there and tested the pews etc. Also thanks so much for thinking of sending flowers from me. (By the way my new book is all about the ridiculous waste of money on funeral flowers & an attack on the Florist Industry for inducing people to send flowers! But I can see not, in this case.)
Nancy wrote all about the last journey in Puffin,63 piper, flag ¼ mast. Oh Hen I do wish in a way I had come, but from what you all said it could never have been in time because of the coma of last few days. I shall keep all yr. let- ters forever, with Muv’s last one to me. It was all about the new foal etc in extraordinarily firm typing—until one came to the end and she said Madeau64 was typing it for her. She told about the rough journey and said “So I went to bed and stayed there until now—which is lunch time the next day.” When I read that I had a bitter premonition, because it’s so unlike her to stay in bed all day…
Much love, and from Bob and Benj, Yr. Hen
To Nancy Mitford
Oakland
June 12, 1963
Darling Sooze,
…I honestly didn’t mean to annoy about the flowers. Just noting how odd life is; that I’d just been writing about the very thing. Everybody who wrote to me (such as Rud, Debo, Woman etc) said how utterly smashing the flowers were and how much they added. The realness you noted was probably the point. Here, the flowers are a complete racket, not the least of which is the fact the florists deliberately send old dead done-for ones, because they count on the fact the mourners are not likely to come round and complain. The other point is the fearful standardization imposed, not by custom or the desire for burial with formality, but by the undertakers, who rule the roost as far as all plans for funerals. Consequently the sort of thing you described (piper, crofters, any thing the least out of the ordinary) would be nigh impossible here. Wait till you note the book, esp. the part about Roosevelt’s funeral and how all his express wishes were flouted. Sorry to go on about it. I agree about Rule A, not dying in hospitals; but also easier said than done, at least in the U.S…
Much love, Susan
To Virginia Durr
Oakland
June 18, 1963
Dearest Va,
… Thanks v. much for sending on the Dink letter. I had not realized she planned to go and work in Atlanta.65 …
Yes, I do think that “feeling personally let down” is a sin. Actually I think this is the root of Marge’s sinfulness (the wicked old creature), too; only she feels that she has been let down by the CP, which (she says) put blinders on her, and prevented her from getting out in the wide world. You feel let down by Marge, because you defended her in other days; and by the Rude Young People who don’t realize how much you have done for them. I could probably also feel let down, on these counts and others, if I put my mind to it. Why bother? It’s all so pointless. What it boils down to is putting one’s own feelings on a special plane; most unwise, if you come to think of it. Because the bitter but true fact is that the only person who cares about one’s own feelings is ONE. Oneself. That’s the trouble in this country, Americans are always going on about their mothers and fathers, their friends and siblings or whatever it’s called, and the letting-down of them by one and all. I must say I never felt “let down” by, for instance, anybody in my family; I expected nothing and got nothing. Or by friends, some of whom I’ve fallen out with from time to time; some once very close, now irrevocably far. So, Marge now says she thinks red baiters are often wise to bar reds from meetings. For one reason or another, this is anyway not a terribly important issue right now. Personally, I regret that it is not, because I am a red myself, consider myself one and am considered one; only left the Party because it got rather drab and useless, not on any principled issue. So I disagree with old Marge. But shouldn’t think of making it a cause for enmity with Marge. I argue with her constantly about this sort of thing, and she argues back. I always win, I think; she perhaps thinks she wins. (She can’t, her position is all off, no matter what she thinks.)
To Maytor H. McKinley66 Oakland
ca June-July 1963
Dear Mr. McKinley,
Thank you so much for your letters, copies of letters to the President, resolutions, speech etc. I found it all most interesting.
You ask me to comment on your address to the Preferred Funeral Directors of America. I shall be glad to do so. I thought it showed great imaginative talent—particularly in the part where you speak of the funeral director who “with his professional skill prevented spread of disease, possible plagues and epidemics and RENDERED AN UNSELFISH and most fruitful service to the living.” I like your use of the word “fruitful” in this context. You suggest that American funeral directors make a contribution to the community, help to perpetuate civilization etc., much as the Egyptian Pharaohs did. This struck me as a most original thought.
There is one part of the talk that puzzles me a little (and I am hoping you may be able to clear this up for me), that is the quotation from Gladstone. I have seen variations of this quotation many times, in the funeral trade press, in funeral association convention speeches and so on—although never quite the version you have used. I should be most grateful if you could furnish me with the source for it. I made an effort on my own some time ago to ascertain the source; I wrote to a History Fellow at Oxford University who is an expert on Gladstone. He was unable to track it down for me. Do let me know where in Gladstone’s writings you found this observation which you attribute to him.
I was interested, too, in the version you used. You quote Gladstone as follows: “Show me the manner in which a peoples care for their dead, and I shall measure, with mathematical exactness the degree of civilization attained by these peoples.” I wonder a little about this use of the word “peoples,” which strikes me as not altogether Gladstonian. Should it not rather be “in which a people cares for its dead … attained by this people?” A small point of English grammar and usage; but Gladstone was rather a stickler in such matters.
Thank you again for corresponding with me. I would, of course, very much appreciate your comments on my piece,67 which you say is full of holes.
Hoping to hear from you again,
Yours sincerely, JM
To the Duchess of Devonshire
Oakland
August I, 1963
Dearest Hen,
Glad the book arrived and I’m so longing to hear yr. frank and true reaction to it, so keep pointing yr. way though it. Also glad you loathed the pic …as I was thinking The Camera Cannot Lie. Linden68 seemed to have focussed on the bags under me eyes and just taken them. It was on a freezing day in NY, I had near-pneumonia anyway and I had had my hair done but done-for, unfortunately, by my mother-in-law’s h.dresser. I was hoping the pic could be taken in a nice warm office but I think the photog. mistook me for the outdoorsy type (on acct. of the awful hair-do, no doubt) so he dragged me out into the wind, oh it was horrid. Bob showed the book to the judge in one of his cases and the judge said, “Your wife has a very strong face.” We don’t like that, Hen, do we. Anyway I’d say pudgy rather than strong is more like it. The English cover is going to have a nicer one.
Yes the book club is like the Book Society, it means all the members have got to buy it. Also another book club has now taken it for their Oct. selection, so all their members will have to have it too. Just as well as I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily plunking down $5 for it. Did I tell you about the telly show? … [I]t’s called CBS Reports, a i-hour show, and it is viewed by the 23,000,000 most intelligent people in the United States according to the man who does them.69 Anyway he’s coming out here in a few weeks to do the filming of us. He has already been to England, to interview Mr. L.C. Ashton (see chapter called Funerals in England) and to Switzerland to case the joint re. state funerals (see chapter called New Hope for the Dead) and they are spending $100,000 on all this. He also went to the convention of the National Casket Company Assn., the lucky. The whole point, of course, is to get the 23 million to rush out and buy copies.
As you can see, I’m v. preoccupied with it all. There are several other telly shows too (local ones) coming off, plus various interviews and articles in such as the Wall St. Journal. Also somebody telephoned from the NY office of the Daily Sketch and he turned out to be Romy Drury-Lowe’s son!70 He [said] … “It’s going to be a bombshell! Aren’t you afraid the undertakers will sue for libel” etc. Me publisher is longing to get them to sue because of the stir it would create. NY publishers are v. quaint, not a bit like English ones.
Well I must be off because thousands are coming to dinner, chicken paprika this time Hen, another peasant dish…
Love, Yr. Hen
To the Duchess of Devonshire
Oakland
September 4, 1963
Dearest Hen,
I just got a smashing and side-splitting letter from Dinky, goodness I was surprised as she is noted for non-writing. Anyway, she said you were the Hero of the Day for utter kindness, o’erwhelmed she was. Found Nancy simply terrifying, which I could have easily told her but you know how they never listen at that age.71 I do so wonder how it all came out—and where she is. Perhaps another letter will come.
Hen, the book. Lord it’s a scream, what’s happening. Reviews pouring in, but all rather alike, and I’ve sent you the main ones (or meant to; sent some to Dink to show you). The enclosed thing is the all-time smasher, because of the clergy-adoring-it aspect. It came out this morning in the NY Times. Now, I learn that the publisher has been getting notes of congratulation (t.grams) from all over for publishing it! The point is, partly, the Simon & Schuster history. They mostly publish ordinary books (that is, ones they are for), but about a year ago they published one called Calories Don’t Count. The point of it was to advise people to eat anything they want to, but with their meal to have something called Safflower Oil Pills, and then (no matter how much they’d eaten) they would lose weight. The book sold millions of copies; and some of the Simon & Schuster-ers had cleverly bought stock in a safflower pill company, and had arranged for the pills to be sold with the books. So the Fed. Govt. got livid, and prosecuted them for doing this, as the whole thing is a fearful fraud. This whole thing came to light during the last stages of our book, before it was really ready even. I wrote to me editor suggesting changing the name to Coffins Don’t Count, and furnishing a knock-up cardboard do-it-yourself coffin, which we could all buy stock in. This was the only letter he never answered.
Anyhow, now they are being praised like mad for doing a public service, are actually re-becoming respectable, via our book. You must admit life is queer.
It’s all building up amazingly; the undertakers are complaining bitterly that it’s atheistic, and the clergymen are being all for it. So extraorder.
Do write, and do tell all, the wedding and so on,
Yr. loving Hen
To Aranka Treuhaft
Oakland
September 17, 1963
Dearest Aranka,
… Book news. I’ll have to do this staccato style, as there’s so much, it would take pages: 60,000 copies now in print… will be No. 4 best-seller in next Sunday’s Times (up from No. 10)… has been No. 1 in Chronicle for past 2 weeks …a religious book club has ordered 34,000 paper-backs (exclusive for clergymen) to retail at $1.95, 10% commission split between us and the publisher … huge spread in both Life and Time this week … Good Housekeeping is taking 15,000 words (of the book) in their Feb. issue, will pay $5,000 to $10,000, price to be negotiated, to be split bet. us and S & S …Saturday Evening Post wants an article from me of 1,500 words, will pay $2,000 … Benj is angling for a $2 weekly increase in his allowance …at least two local high schools have it on their recommended reading list, and a junior hi. called to ask me to speak to the biology class on “Life, death and sanitation”(!!!) …reviews are pouring in from all over, not a bad one in the lot so far (except Krieger, head of National Selected Morticians, who said it is “atheistic, and tries to bring Russian communist style funerals into America”), our dining room table covered with them … I have hired Judy Bernal72 to come and do a scrap book of them, she’s starting tomorrow … smashing review in Wall St. Journal of yesterday (16 Sept) and same issue, story about the Govt. prosecuting Simon & Schuster for the Calories Don’t Count book… English clippings beginning to arrive, just got a 1-page story in Mirror (similar in format and awfulness to NY Mirror, but excellent review) … S. & S. are threatening to send me on a national speaking tour, to wind up in NY, but no details as yet…
