Tom and Max

Thomas Wolfe

Maxwell Perkins

As so often happens, one thing leads to another to another to another and suddenly comes full circle and must be shared. In this case, it began with an old book I (for some reason unknown to me) pulled off my shelf and left sitting next to the computer for weeks. It's called Editor to Author: The Letters of Maxwell E. Perkins. Widely regarded as one of the most talented literary editors ever, Perkins (1884-1947) worked with some of the most talented writers ever, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and James Jones. Arguably his most fascinating professional relationship was with Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) (Look Homeward, Angel; Of Time and the River; You Can't Go Home Again). The two exchanged pages and pages of letters, but perhaps the most moving was an exchange one month before Wolfe's
death at 37. Wolfe, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia (that progressed to tuberculosis of the brain), wrote:

AUGUST 12, 1938

DEAR MAX:

   I'm sneaking this against orders—but "I've got a hunch"—and I wanted to write these words to you.
   I've made a long voyage and been to a strange country, and I've seen the dark man very close and I don't think I was too much afraid of him, but so much of mortality still clings to me—I wanted most desperately to live and still do, and I thought about you all a 1000 times, and wanted to see you all again, and there was impossible anguish and regret of all the work I had not done, of all the work I had to do—and I know now I'm just a grain of dust, and I feel as if a great window has been opened on life I did not know about before—and if I come through this, I hope to God I am a better man, and in some strange way I can't explain I know I am a deeper and a wiser one—If I get on my feet and out of here, it will be months before I head back, but if I get on my feet, I'll come back.
   —Whatever happens—I had this "hunch" and wanted to write you and tell you, no matter what happens or has happened, I shall always think of you and feel about you the way it was that 4th of July day 3 yrs. ago when you met me at the boat, and we went out on the cafe on the river and had a drink and later went on top of the tall building and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life and of the city was below——

Yours always,

TOM

Perkins's reply:

AUG. 19, 1938

DEAR TOM:
  
   I was most happy to get your letter, but don't do it again. That is enough, and will always be valued. And I remember that night as a magical night, and the way the city looked. I always meant to go back there, but maybe it would be better not to, for things are never the same the second time. I tried to find you some good picture books and found three, good in their way. But maybe I shall find something better. I'll keep my eyes open for it.
   Everyone hereabouts is greatly concerned over your illness, and that means many people who do not even know you, too. Don't get impatient about loss of time. You don't really lose time, in the ordinary sense. Even six months would not be important. Even if you were really relaxing, as they call it, all that time, you would be getting good from it, even as a writer. I hope you will manage to do it  too.
   I could send you some good books to read, but I don't think you will want to do any reading for yet a while. What you ought to do is to realize that by really resting now, you are in fact actually gaining time, not losing it.

Always yours,

   As editor and writer, Perkins and Wolfe had a long, convoluted, and sometimes fraught relationship. It was Perkins who "discovered" the young writer and recognized his huge talent after Wolfe's first submitted manuscript, of Look Homeward, Angel (at first titled O Lost), had been turned down by other publishers. By all accounts, the two spent countless hours polishing that and other works, in which Perkins provided the super-ego, in a way, to Wolfe's writing id. It could be, and was, surmised that Wolfe couldn't have become as successful as he was without Perkins's guiding hand. Ultimately, Wolfe left Perkins and Scribner's, possibly to avoid just such speculation and prove it wrong, but the two eventually resumed their friendship: http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=3/8/1935
   And now, the "full circle" part, at least in that the story teleports to the present time. Apparently, there is a movie about the Perkins-Wolfe collaboration in the works, to star Colin Firth, Michael Fassbender, and, reportedly, Nicole Kidman. Let's hope it does justice to the memory of these literary giants: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/nicole-kidman-reportedly-joins-genius-with-michael-fassbender-colin-firth-20140409