Here, Robert Lowell writes to Peter Taylor, a fellow author and his friend from Kenyon College. At the time, Lowell was married to writer Jean Stafford, who would win the Pulitzer in 1970. Jean was attempting to recover from alcoholism, and Lowell describes the program, as well as the disintegration of their relationship. The two would divorce a year later.
Dear Peter:
I wrote you a letter a week or so ago that was sort of an apology, but never mailed it. Jean told me that of course I’d lose many friendships before I was through and I felt a little hysterical. You and Eleanor mustn’t judge me unheard.
A week and a half ago I saw Jean at her hospital where she is taking a psycho-alcoholic cure. Physically she is in fine shape, but not otherwise. It costs $125 a week, the doors lock and she is supposed to be there about 3 months. Otherwise the place is fairly luxurious and pleasant.
Our interview was miserable. The psychiatrist, a well-trained unimaginative young woman, insisted that I stop stalling and get the divorce over with as soon as possible so that Jean’s cure might begin. I’ve signed a quit claim to the Maine house and we are up to our necks in difficulties about alimony. The demands are roughly 1/3 of my income until my father dies, then 1/3 of my trust fund $33,000. There are a few other complications, and the whole business is a mess.
I would be delighted to have your mediation, but I’m afraid it would be to no purpose. A long delay would be agonizing in itself, and we would be just where we started at the end.
Your transplanted southerners make very good sense. It has all kinds of structural possibilities and is backed by personal experience. But I’m frightened of your 3 points of view confessions. I take it you are the Henry Adams reflection and Nerber the Rousseau.
I don’t like New York and I am not getting much done, but that’s not the city’s fault, I suppose. I’d like to drive down with the Thompsons to your conference and perhaps stay over a little while after everyone is gone. But I really can[’t] plan anything at the moment.
I’ve got a new dramatic 2-points of view theory for poems and have written a couple about David and Bathsheba. A horrible couple live in the next room to mine and I know all about life.
Love to you both,
Cal
P.S. Thanks for what you have done for Jean.
To go with your squirrels: I know what working like a beaver means to a beaver; it’s the Life of Reilly.