Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler [Paperback]

James Schuyler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2009

“An extraordinarily rich and compelling book, a wonder . . . the perfect companion to his brilliant and memorable poems.”—Paul Auster

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The most accessible of the New York School of poets proves to be a delightful letter writer, as this breezy stream of correspondence over 40 years attests. Highlights are his regular bulletins to fellow poets John Ashbery, Barbara Guest and Kenneth Koch (Frank O'Hara and W.H. Auden are sadly missing). Schuyler's letters are primarily a means of keeping in touch, garnished with gossip, film and theater recommendations and other amusements. He does, of course, find time to comment archly on contemporary poetry, give solid editorial criticism, preview his own verse (including the unpublished "A Blue Shadow Painting") and collaborate with Ashbery on their satiric novel, A Nest of Ninnies. In addition to the city's poetry scene, Schuyler moved in the Manhattan art world, American expatriate cliques in Italy and gay New York. Keeping up with Schuyler's wide interests, gregariousness and penchant for name dropping, editor Corbett supplies hundreds of footnotes. There are, however, gaps in the record, starting at the time of Schuyler's nervous breakdown in 1961 and recurring over his final two decades as he struggled with mental illness. But Schuyler, unlike a friend who wanted all his letters burned, wrote to amuse his correspondents, not confess to posterity; he never worried, like that friend, about leaving behind what he called "a whited sepulcher" for himself.
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From the Back Cover

"An extraordinarily rich and compelling book, a wonder. James Schuyler’s letters provide the perfect companion to his brilliant and memorable poems—hilarious, self-deprecating, insightful, and moving, ever so moving: I love being in love with you, it makes even unhappiness seem bigger than a pin, even at the times when I wish violently that I could give my heart to science and be rid of it." –Paul Auster

"James Schuyler’s letters are all of a piece. When I took on the project of editing these letters, a friend of Schuyler’s exclaimed, ‘Great! More Jimmy!’ Yes, more Jimmy. Those who know and love his poetry, novels, art criticism, and diary will find the same man and writer present in these letters. They have his virtues: wit, humor, intelligent observations about writing, writers, painting, and painters expressed off-handedly, bits of brilliant description of nature and weather, and a sense of the world lived in, sharply observed, and lovingly accepted for all that it is. All of a piece but with Schuyler’s voice adjusted to different friends, pitched to their particular wavelengths. And, of course, his voice changes over the years as he ages and his correspondents extend beyond his contemporaries to younger friends."—William Corbett, from the Introduction to Just the Thing

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Turtle Point Press; 1st Edition(PB) edition (September 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885586302
• ISBN-13: 978-1885586308
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,342,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is not a book for the likes of me..., February 21, 2010

By 

J. Faulk (New York NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler (Paperback)

yet 5 stars! for the unstinting efforts of editor William Corbett who put 13 years into its preparation; for Jimmy's many true friends who were glad to help; for Jimmy himself who was warm and unpretensious, who chose to suppress anything hurtful to others, who endeavored to make each letter a little present enveloping "I care about you," who got through 40 years of creativity with the schizophrenia mallet poised above his head.

I like to read literary persons' (mostly homosexuals') diaries, memoirs, letters, as well as biographies. But a poet of the New York School is not truly appropriate for me because I don't read poetry. And all the New York Schools of this and that, I view as indubitable cornerstones of the nation's arts beginning in the 1950s, but the thought remains: How much of this stuff is really any good, considering that in democratic America every man and woman has the vote and the talent? Who reads it in Britain, Canada, and Australia?

The book has 450 pages of letters and 887, yes 887, footnotes, blessedly succinct. This proliferation of footnotes arises from the fact that Jimmy loved to read all kinds of obscure books, even horticulture. Too, he plows up so many poets, artists, minor publishers, movies, records, etc. The book has a glossary comprising the names of two dozen of his chief correspondents plus explanatory paragraphs.

Of the NY School of Poets, O'Hara, Ashbery, and Koch were Harvard grads. Schuyler (1923-1991) was less fortunate. His parents divorced when he was six. His mother remarried when he was eight, and then had another son. His stepfather, reacting to Jimmy's homosexual aura and obsessive book reading, even tried to thwart the boy's getting a library card. After difficult teen years, Jimmy got a couple of years of college (he was not a good student), some WWII Navy, some Europe, and finally ended up in New York.

1951, when the Letters begin, was noteworthy: Jimmy placed three short stories, met O'Hara and Ashbery, had his first schizophrenic episode and was hospitalized for two months, then began writing his first poems. He was 28.

Jimmy loved to write letters, the longer the better, and to get them. It didn't matter whether there was anything important to communicate: open with an apology about tardiness, note the weather, cover all the maybes of shifting residences and visits and travel plans and get-togethers and poem publishing and money, praise your friend's poems or paintings, remember his or her birthday, close with love to you and yours, write me soon, Love, Jimmy.

Jimmy typed most of his letters, without carbons, so Editor Corbett appreciated their return by all the recipients. Except the executors of O'Hara (died 1966) held onto Schuyler's letters and published them in an independent volume.

Oddly, Jimmy passed more than a decade (1961-1973) living with the artist Fairfield Porter's family in Southampton and Great Spruce Head Island, Maine. They sought to help him in this woods-and-water retreat, for his mental breakdowns continued. His great delight was the daily mailboat to bring him a letter or two and to putter off with his outgoings.

Over the years, prescribed drugs, several psychoanalysts, finally even the church helped Schuyler to get more of a grip mentally. In 1979, several of his supporters installed him in the Chelsea Hotel. Over the years, he had a few extended affairs, and some guys he yearned for. Over the years, he wrote his poems about the simple good things in his existence; some were published by major houses or ephemeral mags, and in 1981 he won a Pulitzer Prize, and finally a Guggenheim Fellowship. In his later 60s, he was uplifted by enthusiastic responses to his several public readings. Then suddenly the stroke, and he died April 12, 1991.

Why did I , midway in these Letters, begin to count the pages until the end? Because there was too much chaff, blandness, repetition. There is lots of alcohol, but where's this gay man's cruising, wallows, flare-ups, crying, well-turned anecdotes, breakdown dramas and recoveries, street drugs? Where's the revelatory remarks about composing his poems? Well, Jimmy is just Jimmy, and he's entitled. He never wrote his letters for posterity.

I also read his Diary, Jan. 1, 1968-Jan. 1, 1991, a close cousin of his Letters. Ever onward, I'm about to read James Schuyler's Letters to Frank O'Hara (paperback 2006).