LETTERS: Correspondence with William Shawn.
Francine Gray – William Shawn Correspondence
1967 – 1976
Gray, Francine. Correspondence with William Shawn, 1967 – 1976.
Ca. 40 items.
Editorial correspondence between novelist, journalist, and social critic Francine du Plessix Gray (b. 1930) and New Yorker editor William Shawn. From 1968 – 69, Gray published a series of articles in The New Yorker that explored radicalism within the Catholic community. In her first letter to Shawn, she proposes her idea and writes that she is “eager to write a story about the increasing dissensions and transformations in the Roman Catholic Church, which have been growing in the past months and which will inevitably intensify in the year to come,” and gives Shawn a decisive (and lengthy) overview of the situation. His first response is that the subject “presents too many difficulties” and he declines her offer, but over the course of the following months changes his mind. The New Yorker ultimately ran three of Gray’s articles – profiles of Emmaus House, Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, and Ivan Illich – that were later collected in Divine Disobedience: Profiles in Catholic Radicalism (Knopf, 1970).
As she discusses her work with Shawn, Gray’s letters underscore the degree to which she immersed herself in her subject despite how volatile it was. She travels widely while she researches and interviews whomever she can, providing along the way an informed commentary on the current religious, social, and political climate. Related correspondence reflects some of the difficulties Gray encountered in taking on such a sensitive topic - there is one lengthy letter in particular from Emmaus House (touted on their letterhead as “an ecumenical community and center of reconciliation”) who felt they were grossly misrepresented in Gray’s article as it appeared in The New Yorker.
A few items of later correspondence discuss Gray’s Hawaii manuscript along with her suggestions to Shawn for future New Yorker articles (e.g. a review of Harvey Cox’s The Seduction of the Spirit). A handful of Shawn’s related interoffice correspondence is present as well.
Correspondence is broken down as follows:
Ca. 12 TLS, Gray to Shawn, one to three pages.
Ca. 12 ALS, Gray to Shawn, one to two pages; many with typed transcripts.
One TNS, Gray to Shawn.
Ca. 7 TLC, Shawn to Gray, one page, as well as a handful of other notes and telegrams from Shawn to Gray.
Manuscript material:
Typescript, two pages; excerpts and changes to Gray’s interview with Father Berrigan, incorporating corrections her own corrections as well as those made by his attorney William Kunstler.
Highlights:
TLS, Gray to Shawn, September 3, 1967, three pages. She outlines her proposal and closes:
I apologize for burdening you with this large missive. But this article is too delicate, its issues too varied, its possible emphases too numerous, to be written without editorial advice. It has been the greatest privilege and joy for me to publish in the New Yorker this past year, I would rather write this story for you than anyone else, and I would be most grateful to know if its theme interests you.
ALS, Gray to Shawn, undated, one leaf, both sides; likely March 1969. Regarding her efforts to secure an interview with Father Philip Berrigan, she writes in part: “I seem to have an affinity with people who are about to be incarcerated.”
TLS, Gray to Shawn, June 30, 1968, two pages. She writes, “It was a great joy to see you again and to speak with you last month. Your concern has been a great inspiration to my work, and I would like to give you a progress report on the profiles which I plan to write on the Berrigans and on Father Groppi.” She later requests his professional opinion on how to proceed with the Berrigan piece. In part:
I have two important questions to ask you. Do you think I should cover the trial of the Cantonsville Nine, and include it in my profile of the Berrigans? It would mean
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