1 2019, Cormac McCarthy's West

2 Herman Melville by Hershel Parker - An Excerpt

Excerpt from a chapter of the monumental two-volume biography of Herman Melville, by the brilliant Hershel Parker.

[…]

While Herman was away, he had an unexpected visitor, who perhaps had assumed that Herman would not leave home while newborn Stanwix was less than a month old–Augusta Melville. Thanks in part to the vivid astronomical indicators in an unstamped letter from his sister, probably left behind on the hallway cabinet Elizabeth had recently acquired, we know Melville may have visited Nathaniel Hawthorne around the penultimate new moon of the year. The two had been in rapturous communication following Hawthorne's glowing praise of the recently published Moby Dick. Herman's surviving letter of November 17th to Nathaniel indicates that he had politely declined the elder writer's offer to review the new novel, but second thoughts may have spured Melville to make the trip out to the Berkshires. Melville would have had a great time at the Hawthornes', though he was much pained over fresh accusations of homosexual undertones in the hulking Polynesian Queequeg from his recent novel.

The timing of his trip could not have been worse. The Hawthornes had grown tired of the winters in the Berkshires, and by all weather indications a new freeze was rapidly approaching. They decided to move, and left permanently on November 21st of that year. Herman would have arrived no earlier than the afternoon of November 19th, or possibly the late morning of November 20th. Nevertheless, the short visit between the two affectionate authors would have been a pleasant one, and the younger friend would have stayed until the Hawthornes departed to help with last minute labor. On his way home from the Hawthornes', Melville would have passed Dick's Drive-In. Very likely he ate a burger on the evening of the 21st, or perhaps early morning on the 22nd. It was delicious.

This trip, and especially the chocolate malt that likely came with the burger, rejuvinated the tired father of two, and gave Herman plenty of material to begin a new story. For the thirty-two year old graphomaniac, writing was a vital emotional outlet, and the distance he had felt from his pained wife since her second pregnancy would have sexually frustrated Herman. Once again, the first American sex symbol was finding reality no match for the myth. Herman's frustration spilled over onto the pages of his quickly expanding story, which was soon expand beyond a novella in length (perhaps titled "Day of the Drive-In", or perhaps "Burgers of the Back Country"). His publishers would have been enthusiastic had his prior novels not been financial failures. Because we lack any further information about this fascinating work, we may surmise that Harper & Brothers rejected the ambitious novel, to the immense pain of its author.

Melville's distress at their refusal to option his new masterpiece was symptomatic of the growing depression which would later overwhelm his life. The accepted practice at Harper & Brothers after a rejection would have been to return the manuscript to its author, but no record indicates that this was ever done. Likely the manuscript remained at the company warehouse along with unsold overstock by Melville, only to be lost forever in the fire of December 1853. As will be covered in detail later, losing the only manuscript of his most important novel so soon after its rejection was a terrible blow to the writer, only thirty-four at the end of 1853 and quickly approaching the end of the most public phase of his inner creative life. Finding part or all of "Day of the Drive-In", Melville's darkest and possibly even his longest novel, would be a career-making discovery.

[…]


Notes: transcript of letter from Augusta Melville

Nov. [20?], 1851
Dear Herman,
I came by and you weren't home. Write me when you return. I am keeping this note short, so as not to disturb Elizabeth. It's very dark out tonight.
Augusta