ADDITIONAL DIALOGUE

by Dalton Trumbo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1970

Carefully introduced and annotated by Helen Manfull, these are the Letters of Dalton Trumbo. 1942-1962 which rise well above the ""wart-hummocked landscape"" of the private man to project that whole dark time of the Hollywood blacklist (""rotten, immoral and illegal""). He was its prime casualty and prime protester and, as in the later exchange with Schlesinger whom he excoriated for his ""lavender lip service"" to the doctrine of freedom (this section appeared in Esquire), Trumbo always asserted the principle that ""men may be questioned and prosecuted for their acts: never for their thoughts."" He went ""broke as a bankrupt's bastard"" for his thoughts, went to jail for them, and for many years was submerged in the black market, selling scripts on a two-to-one or half and half basis under false names. (One fascinating sector here--the death of his intermediary ""Y"".) Inevitably in a 576 page correspondence such as this there is a great deal of crabgrass, some of it extending in greater detail than the uninterested reader might like to know over his wrangles with the studio, or household creditors, etc., etc. when his work was proscribed. But after his close to a year stay in jail which he found soothing as a sanatorium, the correspondence becomes more evenly and variously interesting. The lone too levels out from the lashing irony to the gentle humor of which he was so capable--""My wife and I oath ourselves each morning before brushing our teeth."" And not to be overlooked is his charming Chesterfieldian correspondence with his children (Trumbo is a devoted paterfamilias and husband at all times), in particular to his son, ""Girls are what boys want, young men get, and old men think about."" Even if Trumbo never really returned to his serious writing of novels and had always wanted to do so (""I still hope that I shall be able to ascend one of the middle hills--a little hill, but still a hill and not a ridge"") one is glad to see him at the close earning substantial rewards in the industry which had pilloried him, the industry which has now become a medium and where art can to a far greater extent become a weapon. . . . Certainly in Additional Dialogue Trumbo has finally ""finagled"" his freedom: the letters, articulately down-and-forthright, passionate, unwavering, preempt your attention and become intimately involving.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Evans

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION