Scott Simon recommends Additional Dialogue: The Letters of Dalton Trumbo

Additional Dialogue: The Letters of Dalton Trumbo
Edited by Helen Mafull
1970

Dalton Trumbo was an acerbic wit with a bristly moustache who was one of the most successful screenwriters in Hollywood (A Guy Named Joe, Kitty Foyle, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo), and a member of the Communist Party who refused to name names when commanded to the by House Un-American Activities Committee.

I will leave his literary reputation to film scholars (many point out that somehow he wrote his best films--Roman Holiday, Spartacus, Lonely Are the Brave--under the pseudonyms he had to adopt during the blacklist). But this collection of letters establishes Trumbo as the most extraordinary and entertaining correspondent of all time.

He spent most of his best creative years living in a ranch many miles from the film factories of southern California, in exile in Mexico after he was blacklisted, and even in prison, where he spent eleven months for refusing to testify to the HUAC. The kind of creative effort other Hollywood writers might apply to studio meetings, lunches, and, for that matter, scripts they knew from experience would be substantially rewritten by others, Trumbo poured into magnificent letters that only he could send, to family, friends, contractors--even, at one point, to the man repairing his kitchen.

Some highlights: a missive sent to a hotel manager on why Trumbo felt entitled to swipe a room service coffeepot; a travel manual of sorts sent to his daughter, Melissa, about to embark on a trip to Europe, about the romantic dispositions of various European nationalities; and a hilariously detailed epistle to his son, Christopher, about to depart for college, on onanism and other solitary pursuits. There is a little lefty politics among the letters, which can now seem dated or naïve. But they are mostly letters written by a tenderhearted parent, husband, and friend to the people he cherishes most, and who cherish his wit and strength in adversity.

Scott Simon
Host, NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday