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Fame and Fortune 1943

The first thing that Smith did when her book was accepted for publication was to travel to New York to meet with the editors. There she met Eugene Saxton, a senior editor, and Elizabeth Lawrence, one of the first female editors, both of whom became her close friends. It was Lawrence who had picked her novel from among the contest entries and who, after Saxton's death, became her editor. Lawrence was the first female editor at a major publishing house because Saxton had become ill, and, because World War II was going on, there were no men to replace him. Saxton read the book as well, and they both discussed their ideas for revision with her at this meeting. In July of 1942 Smith got an advance of $500 and a contract; immediately she was disturbed about the split on the film rights. Harper & Brothers wanted 50% of everything, but Smith was desperate for money and desperate for publication.

Understandable Impatience

By February of 1943, Smith was broke again. She was in the Watts Hospital in Durham for an emergency operation for kidney stones, and she had to write to Lawrence requesting another advance: they sent $200. And Finch, despite his alcoholic renunciations, continually wrote from his post in the army, asking for money. Mary was preparing to marry Walter Carroll in May, and Nancy had graduated as salutatorian of her high school and wanted to go to college. It was at this time that Saxton wrote to Smith, encouraging her to enter A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in the yearly Harper & Brothers novel contest. It would mean a slight delay in publication for Smith, but he assured her that it was the kind of entry that they liked to see.

The contest was to be judged by Stephen Vincent Benet, Irita Van Doren, and Christopher Morley. Saxton wrote tactfully that, if money was a problem, he could offer her another advance to get her through. However, Smith wrote back that, although she was sure she would win, she did not want to enter. Her reasons for this were complex. One was money: "I am so anxious to have it published soon because I simply don't know what to do about money." She also needed to know whether she would "sink or swim via that book": she was in a torment of hope and worry. She wrote to Saxton:

Sometimes I had fits of black depression about the book, thinking that the critics would jump on it because they might suspect I was ignorant of the technique of the novel. Other times, I had feelings of elation because I convinced myself that at least the material was different.

Later, Saxton explained to the critics that Betty Smith didn't enter the Harper & Brothers novel contest because she was an author of "real modesty." Martin Flavin won the prize for his novel Journey in the Dark.

Film Rights

When Smith had first received the contract from Harper & Brothers the previous July, she accidentally sent it back to them unsigned. Her objection, it later appeared, was that Harper & Brothers wanted a share in the film rights and Smith had promised John Elliott, an agent at Leland Hayward, that he could handle the film rights. Saxton wrote back generously that he would leave it to her to settle as she thought proper, and he removed the clause from the contract. Later that August, Smith generously wrote in a letter that Harper & Brothers could have 50% of the movie sale as well as the sale of any first serial rights, and that she would pay Leland Hayward out of her half. Who knows why she made this crazy move? She wrote:

I don't care one way or the other about the amount. It will come down to something that is manipulated on a pad of paper and it means only that some income tax lawyer will be paid a fee far our of proportion to his work in hunting about evasions for me.

Later the money did become an issue to her; when the movie sold to Twentieth Century Fox, Saxton generously (or guiltily) paid the agent's commission out of their half. The percentage that Smith gave away became a bone of contention for her. She was angry at everyone--John Elliott, Leland Hayward, Harper & Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox--and felt that they had all stolen from her. But in 1943 Smith was very grateful to Harper & Brothers: they taken her out of poverty and given her a voice in the ongoing dialogue of the American media.

A Ship in the Storm: Joe Jones

As the date of publication approached, it became increasingly evident, from the booksellers and publishing professional's advance reaction to the novel, that A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was going to be a bestseller. Nancy had gone to college, Mary was married, and Finch had left her in the lurch. Smith was very much alone, facing one of the most important events in her life. But not for long. Smith had started a correspondence with Joe Jones, a columnist for the Chapel Hill Weekly, who wrote with the same spare simplicity that she used. Jones was in the army, stationed in Virginia, and Smith wrote him a note saying that she admired his column. In May Jones wrote back. Smith immediately offered to help him get a book of his columns published and very soon they were writing every day. Joe Jones knew Smith by sight, but they never spoke because she always looked at the sidewalk or straight ahead as she walked down the streets of Chapel Hill. After they began corresponding, however, Nancy showed Smith a picture of him, and Smith said "I'm going to marry him." She sent Jones an advance copy of her novel, and he loved it, responding to it line by line. Soon she wrote: "So far in my life, you're the only person I've written to every day" and by late June, he wrote "It would be wonderful if you could spend a vacation at Virginia Beach."

Perhaps the best description of what ensued was published the following month in his Chapel Hill Weekly column:

As a civilian he worked on a weekly newspaper. As a soldier he continued to contribute articles to the paper, They were read and liked by a young woman writer in his town. She told him so in a one-sentence letter. In replying he enclosed a shoulder insignia of his regiment, and soon a steady correspondence was going on. At this stage of the game they had never spoken to each other. He had seen her, on the streets of the town where they had both lived for six years, but she had never seen him.

She sent him an advance copy of her first novel. He thought it was one of the best things he had ever read. Many of its pages were so beautiful and compassionate that they made him weep. He loved the book, he loved the letters, and soon he knew he loved the woman who wrote them.

In her letters she talked a lot about his newspaper stories on Army life and said she would like to try to get a publisher to make them into a book. He invited her to come to nearby Virginia Beach to talk this over, and when she accepted he made up his mind he would ask her to marry him. He was free to do this since he had no other alliance.

He didn't mention his plan to anybody. He had no idea whether or not he would be accepted. Neither one had said anything about love in their letters, but from time to time there were certain little lines here and there that almost said something about it. Almost, but not quite. Those letters, on both sides, were masterpieces of very delicate feeling out, with never an actual thrust.

When she stepped off the train that Thursday morning in Norfolk, very beautiful in a stylish black suit and hat and lacy veil, his resolution was shattered, for when he made himself known to her she murmured a platitude, gave him not so much as a single glance, and as they walked to a nearby bus chatted away in a cool distant impersonal voice. It was not until they were half way to Virginia Beach that she even looked once in his direction, and that only for a fleeing instant. This was a very trying time, and the mood prevailed throughout the rest of the day.

The next forenoon it was a little better. They worked on his stories, and just before lunch time they went for a walk on the esplanade. It was during this walk that a terrible thing happened. Suddenly out of a clear sky, she was struck with the thought that he didn't like her and that he was sorry she was there.

She said she wanted to change her dress before lunch. He waited in the lobby of her hotel a long time while she sat in her room trying to decide whether or not to leave. A fateful quarter-hour.

At last she returned to him and they sat down to lunch but did not eat. When he tried to dispel her fears he only made things worse. The people at the neighboring table knew something tense and desperate was going on. It was still there when the two arose from the luncheon ordeal. Nothing had been resolved.

That was what she thought. He had made a decision, and when they left the dining room he guided her to a quieter spot. There he proposed and was accepted. it was the first time either one had mentioned the subject of love or marriage.

The next day they went to Norfolk, got a license and rings, and were married by a justice of the peace -- all in less than two hours.

That was Saturday. His pass was up at 9 a.m. Sunday and he couldn't get it extended because his outfit, a coast artillery unit, had been put on a 24-hour 6-day alert. A tough break if there ever was one!

What the column doesn't say is that the hotel Jones chose to stay in accepted only officer's wives, so that there was a big scene until an officer's wife intervened and convinced the hotel management to let Smith stay. The beginning of the marriage was uncomfortable, but it was a necessary move for Smith, who could not face the upheaval of success alone. They were married August 7th, 1943, eleven days before the publication of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Hurricane Bestseller

Then the hurricane hit. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published, the reviews were ecstatic, and from that point on, Smith was a public figure. Although they were separate on publication night, Smith and Jones appeared the next day at a booksigning at the Abraham & Strauss department store in Brooklyn. This was great press--bestselling lady novelist has whirlwind romance with soldier--and extended her publicity beyond what Harpers & Brothers had planned. Smith was always proud of the plebeian sound of her own name, and her marriage to a common private, Joe Jones, must have pleased her further. Every newspaper carried a picture of the lady novelist and the handsome soldier. Jones provided a description of this day as well: he met her at 7:00am at Penn Station, but they had little private time together:

Only an hour or two together, and then downtown to keep an appointment with her publishers, Harper and Brothers. Introductions there, then off to Brooklyn for a luncheon and autograph party at the Abraham and Strauss store. From 2 to 4 o'clock Elisabeth autographed "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" for the cash customers. . . . Since then there have been many pictures and stories. Our two telephones ring all day long, and our apartment seems always to be filled with reporters and photographers. They come in pairs--a reporter and a photographer. The photographer tells me how to hold my head when I smile at my wife, and when he is through with us we are taken over by the reporter.

Smith no longer stayed in her mother's railroad apartment on her trips to New York, but in a suite at the Savoy Plaza or on an upper floor of the Sherry-Netherlands. Smith's mother and sister attended the signing but were cowed by the spectacle of Smith's sudden celebrity: they stood in the back of the crowd without making themselves known.

Celebrity

Betty Smith was now a celebrity: from now on, every move she made was watched, every word she spoke was relayed through the press, and she was the recipient of a flood of fan letters, requests for appearances, solicitations for money, from agents, from magazines who wanted stories, and eventually the target of the inevitable lawsuit. Radio shows begged for her, the Sherry Netherlands Hotel offered to let her stay there for free, she did wartime propaganda in Brooklyn, and she did tea at Briarcliff College. John H.H. Lyon from Columbia University included her in his series on living artists, "The Literature of Today" (along with Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, Sinclair Lewis, Dos Passos, Erskine Caldwell, J.T. Farrell, and Somerset Maugham). The Pen and Brush gave her honorary membership, a women's club called the Chiropean organization of Williamsburg invited her to luncheon; all across the nation book clubs, PTAs, churches, synagogues, women's clubs and libraries gave talks on Smith's novel so that controversy raged as to whether A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a beautiful, heartbreaking novel or a shameful treatment of the Catholic church and slum life. The former won, hands down.

Fan Mail

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn had gone into a second printing before the release of the novel. The fan mail had started first from professionals, then it poured in from all over the world. Nearly every letter started with the words "I don't usually write to authors but I loved your book so much . . . ," and many said that "It moved me more deeply than anything I ever read." At first Smith responded to all the writers, marking "A," for answered, on the letters. She even started correspondences with a few of her needy male fans. One of the most poignant is her correspondence with a alcoholic singing street sweeper, who was almost an exact replica of Johnnie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Joe Moran wrote, telling her dejectedly not to respond to his letter, so of course she did, encouraging him, and in return he sent her tickets to one of his few singing engagements at the Ruffin vs. Greco "fite" at Madison Square Garden where he performed the National Anthem. The tickets were used. As time went on, Smith could no longer keep up with the fan mail, and she stopped answering the letters. She also let Elizabeth Lawrence at Harper & Brothers deal with the avalanche of requests by firm-but-polite denials.

Since A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was written during the war years and appeared in the Armed Services Editions, many of Smith's most compelling fan letters came from overseas. The soldiers wrote her long accounts of how the book affected them. A letter from a Sgt. Bill Ressler was typical:

I wouldn't know how to begin to explain how your story affected me. You see my outfit was handed a pretty tough assignment over here and we carried it out, and now things are beginning to cool off and my nerves are slowly loosening up. The other day the book came and I started to read and just couldn't stop. When it got dark I read by flashlight in a dugout and for those hours I was carried away, my heart was light with the Nolans' triumphs and a thing I thought impossible, so impossible it never entered my mind was that I actually cried at the description of Francie's and Neeley's grief when John died.

Smith treasured these letters and always thought of the soldiers as her biggest fans.

A tiny percentage of the mail that Smith received consisted of angry, abusive letters from readers who were shocked by the treatment of the Catholic Church or by the depiction of the lower-class life in the slums. There was also a strange, vehement letter from the novelist Taylor Caldwell, accusing Smith of encouraging anti-semitism. Smith was sensitive to these letters, and when Caldwell's arrived she wrote to Lawrence:

It made me sick to think that there was someone in the world who seemed to hate me so much. My first impulse was to answer and defend my views . . . . But then I reasoned that the man must be mad and might be dangerous if argued with.

When one priest took it upon himself to organize speeches and meetings against her, it reached into her family life:

My poor mother is very tormented by Father Belford and his disciples. She receives anonymous abusive letters quoting what Father Belford said. She receives similar phone calls. One person went to her parish priest armed with Father Belford's opinions of the book and insisted that he induce my mother to move out of the neighborhood. One person nailed a placard to a tree before out [sic] house which stated "Catholic Haters live in this house." I can't blame my poor mother for not wanting me home.

These cruel responses left a bitter taste in her mouth and directly affected the writing of her next novel, Tomorrow Will Be Better.

During this time, Smith became easily upset by professional matters that impinged on her family or her past. One of the romance magazines, Love Story Magazine, had used her name on their usually anonymous stories. Even though she had herself written for similar pulp magazines, she had not written for this one, and she was upset at the deception; but she would never have heard of this deception if her sister Regina hadn't told her. Smith immediately thought of starting a lawsuit, but Smith's editor at Harper & Brothers dissuaded her because of the dubious value of such publicity.

Inspired Speaker

On November 19th, Smith addressed the Book and Author Luncheon, along with Henry J. Kaiser and Lewis Gannett. Although she was similar to the solitary bookish Francie, Smith proved to be an inspired public speaker, and she never neglected to add humor to her speeches. The New York Herald Tribune wrote an account of that speech:

Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, told of letters she received from readers who presumably believed the characters in her book were actual people. She mentioned a North Carolina nurseryman who, she said, wrote her he was putting in his fall stock and "would you please tell me where I can buy that tree that grows in Brooklyn?"

Edward Aswell, who replaced Eugene Saxton at Harper & Brothers, wrote: "I am still full of admiration for your extremely calm and effective speech the other day. It would have been beyond the power of most people to carry it off." Like Smith's marriage, accounts of the luncheon circulated in every newspaper, and Smith's picture made the rounds again, pushing the sales of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn even higher and making her an even more sought-after high-profile figure.

On the first Christmas of her successful years, Smith was still separated from her husband. Still, she must have had some comfort: for a woman used to making approximately three hundred dollars a year, she had made $95,805.76. And, in an era where entrance into the publishing world had been reserved for white men or upper-class women, Betty Smith had made a splash by becoming the first urban, working-class woman author. Her main problem was to bridge the distance between "Francie" and her present self. With hindsight, it is remarkable that Smith was able to endure the change in her life so well. She treated it just as she would any other crisis--whether it was the loss of a bag of groceries, a divorce, or living without money. She made herself strong, and endured.

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