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Haywire Hardcover – February 12, 1977
- Print length325 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherKnopf
- Publication dateFebruary 12, 1977
- ISBN-100394493257
- ISBN-13978-0394493251
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Product details
- Publisher : Knopf; First Edition (February 12, 1977)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 325 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0394493257
- ISBN-13 : 978-0394493251
- Item Weight : 1.45 pounds
- Best Sellers Rank: #461,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14,048 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Finished I was spent and awash in a variety of emotions; chiefly admiration for both Ms. Hayward's superb writing style and also her courage in confronting her family's checkered, sometimes tragic past. There was empathy for Ms. Hayward and brother Bill for having to experience the same, plus sadness for the lost, beguiling Hayward family who had been blessed by every joy in life until things began to go awry with horrific results. Finally since I was a callow twenty two year old, I fell a little bit in love with Ms. Hayward's mercurial younger sister Bridget who seemed a hapless victim of fate, and as viewed in her photo was exquisite, an angelic, radiant blonde out of a painting by Botticelli.
Gratifyingly "Haywire" was both a critical and popular success with deservedly laudatory reviews and was on the New York Times Bestseller list for several months. I reread it immediately since I had initially gobbled it down to pick up any nuance or detail I might have missed and loved it just as much. Anyone I knew got a rave review from me plus I gave copies as gifts to a favorite cousin and a lovely girl I was wooing at the time; it was a hit with both. In print and television interviews, Ms. Hayward spoke of her next book which was to be a sequel of sorts, concerning her two marriages and the years left out of "Haywire", although I impatiently awaited it's publication and any other books by Ms. Hayward they never materialized to my extreme disappointment. In 1980 "Haywire" became a television miniseries, but except for an affecting performance by Lee Remick as Margaret Sullavan, Ms. Hayward's mother, it was inferior to the original.
The Haywards were a celebrity family in the Golden Age of both Hollywood and Broadway in the 1930's and 1940's. Ms. Hayward's mother was the luminous, resonant voiced actress Margaret Sullavan, star of such films as "Three Comrades" and "The Shop Around the Corner" and on Broadway in "The Voice of the Turtle" and "The Deep Blue Sea". Her father the courtly, debonair Leland Hayward was first a powerhouse agent whose clients included Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gregory Peck and Greta Garbo, then an acclaimed Broadway producer who presented the original productions of "South Pacific", "Gypsy" and "The Sound of Music" among others. They were happily married for about ten years and had three children in even succession, Brooke, Bridget and Bill, living for a while a halcyon, privileged existence on both coasts. When the parents divorced, the seeds of destruction were sown that ultimately by the end of 1960 left the family irrevocably shattered. Margaret Sullavan, Bridget and Bill all suffered mental breakdowns, and spent time in psychiatric hospitals. More devastating was Margaret Sullavan's shockingly unexpected death New Year's Day 1960 followed by Bridget's, a scant ten months later. Both were caused by overdoses of prescription drugs, and it was unclear as to whether or not they were accidental or deliberate. Leland at this point in time was on his fifth marriage, and Brooke herself a divorcee with two little boys at the ripe old age of twenty-three.
Quite the family saga, but "Haywire" is not just a grim, depressing, downward trajectory of unrelenting doom. Remember the Haywards had ten relatively tranquil years together as a family, and the happiness, love and laughter they once shared are presented by Ms. Hayward interludes of sunlight that balance the shadows. Additionally, she skillfully conjures up in the background of their existence the genuine glamour of Hollywood and Broadway at their peak with a starry supporting cast that adds an extra fascination for the reader.
Now, just last month, "Haywire" was reissued in a Vintage Paperback with an introduction by screenwriter Buck Henry and an epilogue by Brooke Hayward. I happened on it by accident on Amazon, and ordered a copy since I was very curious to read the epilogue. In recent years, I had read in the papers of further tragic events that had stalked Ms. Hayward, and perhaps she would reveal as well why she never wrote the sequel to "Haywire". She does, and the reason makes perfect sense. Both the introduction and the epilogue are very slim, written in pared down prose, less than two pages each, the bare minimum that can be revealed is just what's offered. I don't fault either Ms. Hayward or Mr. Henry, especially Ms. Hayward whom I commend even more for her strength of character to survive and function after going through such an emotional minefield.
However I did decide to reread "Haywire" all these years later to see how it stood the test of time and find if my opinion had changed. It had, I was no longer quite so enthralled and my viewpoints of the characters and events had evolved in some instances, I had certainly gotten over that slight boyish crush on Bridget Hayward! Part of this was due to my familiarity with the material after multiple readings in the past. Also, I'm in my fifties now, and have gone through life's passages, love, marriage, fatherhood, family losses, joys and tribulations, it's only natural my perceptions have altered in the thirty four years since I first read it.
What remains timeless is the lucid beauty and grace of Ms. Hayward's style, and her skillful character delineation. She is a born storyteller, with the soul of an artist, able to illuminate a passage by choosing the right blend of words to achieve a glowing literary tapestry. This is reminiscent of the way a gifted painter or composer would select the perfect color or musical note to create a work of art. Ms. Hayward generously credits assistance from two close talented writers friends; the first Johanna Mankiewicz Davis, who aided with the first part of the book before she was killed by a taxi in 1974, then Buck Henry, for the final polishing her editor and publisher the gifted Bob Gottlieb. Both Margaret Sullavan and Leland Hayward were charismatic, larger than life individuals, and as many reviewers pointed out could have been characters from the pen of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Even though they along with their daughter Bridget had been dead from three to fourteen years when Ms. Hayward began writing, they spring vividly to life resurrected and fully developed, complex people filtered through her memories. To augment and perhaps give a different perspective to her family Ms. Hayward includes brief recollections by family friends, such as Henry and Jane Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, her former stepmother Nancy Keith, director Josh Logan, playwright Paul Osborn, writer Tom Mankiewiez, and Bridget's boyfriend Bill Francisco. This works marvelously well as a literary device and adds to the richness of the narrative.
This reissue has new cover art black and white photographs of the Haywards taken during an idyllic summer beach holiday circa 1942. Maggie and Leland are tanned, gorgeous, and merrily laughing, and there is a charming trio of photos of the children playing on the seashore. These are heartrending to see, after you find out what the future holds for this blithe, sparkling family.
Although "Haywire" is a Hollywood childhood memoir, unlike later books by the children of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Bing Crosby it isn't a self pitying exercise in revenge, laced with vitriol with an eye to make a buck. Rather Ms. Hayward eloquently with equal measures of love and sorrow recounts a cautionary tale of the calamitous effects of emotional carelessness and flawed communication on a family that should have on the surface lived happily ever after. As such, it's a towering achievement, kudos to Ms. Hayward, one that is profoundly moving and hopefully gives everyone that reads it a fresh appreciation and perspective of their own family. Don't want to pass this one by; this is a personal history you shouldn't miss!
'Haywire' falls broadly into that subgenre of publishing which factually addresses the misadventures, scandals, mental illnesses, suicides, and occasional murders in the lives of America's privileged classes. Such books, which predominantly focus on women, can be dubiously motivated and tawdry, or they can be instructive and educational when produced with integrity and intelligence. 'Haywire,' which was a national bestseller upon its initial release, certainly falls into the latter category.
The genre probably began with Mary Astor's startling 'My Story: An Autobiography' (1959), which detailed the actress's lifelong struggle with alcoholism, and also includes Jean Stein's 'Edie: An American Autobiography' (1982), C. David Haymann's 'Poor Little Rich Girl: The Life and Legend of Barbara Hutton' (1984), Natalie Robins and Steven M. L. Aronson's 'Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family' (1985), Gioia Diliberto's 'Debutante: The Story of Brenda Frazier' (1987), Susan Braudy's 'This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward' (1992), Jean Nathan's 'The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright' (2004), and even Diane Keaton's recent 'Then Again' (2011), among many others.
'Haywire' begins weakly with a short but excessively overwritten chapter, 'Endings,' which details the events in Hayward's life on the day on which her beloved younger sister, Bridget, is found dead, an apparent suicide, at age twenty-one.
'Endings' flashes back nine months to January 1st 1960, when the 50 year-old Sullavan is discovered unconscious in a New Haven, Connecticut hotel, only to die shortly after without ever regaining consciousness. The hard facts surrounding Sullavan's death remain vague; whether she committed suicide or accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills remains unclear (a family friend recalls Sullavan, just before her death, ominously saying to her, "I can't go on and I can't get out").
Regardless of why 'Endings' reads as poorly as it does (perhaps Hayward's editor was hesitant to suggest necessary changes due to the highly sensitive subject matter), once Hayward begins chronicling her past with a greater degree of objectively, 'Haywire' reads beautifully, presenting its audience with a brief glimpse into America's---and Hollywood's---'Golden Age,' a period which coincided with Hayward's happy childhood in 1940s California and Connecticut.
During that period, Hayward and her immediate family were intimately connected to one another in a manner they never would be again. Sullavan had retired from acting to devote her life to her family, they lived in beautiful, spacious homes, and routinely entertained Sullavan's first husband, Henry Fonda, his children, Jane and Peter, James Stewart, Hoagy Carmichael and other luminaries of the era. Hayward's evocation of this period is powerful indeed ("a time when everything was radiant, when every detail had such absolute clarity, every color such vibrance, that it would be impossible ever to forget").
This Wordsworthian 'golden age' comes crashing to a halt when Hayward's parents announce first their separation and then their divorce, events which, not surprisingly, each blame on the other. As so often happens, wounded pride and miscommunication came between Sullavan and Hayward; neither party appears to have really wanted the divorce.
The author presents her parents as essentially conflicted individuals: the confident, stoic, and stubborn Sullavan chose acting as a career from an early age, but professed to despise the theater, the film world, and Hollywood stardom her entire adult life (though she secretly kept enormous scrapbooks of every press clipping, magazine article, and professional photo of her ever taken or released), while the pleasure-seeking, child-like Leland Hayward, who dressed in a pronounced collegiate style, professed to be enamored of New York City and the Eastern Establishment, but, paradoxically, nonetheless preferred to spend almost his entire life in California.
Hayward's teenage years living with her mother and two siblings in the tony Greenwich, Connecticut of the 1950s were also relatively happy: the pretty young Hayward, at 16, graced the cover of Life magazine, there were pool parties and country clubs, occasional Caribbean vacations with their remarried father, and elite private school in both America and Europe.
Hayward and her sister have typical teenage skirmishes with their mother, though Hayward, older by several years, also notices that Bridget has begun to withdraw into long silences and become extremely secretive. Bridget has also started to challenge her mother openly, questioning her sincerity and 'Southern good manners.' No one except Bridget realizes she has begun to experience what will be later diagnosed as epileptic seizures.
With familial tensions rising, there is an abrupt emotional explosion and contest of wills; when the smoke has cleared, Bridget and the youngest Hayward child, Bill, have decided they want to live with their father in California, and their father has, perhaps foolishly, agreed to allow them to do so.
Their leaving--"the terrible anxiety that she had failed as a mother"--precipitates Sullavan's mental and emotional breakdown, which also has professional repercussions for the actress.
Sullavan spends several months in the Austen Riggs Center, a Massachusetts psychiatric hospital, where Bridget will also be sent within the next few years, while Bill, who committed suicide in 2008, is eventually sent to the Menninger Clinic in Kansas. Sullavan was more than used to getting her own way in all things---the author mentions that even MGM honcho Louis B. Mayer was afraid of her, when he was intimidated by no one else, not even Greta Garbo---but when she could no longer control the lives of her children, their rebellion seems to have broken her spirit for good.
While today mental illness and its treatment are routinely discussed and exploited in media and at all levels of society, the same was certainly not true in 1977, when 'Haywire' was first published. Therefore, while the book seemed ominous and even shocking in its era, today, the threatening aspects seem rather commonplace, generally speaking, which allows the author's emotional focus on her family, and the loss of it, to come to the fore. The beautiful Johnny Swope photographs of the family on the beach in its early-1940s prime underscore the book's sadness in a hundred ways.
With brief contributions from James Stewart, Joseph Cotten, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Truman Capote, Diana Vreeland, and others.