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was puzzling out who in Hell had copied the death of Rollie from you, for I was sure I had seen it elsewhere and was equally certain I hadn't read any short pieces of yours prior to 1933. But I had and finally resurrected the death scene in underlined: Left for 1931. the scene had apparently impressed me more than your name. The homecoming at Monkey's Nest, the death of Larry's father, and the scene with Helen in the whore-house were others that particularly impressed me. I was rather sorry that you didn't do more with Helen. My romantic soul felt damn sorry for her and I wanted Larry to take her in, but I think you knew best. She was, I think, your best female character. Bonny Fein comes clear when Larry sees her at his return to Monkey's Nest, but I don't feel that you realized her especially well. There are too many unprepared for jumps in her character. She stands out as a conceited prig at start; then she's a strong woman who is sticking by her man in the class struggle. I see her at each stage well, but I don't see how she went from one stage to the other. It seems to me that insufficient preparation for changes in characters is your worst fault. Recognizing all the difficulties under which you've labored, it's understandable, but it's also remediable, think I - but maybe I'm just obtuse. The last scene of the book, too, seems to jump too quickly toward a conversion ending. the scene itself is fine, but how did they get there so fast? More time spent in showing Monkey Nest developments would have helped. Of course, the first person technique imposed some limitations upon your treatment of Monkey Nest, but conversation flash-backs might have worked. In other words, summing up what has run on too long, I think your scenes are swell and that the way in which one grows out of another is frequently not shown as clearly as might be.

  So for my reasons for preferring underlined:  A World to Win.  The Disinherited is primarily a horizontal book; it gives a wide cross-section of American industrial life and makes me see that scene as a whole better than any other proletarian novel I've read.  But it doesn't have as much depths as underlined:  AWTW.  Your best characters, for example, are those you sketch clearly and suggestively in underlined:  TD while in underlined:  AWTW you really make most of your characters real down to their gizzards and one sees