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typed letter in pencil above date Fried, Lew

                                                                                                                                              4 October 76

Dear Jack,

  Irv Friedman forwarded the letter you sent me;I hope

by this time he's gotten the letter I forwarded to you.Once again, please accept my deepest condolences for your sorrow;and please convey such to Mrs.Conroy.

 You mention that Dave Ray backed out (?) of the Conroy project.  
  But what was the reason?Frankly,if it can be worked out,I'd like
  to be of whatever assistance I can.  Your help on the Farrell piece,
  "Bernard Carr..." was invaluable.  Ed Branch,I hear from Jack Salzman,
  is working away,and has (rumor speaks) a different version of events.
  In any event,Jack Salzman hoped Branch's essay in Twentieth Century
  Lit. would deal with that, but alas,it didn't.  
  I don't have to"push"your work here at Kent; bookstores have
    on their shelves The Disinherited underlined and the anthology.I'm looking
  forward to "The Morphadite"; and to TriQuarterly.
  (Pardon discursive ramblings: I bet Seven Seas in East Germany
 would jump at a Conroy collection;sowould most university presses--
 has Ray investigated those?)
  I'm convincing a graduate student to write his dissertation
  on you and your works,and I hope he'll finish ,if he chooses
  it;I also have another graduate student in mind,a very bright,
  charming lady from Damascus,Syria who has done a lot of reading
  in proletarian literature.
  TRA looks interesting. 
                                             Take care and shalom,
                                              Lew signature Lew over top this
       P.S.Yes,I still live at 503 Rockwell.
       P.PS. I'm afraid that Ford will make it;as Mencken said,
       no one ever went broke understanding the intelligence of
       the American public.

in light black writing Jim Adams hasn't got in touch with me yet. Whatever material I have is surely at his disposal.