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                                                                                 2048 CHERRY STREET
                                                                              PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
                                                                                                         19103
                                                                                                                                            August 1, 1967

Dear Jack:

  I hope you haven't cursed me too much for

apparently disregarding the letter you wrote me way back in April. I was happy to hear from you and read all the encloses, including those uplifting tracts you sent me in orange and green (I passed them on to the next sinner), and then I did something very stupid: I answered your letter but never mailed it. I discovered it the other day, neatly stamped and addressed reposing under a file box which my wife happened to move while dusting. It is true that as a professor I get pretty absent minded in the spring when there are too many manuscripts to read, too many classes to teach, and never enough time; but I never thought I would reach such depths of absent-mindedness.

        For many reasons, I have a warm spot in my

heart for you and I was very sorry and angry to hear of the dirty deal you got from your encyclopedia employer. Obviously, the capitalist stinkers we used to sneer at in the thirties are still around being stinking. But I'm glad to hear you're still writing. I am too but the publishers manage to keep it a big secret. The same year, 1965, I published LIFE SENTENCES FOR EVERYBODY, I also published a novel called NIGHT SEARCH. Both books were almost completely ignored by the New York press. The Saturday Review, which had featured my previous book REUNION IN SICILY on its cover never even bothered to list the two books. Ah well, it is too easy to become bitter about publishers; finally, one has to write in spite of them. MOUNT ALLEGRO, by the way, didn't fare any better than THE DISINHERITED. But I have an idea that maybe both books will get a great deal more attention in the future,

in left hand margin, written in blue ink P.S. My wife and I are off to MacDowell Colony tomorrow for the rest of the month. That's at Peterborough, New Hampshire, should you have occasion to write.