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pencil in top margin Austin

848, E. Univ. Ave Ann Arbor 6 June 1963

Dear Jack, -

     I was much touched to hear from my old contemporary (we were both born in 1899) and to receive underlined:  The Disinherited,  I "rejoice with them that rejoice", as Scripture says; and I share your joy that your novel has been issued as an 'American Classic', or something of the sort:  anyway, issued with preface by one of those college professors who constitute a kind of Curia of Cardinals.
    Your book - not yet read - I remember in connection with 'Yaddo',  which after ten or twelve years, I expect to spend a month at this summer.  One day at dinner some novice of a creative writer raised the question of how come the Great American Novel had never been written; & you, without false humility or hesitation, immediately said, "It has been.  underlined: I wrote it in the 1930's".  I shall carry the book to "Yaddo" with me if I don't, before then, read it.
    When we were last together you gave me your wonderful anthology of Midwestern Humor.  I have often read aloud "The Harp of a Thousand