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From ''Publishers Weekly'', March 22, 1965 Number 12
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=PRESS CONFERENCE=
From ''Publishers Weekly'', March 22, 1965 Number 12{{aade-sm}}
 
PRESS CONFERENCE


This year, the press conference immediately preceding the National Book Awards ceremony, in contrast to the running of the event in some past years, was quite lively.  The contrast may have resulted from the fact that this year the committee in charge did not plant questions with the reviewers—questions which, it seemed, could provoke only canned answers. This year, the reviewers were allowed to ask their own questions, and up on the platform the winning authors answered them or parried them or, in some cases, got into arguments with each other
This year, the press conference immediately preceding the National Book Awards ceremony, in contrast to the running of the event in some past years, was quite lively.  The contrast may have resulted from the fact that this year the committee in charge did not plant questions with the reviewers—questions which, it seemed, could provoke only canned answers. This year, the reviewers were allowed to ask their own questions, and up on the platform the winning authors answered them or parried them or, in some cases, got into arguments with each other


=TWO CULTURES=
TWO CULTURES


[[w:Eleanor Clark|Eleanor Clark]], whose ''The Oysters of Locmariaquer'' (Pantheon) won the NBA in the arts and letters at the pre-NBA press conference, started a spirited if not especially consequential debate which might be described as “The Two Cultures and All That.” In researching for her book about oysters, she said she had talked to a number of marine biologists, oceanographers, and other scientists and that they had all been extremely helpful; but she doubted that there was anything that she, as a representative of the second of the Two Cultures, could have told the scientists that would have interested them very much. Communication between the Two Cultures, she concluded, was pretty much a one-way street.  
[[w:Eleanor Clark|Eleanor Clark]], whose ''The Oysters of Locmariaquer'' (Pantheon) won the NBA in the arts and letters at the pre-NBA press conference, started a spirited if not especially consequential debate which might be described as “The Two Cultures and All That.” In researching for her book about oysters, she said she had talked to a number of marine biologists, oceanographers, and other scientists and that they had all been extremely helpful; but she doubted that there was anything that she, as a representative of the second of the Two Cultures, could have told the scientists that would have interested them very much. Communication between the Two Cultures, she concluded, was pretty much a one-way street.  


=COMPUTERS AS NBA JUDGES=
COMPUTERS AS NBA JUDGES


M.I.T dean [[w:Jerome Wiesner|Jerome Wiesner]] who accepted the NBA in the science philosophy and religion category for the late [[w:Norbert Wiener|Norbert Wiener]], sought to be reassuring about the science half of the Two Cultures duality. “A computer, at least today, couldn’t pick an NBA winner because computers today aren’t subtle enough,” he said. “But you might try it next year,” he said cheerfully. “It will all depend on whether, in programming the machine, you can articulate enough in defining what an NBA judge’s job is.”  
M.I.T dean [[w:Jerome Wiesner|Jerome Wiesner]] who accepted the NBA in the science philosophy and religion category for the late [[w:Norbert Wiener|Norbert Wiener]], sought to be reassuring about the science half of the Two Cultures duality. “A computer, at least today, couldn’t pick an NBA winner because computers today aren’t subtle enough,” he said. “But you might try it next year,” he said cheerfully. “It will all depend on whether, in programming the machine, you can articulate enough in defining what an NBA judge’s job is.”  


=LIGHTS OUT=
LIGHTS OUT


Dean Wiesner said he had attempted to bridge the Two Cultures to the extent of using a computer to compose his acceptance speech on behalf of Norbert Wiener. It didn’t work. Why not? “The power failed,” he reported.  
Dean Wiesner said he had attempted to bridge the Two Cultures to the extent of using a computer to compose his acceptance speech on behalf of Norbert Wiener. It didn’t work. Why not? “The power failed,” he reported.  


=SO’S YOUR OLD MAN=
SO’S YOUR OLD MAN


“Some computers can do a better job writing novels than some novelists can,” said Dean Wiesner at the press conference. This led poet [[w:Stanley Kunitz|Stanley Kunitz]], who accepted the NBA poetry aware for the late [[w:Theodore Roethke|Theodore Roethke]], to recall at least one occasion on which he had a computer compose poetry, which he then gave to a class of students who energetically undertook literary analysis of the work thus produced. Only at the end of the session did Mr. Kunitz tell the students that the poetry was not the work of a fellow sensitive artist but of a bunch of electronic tubes, blinking in some sort of sequence. The students were amazed (if that’s the word), said Mr. Kunitz, adding “Computer-composed poems sound like a computer.” “So do some poets,” quipped Dean Wiesner.  
“Some computers can do a better job writing novels than some novelists can,” said Dean Wiesner at the press conference. This led poet [[w:Stanley Kunitz|Stanley Kunitz]], who accepted the NBA poetry aware for the late [[w:Theodore Roethke|Theodore Roethke]], to recall at least one occasion on which he had a computer compose poetry, which he then gave to a class of students who energetically undertook literary analysis of the work thus produced. Only at the end of the session did Mr. Kunitz tell the students that the poetry was not the work of a fellow sensitive artist but of a bunch of electronic tubes, blinking in some sort of sequence. The students were amazed (if that’s the word), said Mr. Kunitz, adding “Computer-composed poems sound like a computer.” “So do some poets,” quipped Dean Wiesner.  


=SHORT AND SWEET=
SHORT AND SWEET


An NBA winner for his ''The Life of Lenin'', [[w:Louis Fischer|Louis Fischer]] was regarded as an authority on all sorts of contemporary world problems—a role which he apparently relished—and was asked at the press conference to comment on the Sino-Soviet split, Vietnam and other current crises. “I hope [[w:Lyndon B. Johnson|President Johnson]] and [[w:Dean Rusk|Dean Rusk]] plan to negotiate,” Mr. Fischer said in answering a question about Vietnam. “All wars eventually end in negotiation any way. All wars last too long. Wars are best when they are short, or not at all.”
An NBA winner for his ''The Life of Lenin'', [[w:Louis Fischer|Louis Fischer]] was regarded as an authority on all sorts of contemporary world problems—a role which he apparently relished—and was asked at the press conference to comment on the Sino-Soviet split, Vietnam and other current crises. “I hope [[w:Lyndon B. Johnson|President Johnson]] and [[w:Dean Rusk|Dean Rusk]] plan to negotiate,” Mr. Fischer said in answering a question about Vietnam. “All wars eventually end in negotiation any way. All wars last too long. Wars are best when they are short, or not at all.”


=VIRTUE REWARDED=
VIRTUE REWARDED


Earlier in the current theatrical season, [[w:Saul Bellow|Saul Bellow]] had a play, ''The Last Analysis'', on Broadway and it sank with scarcely a trace (though Viking Press will publish it in book form later this year).  At the NBA press conference, NBA fiction winner Bellow was asked to compare his experiences as novelist and as playwright. “I expected that my novel, “Herzog,” to do as well as my earlier novels had done, but I expected to make a killing on the play. So I let the producer and the director fuss with the play script and change all kinds of things, but I wouldn’t let Viking Press change one word of the novel. I came out of the play without nickel, but as you can see here today, my virtue as a novelist has been rewarded.”  
Earlier in the current theatrical season, [[w:Saul Bellow|Saul Bellow]] had a play, ''The Last Analysis'', on Broadway and it sank with scarcely a trace (though Viking Press will publish it in book form later this year).  At the NBA press conference, NBA fiction winner Bellow was asked to compare his experiences as novelist and as playwright. “I expected that my novel, “Herzog,” to do as well as my earlier novels had done, but I expected to make a killing on the play. So I let the producer and the director fuss with the play script and change all kinds of things, but I wouldn’t let Viking Press change one word of the novel. I came out of the play without nickel, but as you can see here today, my virtue as a novelist has been rewarded.”  


=JEWISH NOVEL=
JEWISH NOVEL


Mr. Bellow was asked to comment on a phenomenon described by the questioner as “the American Jewish novel.” Mr. Bellow ducked it. “I’m asked about that all the time—I guess it’s what happens when you give education to everyone,” he said. “I’m only a writer, not a sociologist. I cannot account for the phenomenon.”  
Mr. Bellow was asked to comment on a phenomenon described by the questioner as “the American Jewish novel.” Mr. Bellow ducked it. “I’m asked about that all the time—I guess it’s what happens when you give education to everyone,” he said. “I’m only a writer, not a sociologist. I cannot account for the phenomenon.”  


=MAILER ON “HERZOG”=
MAILER ON “HERZOG”


What ''Herzog'' does have, in the Mailer view, “is a sense of compassion I haven’t come across in a long time. There is something almost Russian about “Herzog,”” Mr. Mailer said. “You have to go back to [[w:Fyodor Dostoeyevsky|Dostoeyevsky]] to find a parallel, but ''Herzog'' also has so much self-pity. What did impress me about it was that my heart was literally burning as I read it. It might be one of the most important books written in America and it might not, because it has mistakes. I do not know. But I do know that I do not see Bellow as lord of the intellectuals. He has the mind of a rater dull college professor who has read too many books and grasped the essence of none of them.”
What ''Herzog'' does have, in the Mailer view, “is a sense of compassion I haven’t come across in a long time. There is something almost Russian about “Herzog,”” Mr. Mailer said. “You have to go back to [[w:Fyodor Dostoeyevsky|Dostoeyevsky]] to find a parallel, but ''Herzog'' also has so much self-pity. What did impress me about it was that my heart was literally burning as I read it. It might be one of the most important books written in America and it might not, because it has mistakes. I do not know. But I do know that I do not see Bellow as lord of the intellectuals. He has the mind of a rater dull college professor who has read too many books and grasped the essence of none of them.”


=MORISON ON VIETNAM=
MORISON ON VIETNAM


Admiral [[w:Samuel Eliot Morison|Samuel Eliot Morison]], one of the participants in the March 10 press conference sponsored by the Publishers’ Publicity Association, was asked, as a historian, his view on Vietnam. His answer: “I’m just standing by, hoping for a lead from the President that we haven’t had yet. Supposing that after consulting with his advisors he has made up his mind, I think that he ought to take the people into his confidence as [[w:Franklin D. Roosevelt|FDR]] in his [[w:Fireside chats|fireside chats]].”
Admiral [[w:Samuel Eliot Morison|Samuel Eliot Morison]], one of the participants in the March 10 press conference sponsored by the Publishers’ Publicity Association, was asked, as a historian, his view on Vietnam. His answer: “I’m just standing by, hoping for a lead from the President that we haven’t had yet. Supposing that after consulting with his advisors he has made up his mind, I think that he ought to take the people into his confidence as [[w:Franklin D. Roosevelt|FDR]] in his [[w:Fireside chats|fireside chats]].”


=UNION BETWEEN CANADA AND U.S.A.?=
UNION BETWEEN CANADA AND U.S.A.?


''The Oxford History of the American People'' (Oxford), and a Canadian newspaperman at the press conference asked the Admiral if he thought that union between the United States and Canada might ever come about. “I think that the only thing that could force any part of Canada into the United States would be the secession of Quebec,” he said. “If that happened the Maritime Provinces would be left out on a limb, and they might prefer to apply to the Unites States rather than be separated by Quebec.”
''The Oxford History of the American People'' (Oxford), and a Canadian newspaperman at the press conference asked the Admiral if he thought that union between the United States and Canada might ever come about. “I think that the only thing that could force any part of Canada into the United States would be the secession of Quebec,” he said. “If that happened the Maritime Provinces would be left out on a limb, and they might prefer to apply to the Unites States rather than be separated by Quebec.”


=A LITTLE-KNOWN LYNCHING=
A LITTLE-KNOWN LYNCHING


The March 10 press conference was held on a day of violence in [[w:Selma, Alabama|Selman]], Ala., and Admiral Morison was asked if he thought there was any possibility of a federal law to cover murder within the separate states. Admitting that it was a difficult question of constitutional law, he said he thought, “this is what should be done, and it is not just the rights of Negroes which are involved either.” Back in 1890, Admiral Morison said, a group of Italian citizens was lynched in New Orleans. The Italian government protested vehemently and even contemplated sending over the Italian navy, which at the time was stronger than ours, to lob shells on the cities of the eastern seaboard in retaliation. The United States government ended by paying an indemnity to the families of the victims.  
The March 10 press conference was held on a day of violence in [[w:Selma, Alabama|Selman]], Ala., and Admiral Morison was asked if he thought there was any possibility of a federal law to cover murder within the separate states. Admitting that it was a difficult question of constitutional law, he said he thought, “this is what should be done, and it is not just the rights of Negroes which are involved either.” Back in 1890, Admiral Morison said, a group of Italian citizens was lynched in New Orleans. The Italian government protested vehemently and even contemplated sending over the Italian navy, which at the time was stronger than ours, to lob shells on the cities of the eastern seaboard in retaliation. The United States government ended by paying an indemnity to the families of the victims.  


=OPENING PARTY OF NBA WEEK=
OPENING PARTY OF NBA WEEK


A number of authors of spring books were special guests of honor at the Publishers’ Publicity Association-Publishers Adclub cocktail party which opened National Book Awards week on March 8. One of the most sought-after and one of the most articulate was the young Negro writer, [[w:William Melvin Kelley|William Melvin Kelley]], author of ''A Different Drummer'', whose second novel, ''A Drop of Patience'' will be published by Doubleday on April 9. Mr. Kelley says he believes too many Negro writers succeed today because they beat white people over the head with their guilt and he, for one, does not want to be that kind of writer, although he has no illusions about the gravity of the racial crisis in the United States. Some Negro writers, Mr. Kelley said, have made themselves into kind of reverse court jesters for the white man.  
A number of authors of spring books were special guests of honor at the Publishers’ Publicity Association-Publishers Adclub cocktail party which opened National Book Awards week on March 8. One of the most sought-after and one of the most articulate was the young Negro writer, [[w:William Melvin Kelley|William Melvin Kelley]], author of ''A Different Drummer'', whose second novel, ''A Drop of Patience'' will be published by Doubleday on April 9. Mr. Kelley says he believes too many Negro writers succeed today because they beat white people over the head with their guilt and he, for one, does not want to be that kind of writer, although he has no illusions about the gravity of the racial crisis in the United States. Some Negro writers, Mr. Kelley said, have made themselves into kind of reverse court jesters for the white man.  


=NO PULITZER FOR SWANBERG IN ‘65=
NO PULITZER FOR SWANBERG IN ‘65


Another guest at the March 8 NBA cocktail party was [[w:W. A. Swanberg|W.A. Swangerg]], whose biography of a few years ago, ''Citizen Hearst'', almost won a Pulitzer Prize. If they turned down Hearst, said Mr. Swanberg, they would doubly turn down ''Dreiser'' (his new biography coming from Scribners in April). The rules of the Pulitzer Prizes require that the biography award go to a book “teaching patriotic and unselfish services to the people,” as illustrated by the life of an eminent personage. One of the things that would disqualify Theodore Dreiser as a subject, Mr. Swanberg thought, was his love life. Out of over 20,000 Dreiser letters Mr. Swanberg read in his research literally thousands were written to women with whom he was romantically involved and some of them were “embarrassingly personal,” so much so that the names of several of the ladies have had to be fictionalized for the book.
Another guest at the March 8 NBA cocktail party was [[w:W. A. Swanberg|W.A. Swangerg]], whose biography of a few years ago, ''Citizen Hearst'', almost won a Pulitzer Prize. If they turned down Hearst, said Mr. Swanberg, they would doubly turn down ''Dreiser'' (his new biography coming from Scribners in April). The rules of the Pulitzer Prizes require that the biography award go to a book “teaching patriotic and unselfish services to the people,” as illustrated by the life of an eminent personage. One of the things that would disqualify Theodore Dreiser as a subject, Mr. Swanberg thought, was his love life. Out of over 20,000 Dreiser letters Mr. Swanberg read in his research literally thousands were written to women with whom he was romantically involved and some of them were “embarrassingly personal,” so much so that the names of several of the ladies have had to be fictionalized for the book.


=TOO MANY GO TO COLLEGE=
TOO MANY GO TO COLLEGE  


[[w:John Keats (writer)|John Keats]]’ next book, ''The Sheepskin Psychosis'', is coming from Lippincott on May 17 and Mr. Keats was talking at the March 8 party about his convictions that too many, not too few, high school graduates go on to college. He started the book, he said, when after writing a long article for Life on college dropouts he found that he had 63 pages of close notes left over which he had never used. “I wish,” Mr. Keats said, “I could get The Sheepskin Psychosis into the hands of every high school senior, who would then read the book aloud to his parents. Just getting into college has become such a status symbol that it has assumed more importance than what a student is going to get out of going to college.” Mr. Keats thinks it might be a good idea if more high school graduates “just conked out for a year and took the time to decide if they really want to go on to college.”  
[[w:John Keats (writer)|John Keats]]’ next book, ''The Sheepskin Psychosis'', is coming from Lippincott on May 17 and Mr. Keats was talking at the March 8 party about his convictions that too many, not too few, high school graduates go on to college. He started the book, he said, when after writing a long article for Life on college dropouts he found that he had 63 pages of close notes left over which he had never used. “I wish,” Mr. Keats said, “I could get The Sheepskin Psychosis into the hands of every high school senior, who would then read the book aloud to his parents. Just getting into college has become such a status symbol that it has assumed more importance than what a student is going to get out of going to college.” Mr. Keats thinks it might be a good idea if more high school graduates “just conked out for a year and took the time to decide if they really want to go on to college.”  


=CONTRIBUTION=
CONTRIBUTION


B. J. Chute, whose first collection of short stories since 1957, ''One Touch of Nature'', has just been published by Dutton, was one of the authors at the PPA’s press shindig. The stories in her new collection have been published in a variety of top magazines, and all were hard to sell to magazine editors, she said. She should know because she sold them all herself. “I have no agent for first rights, never have had,” she said. “I’m a hard bargainer, and I’d drive a clear-headed agent nuts.” Could this absence of an agent account for the long lag between her story collections? “It may be that my contribution to literature is that I have no agent,” she said.  
B. J. Chute, whose first collection of short stories since 1957, ''One Touch of Nature'', has just been published by Dutton, was one of the authors at the PPA’s press shindig. The stories in her new collection have been published in a variety of top magazines, and all were hard to sell to magazine editors, she said. She should know because she sold them all herself. “I have no agent for first rights, never have had,” she said. “I’m a hard bargainer, and I’d drive a clear-headed agent nuts.” Could this absence of an agent account for the long lag between her story collections? “It may be that my contribution to literature is that I have no agent,” she said.  


=OFF SCHEDULE=
OFF SCHEDULE


If [[w:Richard Pike Bissell|Richard Bissell]] were on schedule right now, he would be working on the script of a musical of his novel, ''Goodbye, Ava'', so that he could then write a novel about his experiences producing the musical so that he could sell the whole bit to the movies (as he did with ''7 ½ cents''—''Pajama Game''—''Say Darling''). Instead, he has written a new book ''Still Circling Moosejaw'' (McGraw Hill). At the PPA affair, Mr. Bissell said that several efforts had been made at a musical based on “Goodbye, Ava” but that nothing had jelled yet. He said, too, that he might get further off schedule by undertaking an original script for a musical. Which might then go to the movies and then result in a book about the whole business? “Not bad, not a bad idea,” said Mr. Bissell.  
If [[w:Richard Pike Bissell|Richard Bissell]] were on schedule right now, he would be working on the script of a musical of his novel, ''Goodbye, Ava'', so that he could then write a novel about his experiences producing the musical so that he could sell the whole bit to the movies (as he did with ''7 ½ cents''—''Pajama Game''—''Say Darling''). Instead, he has written a new book ''Still Circling Moosejaw'' (McGraw Hill). At the PPA affair, Mr. Bissell said that several efforts had been made at a musical based on “Goodbye, Ava” but that nothing had jelled yet. He said, too, that he might get further off schedule by undertaking an original script for a musical. Which might then go to the movies and then result in a book about the whole business? “Not bad, not a bad idea,” said Mr. Bissell.  


=MORE FROM OPENING PARTY=
MORE FROM OPENING PARTY


Chatting with another author at the PPA-Adclub party, PW discovered that Richard Newcombe, author of the new ''Iwo Jima'' and two earlier exciting books about World War II and that some of his expertise in this kind of writing probably comes from the fact that he, himself, had a ship shot out from under him 39 days after he arrived in the South Pacific. Walter Lord, whose book about Mississippi and its racial conflicts is ''The Past That Will Not Die'' (Harper & Row, June 2), was busy telling visiting reviewers that he had a law school background (Yale) and that it came in very handy in doing the voluminous research for his new book. Mr. Lord didn’t know quite what to expect when he arrived in Mississippi, but he discovered, not without surprise, that “the white supremacist people like to talk,” often volubly.  
Chatting with another author at the PPA-Adclub party, PW discovered that Richard Newcombe, author of the new ''Iwo Jima'' and two earlier exciting books about World War II and that some of his expertise in this kind of writing probably comes from the fact that he, himself, had a ship shot out from under him 39 days after he arrived in the South Pacific. Walter Lord, whose book about Mississippi and its racial conflicts is ''The Past That Will Not Die'' (Harper & Row, June 2), was busy telling visiting reviewers that he had a law school background (Yale) and that it came in very handy in doing the voluminous research for his new book. Mr. Lord didn’t know quite what to expect when he arrived in Mississippi, but he discovered, not without surprise, that “the white supremacist people like to talk,” often volubly.  

Revision as of 07:27, 25 April 2019


From Publishers Weekly, March 22, 1965 Number 12

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.


PRESS CONFERENCE

This year, the press conference immediately preceding the National Book Awards ceremony, in contrast to the running of the event in some past years, was quite lively. The contrast may have resulted from the fact that this year the committee in charge did not plant questions with the reviewers—questions which, it seemed, could provoke only canned answers. This year, the reviewers were allowed to ask their own questions, and up on the platform the winning authors answered them or parried them or, in some cases, got into arguments with each other

TWO CULTURES

Eleanor Clark, whose The Oysters of Locmariaquer (Pantheon) won the NBA in the arts and letters at the pre-NBA press conference, started a spirited if not especially consequential debate which might be described as “The Two Cultures and All That.” In researching for her book about oysters, she said she had talked to a number of marine biologists, oceanographers, and other scientists and that they had all been extremely helpful; but she doubted that there was anything that she, as a representative of the second of the Two Cultures, could have told the scientists that would have interested them very much. Communication between the Two Cultures, she concluded, was pretty much a one-way street.

COMPUTERS AS NBA JUDGES

M.I.T dean Jerome Wiesner who accepted the NBA in the science philosophy and religion category for the late Norbert Wiener, sought to be reassuring about the science half of the Two Cultures duality. “A computer, at least today, couldn’t pick an NBA winner because computers today aren’t subtle enough,” he said. “But you might try it next year,” he said cheerfully. “It will all depend on whether, in programming the machine, you can articulate enough in defining what an NBA judge’s job is.”

LIGHTS OUT

Dean Wiesner said he had attempted to bridge the Two Cultures to the extent of using a computer to compose his acceptance speech on behalf of Norbert Wiener. It didn’t work. Why not? “The power failed,” he reported.

SO’S YOUR OLD MAN

“Some computers can do a better job writing novels than some novelists can,” said Dean Wiesner at the press conference. This led poet Stanley Kunitz, who accepted the NBA poetry aware for the late Theodore Roethke, to recall at least one occasion on which he had a computer compose poetry, which he then gave to a class of students who energetically undertook literary analysis of the work thus produced. Only at the end of the session did Mr. Kunitz tell the students that the poetry was not the work of a fellow sensitive artist but of a bunch of electronic tubes, blinking in some sort of sequence. The students were amazed (if that’s the word), said Mr. Kunitz, adding “Computer-composed poems sound like a computer.” “So do some poets,” quipped Dean Wiesner.

SHORT AND SWEET

An NBA winner for his The Life of Lenin, Louis Fischer was regarded as an authority on all sorts of contemporary world problems—a role which he apparently relished—and was asked at the press conference to comment on the Sino-Soviet split, Vietnam and other current crises. “I hope President Johnson and Dean Rusk plan to negotiate,” Mr. Fischer said in answering a question about Vietnam. “All wars eventually end in negotiation any way. All wars last too long. Wars are best when they are short, or not at all.”

VIRTUE REWARDED

Earlier in the current theatrical season, Saul Bellow had a play, The Last Analysis, on Broadway and it sank with scarcely a trace (though Viking Press will publish it in book form later this year). At the NBA press conference, NBA fiction winner Bellow was asked to compare his experiences as novelist and as playwright. “I expected that my novel, “Herzog,” to do as well as my earlier novels had done, but I expected to make a killing on the play. So I let the producer and the director fuss with the play script and change all kinds of things, but I wouldn’t let Viking Press change one word of the novel. I came out of the play without nickel, but as you can see here today, my virtue as a novelist has been rewarded.”

JEWISH NOVEL

Mr. Bellow was asked to comment on a phenomenon described by the questioner as “the American Jewish novel.” Mr. Bellow ducked it. “I’m asked about that all the time—I guess it’s what happens when you give education to everyone,” he said. “I’m only a writer, not a sociologist. I cannot account for the phenomenon.”

MAILER ON “HERZOG”

What Herzog does have, in the Mailer view, “is a sense of compassion I haven’t come across in a long time. There is something almost Russian about “Herzog,”” Mr. Mailer said. “You have to go back to Dostoeyevsky to find a parallel, but Herzog also has so much self-pity. What did impress me about it was that my heart was literally burning as I read it. It might be one of the most important books written in America and it might not, because it has mistakes. I do not know. But I do know that I do not see Bellow as lord of the intellectuals. He has the mind of a rater dull college professor who has read too many books and grasped the essence of none of them.”

MORISON ON VIETNAM

Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, one of the participants in the March 10 press conference sponsored by the Publishers’ Publicity Association, was asked, as a historian, his view on Vietnam. His answer: “I’m just standing by, hoping for a lead from the President that we haven’t had yet. Supposing that after consulting with his advisors he has made up his mind, I think that he ought to take the people into his confidence as FDR in his fireside chats.”

UNION BETWEEN CANADA AND U.S.A.?

The Oxford History of the American People (Oxford), and a Canadian newspaperman at the press conference asked the Admiral if he thought that union between the United States and Canada might ever come about. “I think that the only thing that could force any part of Canada into the United States would be the secession of Quebec,” he said. “If that happened the Maritime Provinces would be left out on a limb, and they might prefer to apply to the Unites States rather than be separated by Quebec.”

A LITTLE-KNOWN LYNCHING

The March 10 press conference was held on a day of violence in Selman, Ala., and Admiral Morison was asked if he thought there was any possibility of a federal law to cover murder within the separate states. Admitting that it was a difficult question of constitutional law, he said he thought, “this is what should be done, and it is not just the rights of Negroes which are involved either.” Back in 1890, Admiral Morison said, a group of Italian citizens was lynched in New Orleans. The Italian government protested vehemently and even contemplated sending over the Italian navy, which at the time was stronger than ours, to lob shells on the cities of the eastern seaboard in retaliation. The United States government ended by paying an indemnity to the families of the victims.

OPENING PARTY OF NBA WEEK

A number of authors of spring books were special guests of honor at the Publishers’ Publicity Association-Publishers Adclub cocktail party which opened National Book Awards week on March 8. One of the most sought-after and one of the most articulate was the young Negro writer, William Melvin Kelley, author of A Different Drummer, whose second novel, A Drop of Patience will be published by Doubleday on April 9. Mr. Kelley says he believes too many Negro writers succeed today because they beat white people over the head with their guilt and he, for one, does not want to be that kind of writer, although he has no illusions about the gravity of the racial crisis in the United States. Some Negro writers, Mr. Kelley said, have made themselves into kind of reverse court jesters for the white man.

NO PULITZER FOR SWANBERG IN ‘65

Another guest at the March 8 NBA cocktail party was W.A. Swangerg, whose biography of a few years ago, Citizen Hearst, almost won a Pulitzer Prize. If they turned down Hearst, said Mr. Swanberg, they would doubly turn down Dreiser (his new biography coming from Scribners in April). The rules of the Pulitzer Prizes require that the biography award go to a book “teaching patriotic and unselfish services to the people,” as illustrated by the life of an eminent personage. One of the things that would disqualify Theodore Dreiser as a subject, Mr. Swanberg thought, was his love life. Out of over 20,000 Dreiser letters Mr. Swanberg read in his research literally thousands were written to women with whom he was romantically involved and some of them were “embarrassingly personal,” so much so that the names of several of the ladies have had to be fictionalized for the book.

TOO MANY GO TO COLLEGE

John Keats’ next book, The Sheepskin Psychosis, is coming from Lippincott on May 17 and Mr. Keats was talking at the March 8 party about his convictions that too many, not too few, high school graduates go on to college. He started the book, he said, when after writing a long article for Life on college dropouts he found that he had 63 pages of close notes left over which he had never used. “I wish,” Mr. Keats said, “I could get The Sheepskin Psychosis into the hands of every high school senior, who would then read the book aloud to his parents. Just getting into college has become such a status symbol that it has assumed more importance than what a student is going to get out of going to college.” Mr. Keats thinks it might be a good idea if more high school graduates “just conked out for a year and took the time to decide if they really want to go on to college.”

CONTRIBUTION

B. J. Chute, whose first collection of short stories since 1957, One Touch of Nature, has just been published by Dutton, was one of the authors at the PPA’s press shindig. The stories in her new collection have been published in a variety of top magazines, and all were hard to sell to magazine editors, she said. She should know because she sold them all herself. “I have no agent for first rights, never have had,” she said. “I’m a hard bargainer, and I’d drive a clear-headed agent nuts.” Could this absence of an agent account for the long lag between her story collections? “It may be that my contribution to literature is that I have no agent,” she said.

OFF SCHEDULE

If Richard Bissell were on schedule right now, he would be working on the script of a musical of his novel, Goodbye, Ava, so that he could then write a novel about his experiences producing the musical so that he could sell the whole bit to the movies (as he did with 7 ½ centsPajama GameSay Darling). Instead, he has written a new book Still Circling Moosejaw (McGraw Hill). At the PPA affair, Mr. Bissell said that several efforts had been made at a musical based on “Goodbye, Ava” but that nothing had jelled yet. He said, too, that he might get further off schedule by undertaking an original script for a musical. Which might then go to the movies and then result in a book about the whole business? “Not bad, not a bad idea,” said Mr. Bissell.

MORE FROM OPENING PARTY

Chatting with another author at the PPA-Adclub party, PW discovered that Richard Newcombe, author of the new Iwo Jima and two earlier exciting books about World War II and that some of his expertise in this kind of writing probably comes from the fact that he, himself, had a ship shot out from under him 39 days after he arrived in the South Pacific. Walter Lord, whose book about Mississippi and its racial conflicts is The Past That Will Not Die (Harper & Row, June 2), was busy telling visiting reviewers that he had a law school background (Yale) and that it came in very handy in doing the voluminous research for his new book. Mr. Lord didn’t know quite what to expect when he arrived in Mississippi, but he discovered, not without surprise, that “the white supremacist people like to talk,” often volubly.