Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/466

From Project Mailer

I’m one of the first novelists who was really a scientist. There were many novelists (like Zola and Norris and Farrell who were behaviorists who became scientists), but very few physicists become novelists and I’m one of them. Styron is a southern minister who became a novelist and that accounts for his strength. And his weakness. He feels such a responsibility. I have the happier irresponsibility of the crook-physicist. If this experiment blows up the lab, well I can always con somebody into giving me another lab. Viz. Rinehart and Putnam. vis. The Man in The White Suit.[1]



note

  1. Alec Guinness stars in this 1951 satirical comedy about an inventor who bounces back after his failure. It won an Academy Award for best screenplay.