THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

On June 3, 1939, publication of "Can You Carry Me." The New Yorker. Pipe Night. I couldn't access this story.

From a June 3, 1960 letter to Kyle Crichton, editor at Scribner's Magazine.

You obviously haven't been reading the Sunday Times Book Reviews of my books in recent years, or you'd know what a powerful influence I don't pack there....

My experience over 26 years of publishing books is it's best to leave critics and editors alone. When I get a thoughtful, complimentary review, I sometimes drop a note of thanks to the reviewer, but I know an author is better off in the long run if he stays away from critics and editors - unless you happen to belong to a clique, like the Kronenberger-MacLeish-Mason Brown-Lillian Hellman pack, a mutual assistance group that are very influential but who bore me to death. They get together and all try to say the same thing first and regard it as intellectual conversation, and freeze if there is the slightest deviation from their line. Well, you ought to know. You did it yourself long enough.

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