Evening star., 1949-09-04
returning veterans which sold
some $4,000 copies.

With the drama dispatched, Mr..
Miller will pull forward one Of
several novels that have been SIM
mering in the back of his mind
for several years. One is about d
milk strike In Iowa In the sos,
another about a New Dealer who
stays on in Washington.
Either one, he said emphatically,
will advance his ideas about the
trouble with people in modern fic-
ton, and. for that matter. in
modern life.
TOO many Hamlets," says Mr..
Miller. who finds a regrettable
lack Of something to live by in
many of his contemporaries.
They suffer from a smattering
of Freud or q smattering of his
tory. or both. They blame their
subconscious or the times for
what they do. and are unwilling
to accept responsibility"
Now living In New York and
writing full time. Mr.. Miller hopes
to get out Of town in the not too
distant future. "Incestuous" is
the way he describes the literary
life there. And he has absolutely
sworn of reviewing any more
novels by young novelists.>>
consciously or unconsciously
the writer on his way up is trying
to protect his own little preserve
and it's practically impossible for
him to be fair to other young
writer's. I agree with Hemingway
that it's better for a writer to
write"
Completely Unpolitical.
OF The Sure Thing" he ex-
planned that it demanded to be
written while he was busy with
another project. Down here in
1947 to collect background for his
last New Dealer story, he was on
hand when the President an
nounced the loyalty program,
About the same time he met a
man, completely unpolitical. who
resigned from the Commerce De-
partment after being named as a
Communist Party member by Eliz-
abeth Bentley before the New
York grand jury. The man has
been out Of work ever since. Mr..
Miller reported. Anyway, he de-
cided the theme was more pressing
than the one he had in mind.
He is unshaken by critics OBJ
lection to the fact that he has
made his hero. a one-time party
member, withhold this informa-
ton when applying for a Govern
ment job. He admits he would
have admired his man more had
he owned up when questioned by
his boss, but insists that this would
have been out Of character.
AS for objections to the hero's
short-term membership, Mr.. Mil
ler points out that there was really
no place else for the militant lib
eral to go in the '30s. There was
mo ADA then. in fact. no anti
Communist liberal organization
The trouble Is that we are judg.
ing 1949 in terms Of 1885,"
During that bewildering time
Mr.. Miller was a student at the
University of Iowa. II remember
Vincent Sheean's Not Peace but
a Sword with a chapter about
the Spanish War called something
like The Elbe flows into the
Thames A lot Of us felt then that
the Elbe flowed into the Iowa. We
thought you could work with the
Communists and had to in the
fight against fascism."
Mr.. Miller has since learned dif-
ferently. and he is convinced OF
the necessity Of the loyalty pro-
gram. He thinks, however. that
loyalty and disloyalty should be
explicitly defined. And he believes
that chastened ex-Communists OF
the misunderstanding variety
would be Of great value to us in
the cold war.
On the lighter side, Mr.. Miller
outlined his working habits. He
writes every day at home and
when inspiration fails, instead OF
indulging in the usual pencil
sharpening, desk cleaning, doo-
ding routine Of the stalled writer,
he gets up and goes to the movies.
He sees an average Of i've q week.
some Of them pretty terrible.
Even the bad ones. though, help
to clear his head, he says.
i ~
Dr.. Monn Is Now Framing Up
Volume II Of 'Ant-Hilr
DR.. william Mann, genial dk
rector Of the Zoo, Is at the mo-
ment framing up" In his mind
the second volume OF the 1nem-
~