Dear Chester, I am sorry you sent me the Holler to Knopf. No publisher is likely to be interested in two books at once. In any case no publisher is likely to publish two books by the same author at once as one would kill the other. Hence, even if they are enthusiastic, you are unlikely to get an advance royalty and (this is what hurts me most) the chances for its publication grows dimmer. This book needs some explanation and preparation in the right quarters before it is read and I had no chance to do that. Well, in spite of my forebodings, I hope it will be all right. In any case I hope it will be all right for later. But it would have helped very much if you had taken it in as a new book a year from now, say!

But I admit you are in a tangled briar bush and have to think of some way of getting out. I have beaten my brains against the wall all the morning trying to think of something. Maybe I will yet. I feel intuitively that your financial troubles or somewhere near the end and it would be too bad to have them trip you at this juncture.

Telephone me when you bring Lonely Crusade down as I want to see you then if it is possible. In the meantime, four horseshoes and a rabbit's foot to you!

February 19, 1947