C O P Y

Sent
Edwards

July 9, 1957

Dear Mr. Allen:

I tried to phone you tonight, Tuesday, but did not catch
anyone at home. I have just gotten your manuscript back
from the publisher who had previously sent me a very
interesting report on it. But I was waiting to have the
manuscript on hand before I turned this over to you. They
did not accept the book but did take the time to read it
very carefully and to write a much longer report than they
usually give authors, and one which I hope will be helpful
to you in revising it.

Would you like me to mail the manuscript to you, or would
you rather pick it up sometime when you are coming over to
New York? I would be happy to see you if you are coming up
Harlem way anytime soon, but I suggest that you phone a day
or so ahead so that I will be sure to be at home when you
come. My number is ATWATER 9 - 6559.

I am enclosing the report on your book, and I would like to
add that both of the editors who read it definitely feel that
you have an interesting lot of material and that parts of your
manuscript show a sensitive handling of words. Both of them
asked me to tell you that they think it worthwhile that you
continue to write and develop because it is only by writing
that one learns to write well.

I hope that I shall hear from you or see you soon.

Mr. Alvin Allen
73 Crane Street
Newark, N. J.

C O P Y --- C O P Y

Report from the
Editorial Offices
of
Crown Publishers
on:

June 18, 1957

New York City

A REMEMBERANCE OF TOMORROW by Alvan L. Allen

Of course the basic problem with subject matter like this is how to say it
in a way that has not been said before—how to make it just slightly more
convincing, or how to approach it from an angle that is new. In this, it
seemed to me, Alvan Allen failed. The details are very similar to those
many other writers—writers like Hall Ellson and Willard Motley, for example,
have dealt with many times. The one place that I felt he rose above this
was the scene of the actual fight that got Jeff sent to prison. The idea
of beginning with the plan of action and then pinpointing it step by step
with the very clever device of the time table and finally, at the close of
the fight, the conversation between the two cops—this scene has sweep,
movement and significance. He tells the story, gives an entirely convincing
picture of a gang fight as seen from the inside, and he gives the whole
thing a larger significance by bringing in strangers to comment on it. In
short, there he is approaching his subject like a novelist.

Which brings us to a larger point—a novelist works in scenes. Had he
presented us with an outline before sending in the script, I would have
supposed that there would be a hundred scenes—instead there is merely this
one. He had such opportunities because his canvas is large. It includes
Harlem, the prison, the reformatory. He makes passes at scenes, but most
of the time he contents himself with summarizing. He tells us what Jeff
was thinking or feeling, and lets it go at that. As I say there is that
one exception and he has done it exactly right. But there are so many
other crucial scenes missed—the relationship between Jeff and his mother,
for example. He seems to sense the importance of this, the fact that this
does so much to explain Jeff's behavior, but he never develops it properly.
So that what should be a crucial scene—Jeff's reunion with his mother after
years—just peters out into nothing.

I have not touched on the style yet, but we shall have to face it. As yet,
he writes stiffly in a language and vocabulary that do not seem right for
the characters in the book or their story. The reader (this reader, anyway)
felt a constant attempt on his part to be literary, to use big words instead
of the ones that come naturally. Mr. Allen has his own vocabulary and his
own way of seeing things—any human being does. But he has not yet confidence
enough to use it. Instead he tries for something with an elevated sound. To
pick an example at random: "It may be inquired here, why the administration
being cognizant of these things did not intercede?"

The other problem of style is that he has not organized his material properly. Suddenly, as the story is moving along, it will be interrupted by a three or four page discourse on penology, psychology, sex or some other topic. It is irritating and it serves no purpose except to slow things down. Any time a novelist stops dramatizing to speak in the tone of a nonfiction book, it is risky. Steinbeck has made it succeed in THE GRAPES OF WRATH; by alternating the story of the Joads with general, newsreel-like scenes, he has related his story to the larger picture—it is not just one family but the whole tragic migration of the 1930's. But he is very careful. He

2.

keeps his non-dramatic material for separate chapters, and he has organized
the book so that they do not interfere with but rather magnify the main plot.
Mr. Allen's novel comes out as an uncomfortable combination of two elements
that have not been made to mix.

However, I do not want to minimize the accomplishment of A REMEMBRANCE OF TOMORROW. I got an insight I hadn't had before into how kids like this get that way. I saw, for the first time, the kind of pseudo-Christianity that is often presented as the alternative to gang life. If Jeff feels he has to choose between his Aunt's penny-pinching sanctimoniousness and the gang, there's no doubt which he'd choose. And the next thought is who wouldn't? It is only later that Jo-Ann and later the mature Vicky appear as the third alternative. And this false piety is something I don't remember encountering before. Mr. Allen may have his different angle here. At any rate I now have the feeling that when these kids refer to squares, I know what they mean.

Finally, what Mr. Allen must do as a writer, I think, is loosen up. He shouldn't be so self-conscious. He should just put it down the closest he can to the way it happened. He should search his mind, his feelings, not his dictionary. He has things to say, but he hasn't come to them yet. I do want to say that I was interested in reading the novel.

July 9, 1957

Dear Mr. Allen: