![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() You answered my objection: “…we should have removed the title. The original headline updated your imprimatur on the word “fruit.” The doubting of my existence was more offensive when I had gone on to write many more books. Again you exposed Chester’s leering at my photograph, his giddy tone (“Oooo, Mary”), his attempted disparagement even of my name. ![]() (I had chosen to retain my privacy.) The impact of Chester’s “review” was possible because it appeared in your journal.Ĭity of Night became an international bestseller, has never been out of print, is taught in literature courses.Ĭhester’s “review” would have become at most a ridiculed footnote if you had not dug it up in 1988 in your collection of reviews, Selections. Consequently, impostors emerged, their behavior attributed to me in gossip columns. I’m no longer young, I understand the attack, and I protest the abuse and its recent extension.Ĭhester questioned my very existence, a twist of meanness seized by others of his ilk in The New Republic, The Village Voice, and in tabloids. You titled it “Fruit Salad.” I was young, baffled by the personal assault, and I did not protest. The “review” was written by Alfred Chester. In May 1963, there appeared in your journal a piece of malice posing as a review of my first novel, City of Night. ![]()
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