To Ev Suffens [Letter 307]

[Page 1]
August 1, 1947 

Dear Ev: 

This is just a note to say “Hello”—and to acknowledge your last letter, though with my usual delay.

I have been receiving copies of your television magazine and am most impressed. You have a good idea there and it is quite characteristic of you to be the first with the first television magazine. Am I right in thinking it is the first in the field? 

I was glad to hear that you found that you are doing better on your own than by holding a job with someone else. As you say, I have always been “an on-your-owner of the first water” (I love that expression of yours), so I approve most thoroughly and wish you the greatest success. 

Anytime I write a letter, the news about me is always the same—which is that I am working. Right now, however, it is extra-special—because I am working on my new novel. I have quite a big piece of it finished, though not nearly half, and I am crazy about it. I know that you, for one, will like it. It is my strongest tribute to-date, to the “on-your-owner”. If you never saw fireworks, you’ll see them when this one comes out. But as usual with writers, I can’t tell as yet when that will be, as I don’t know how long it will take me to finish it. All I know so far is that it is coming out much better than I expected. 

I won’t be back to New York until I finish the book, but I do hope to be there eventually. 

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Let me hear from you once in a while, so that it will make me more homesick. 

Best regards to you and the family from Frank, myself, and most particularly from Oscar and Oswald, 

Sincerely,