Two-Thirds of a Ghost by Helen McCloy

Author:Helen McCloy [McCloy, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Swithin Press
Published: 2012-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

Amos Cottle, Esq.

The Willows

Stratfield,

New York

Dear Mr. Cottle,

All of us here at Daniel Sutton are quite impressed with the publishable qualities of THE BATTLEFIELD. As it stands, the script is a little too long, and I agree with my first reader, Susan Grey, who insists that the title is not a good selling title. There are a number of other minor revisions I should like to suggest, as follows:

Chapter Ten should be eliminated altogether. Chapter Eighty now told from the point of view of the Japanese sergeant, should be rewritten from the point of view of the American soldier who dies in Chapter Two. It will, I am sure, be a simple matter to postpone his death to Chapter Fourteen and write his part, as a living participant, into the intervening chapters. I should also like to see another character introduced halfway through the book—someone from the deep South. All your American soldiers are from the North, East and West. I am sure we would get better sales south of the Mason-Dixon line if we had one Southern character. It would be a relatively easy task to introduce another character and bring the number of soldiers involved up to a round dozen. And one other thing: I think it would be more unusual if the American combatants in this story were marines instead of infantrymen. There have been a number of war books about the infantry lately, but none about the marines. Have you any objection to making this change? The final decision must, of course, rest with the author, but here at Daniel Sutton we all feel that the time is ripe for a book about marines.

If you could do all this acceptably in about six days, the book would be in time for the one spot still vacant on our fall list. If not we would have to postpone publication for another year, and I fear the story would have lost some of its timeliness by then.

Yours Very Sincerely,

Anthony Kane

Editor

Carbon copy to Augustus Vesey Inc.

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