Letter 5
Letter from Morley Callaghan to Raymond Knister, January 8
46 Avenue Road,
Toronto, Jan 8
Dear Myrtle;
After reading Raymond’s novel I have been wondering just what it was that kept it from finding a publisher. You know I read it once before, about four years ago. In the first place the narrative is too long…for the actual content. With the material there is in the book it ought to be cut down bravely, and this cutting ought to be done even though one realized that everything is true, honest, and quite accurately observed. The main job of cutting ought to be done in those places where the characters are thinking, where the author was revealing the flow of thought. I would make the book about half its present length, and think you would find that it would read with a great deal more vividness and surprise than it does now.
Four years ago I liked the character, Robina, very much. I still think she is done splendidly and if you decided to cut the book, I would cut it, if I were you, so that she stood out among the others even more than she does. The descriptive parts of the book are also splendid, and it is very fine the way he gets the feeling of the group, the family. There is a freedom of writing in this book that is admirable too; one feels very close to the people, and there is a marked relationship between the words and the people which gives the book a distinguished style. But if I were you, Myrtle, and were offering the book to Ryerson, or somebody like that, I’d cut down many of the parts where the characters are thinking. Perhaps you would want to talk about it sometime when you are in the city. I am sending the book back to you.
Loretto asks to be remembered.
With all good wishes for the New year,
[Handwritten signature: Morley Callaghan]