Maurice always said that writing wouldn't keep him in socks. He was rather bitter about it. He said that this was the age of "Soap-powder fiction". If a writer hadn't a gimmick no one was interested. Bestsellers were created by the advertisers, good writing was a positive disadvantage and the public libraries killed sales.

`He must have been a strange sort of chap. Fussy. Methodical. That card index, for instance.'

[To get enough money] `much might be necessary. A novel every 6 months; a weekly stint in *Home & Hearth* [woman's mag]; appearances whenever her agent could get them on those interminably boring tv panels; short stories written under one name or another for the women's weeklies; the gracious appearances at Church bazaars where the publicity was free even if the tea had to be paid for.'

`It must have given him the greatest satisfaction to write it all down. There could be no typewriter, no mechanical keys between this pain and its expression. He needed to see the words forming themselves under his hand.'

`What about his style?'
`Turgid but grammatical. And, in these days, when every illiterate debutante thinks she is a novelist, who am I to quarrel with that? Written I imagine with Fowler on his left hand and Roget on his right. Stale, flat and, alas, rapidly becoming unprofitable. ... When I last saw him I had to listen to the usual diatribe about the decline of standards and the exploitation of sex and sadism ...'