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a great American novel,
    perhaps as good as any book written by the beats. Her masterpiece is
    a timeless, sensual novel about real people in true-life situations.
    Really brave stuff. I dig it.
    Still, why is so little attention paid to her? Why so much to the
    beats? Why is she so out of favor? Why?
    Because she was a chick, I think.
    As a writer among women, Grace is practically without peer. What
    other female writer of the 1950s had such an impact? She sold eight
    million copies of Peyton Place! She wrote about wife beating,
    corruption, abortion, child abuse, homicide, and sex in a realistic
    fashion. She was, in my opinion, a genius.

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    I suspect she is ignored by literary women of our generation
    because she liked men. Yes, Grace liked men, liked fucking them.
    Liked real cocks, real balls. She was no dyke.
    Fucking a real man is out of fashion with influential literary
    women. They are not particularly interested in fucking, or only want
    to fuck each other. Yes, lesbians. Ho hum. Yawn. Not a lot of risk
    in that kind of sex, is there?
    The successful writers now are fruits and queers, or rilly rilly
    beautiful people. I can’t believe the shit that gets published.
    Rubyfruit Jungle – gimme a fucking break. What a piece of crap.
    Fucking Rita Mae Brown.
    They appear only interested in boring fag and dyke stories, no
    matter how shallow, sappy, and drippy they are. Nobody understands
    me because I’m a dyke, claims Rita.
    Don’t get me wrong. I like queers every bit as much as I like non-
    queers, but the point is there are other stories besides queer stories.
    Those candy ass little dilettante literary mags are so fucking lame they
    make me want to blow chunks from here to Timbuktu. And I am not
    exaggerating.
    At this moment only Bukowski, Gracie, Kerouac, Chandler,
    Hammett, West, and a few others speak to me. Or give me a good old
    underground comic any day of the week.
    Just wait until they get a load of my stuff. Blow their precious little
    minds to kingdom fucking come. Those current literary darlings eat
    shit.
    Aaahh. Felt good to get that off my chest. Sure is something I
    would never want to say in public, however.
    * * * *
    April 7, 1978
    My novel Ding A Ling will be written in two parts, about 500 pages
    each. Part One will be "childhood." That will be the Ding A Ling
    part. The second part will be called "Mavo." That will be my high
    school story.
    Between 30 and 50 chapters. It will contain most of the
    background material before The Dark City and will be a vast

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    compendium of my personal mythology up to age 18. After that I
    plan to write a romance (with plenty of sex) tentatively called The
    Girl And The Boy . Or maybe something sensual like The Painted
    Lady Spring.
    Unlike the movies, in my stories the girl gets top billing. The boy
    is only interesting when he is interacting with the girl. Otherwise he’s
    kind of a stupe.
    * * * *
    April 8, 1978
    Stayed up late again last night and polished off Chapter 42. Plan to
    do 43 today and 44 tomorrow. I’m following a schedule that requires
    me to push this beast to completion by May 15 at the absolute latest.
    Second draft, final rewrite, typing, you name it. I want to get it done
    so I can move on to other things. First, I will take a little break from
    writing. No scribbling for a week, except maybe in this journal.
    Then I will begin my campaign to market the book. You never
    know what they want to publish. I doubt if they even know
    themselves. I feel kind of uncertain about it, but I am resolved to give
    it one hell of an effort.
    Manuscript now up to page 132.
    I have a lot of letters to write. I’m thinking about sending one to
    Meredith. Mmmm. Or maybe not.
    Got a letter from Jane K. today. John is history and she’s thinking
    of moving back to North Carolina. Wrote her a reply right away. I
    told her she can go home again, but don’t expect much. Plan to write
    Lloyd Schenzler soon as well. I have quite a bit to do tonight