BOOKS AND AUTHORS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R000201830011-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 23, 2013
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: January 23, 1965
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/25: CIA-RDP74-00297R000201830011-9
HACKENSACK, N.J.?
RECORD
E. 124,391
"URN 23
,-4,41
BOOKS. AND AUTHORS.
? BY BARKHAM
? ;.'
rrHIS, I REFLECTED, would be one inter-? port I had likened his dialogue to that of John
,J view in whichlI would be able to tell the i O'Hara, only to learn later, to my surprise,
; author .something about himself he didn't that O'Hara was in fact his stepfather.
know. It was a meeting both of us had antici- Bryan laughed. "Yes, he's been my step-'
;. pated?I because I had been one of the judges father for the past ten years and takes a great
of the Harper Prize Novel Contest who had ? interest in my writing. He won't help me with '
selected his book, "P. S. Wilkinson", as win- it and he doesn't want to read any of it until
ner, and the author, C. D. B. Bryan,. because ,"it's published, but he did introduce me to his
he would be hearing from .one of the judges editor at the New Yorker and they bought
c.' why his book had been chosen. t. three of my stories. It was the New 'Yorker"
? C. D. B. (for Courtlandt Dixon Barnes) editor, in fact, who urged me to try a novel."
Bryan looks every inch the stylish writer he How had O'Hara reacted to his winning the
Is ? a tall, slender, spectacled, good-looking ';'Harper Prize and to the subsequent selection
' man with delicate features and blondish hair , of "P. S. Wilkinson" by the Literary Guild??
brushed neatly back from his forehead. Ile .He was genuinely excited by if?and also a
had, I later learned, 'a passieii for 'neatness mite relieved that his judgment that 'the kid ;
visible in his- appearance, right down to. his ? could write' had been borne out."
side-vent double-breasted suit of the kind now . Bryan's conversation is as cool and elegant ;!
coming back into vogue. He smiles easily as his dress and manner. ,His writing methods NI
? and converses with poise and charm. are, of a piece. He lives in Tuxedo Park, .1
? I explained to him that the judges in the .N. Y., with his, wife and two young children
contest had not known the titles or authors of _and once a week comes into New York City to
he manuscripts they considered, and that I work at "Monocle", a satiric magazine. At .1
had read his book' last but had unhesitatingly home he writes in a study recently done over
placed it first. The story had impressed me on the proceeds of his jackpot.
as being largely autobiographical. Was this, "I never write without a tie on?if you know
in fact, the case? ' what I mean," he remarked with a grin. "It's
. He nodded. "Yes, it was. It opens in' a psychological girnmick, of course; as though I
'?Korea. I spent 2 years there after . leaving I were saying .to myself 'If you look neat,
i!.Yale. It moves to Washington, where Wilkin- you'll write neatly.' I use the Hemingway q
son takes a lie detector test for the C. I. A. method of stopping each day, when I can see v!.
rI took such a test." round the corner, and it works for me. When
He must have observed my look of puzzle- I get stuck I call it off and build model planes.:'.
ment. "Yes, I know how it sounds, but when ..No, I'm-not putting one on.? I really mean it. ?Y
'I got out of uniform I didn't know what I. There's so much tension in writing that I find;
' wanted to do. I knew fwanted to be a writer, the gluing together of those little sticks is the
Ibut I'd had no writing experience. I was 25 it one certain method of dissipating the evil
then, and I felt I ought to do something worth- humors; the black moods."
while?something of the kind President Ken-..J1 With the success of his first novel assured,
nedy inspired among young people at the time.''!;Bryan is now toying with an idea for his next.
"So I went to the C.I.A. in Washington .t'One of these days he will seat himself in
and told them in effect: 'I (61.1 really want to .t new chair in his newly...furbished study, sur-
Work for you, but I've had this ,training . in. 'prounded by his new bookshelves, and, With his
Korea and, if it's any use to you, I'm avail- tie on, begin writing his new book. "I'm
able.', Their psychiatrists kept asking me why. hoping 'it won't be too long before one of my-1
I was offering the C. LA. my services when "characters starts talking back at me," he said.,'
I didn't really want to work for them, ? and never forget the day Wilkinson made an
nally flunked me 'mkt." ,? . :'unexpected. crack at me in the jirst hook..
1(...11ere I interpolated that. in my judge's re- ,,,,.gave me the greatest feeling hetlie
?
'f..
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/25: CIA-RDP74-00297R000201830011-9