Thanks to Jack for mentioning the Cassill title WRITING
FICTION. That is the also the book I read and reread. A
paperback, I still have it somewhere. The other title (ON
WRITING) was mentioned in the NY Times obit. They called it a
"widely used" textbook which should have alerted me that it
was different from the one I remembered.
One of his last novels (DR. COBB'S GAME, Geis 1970) is listed
in Hubin along with the paperbacks he wrote in the 1950s.
John Leonard reviewed it for the NY Times and said in part:
"R.V. Cassill's fiction has always been unclassifiable, as
omnivorous and idiosyncratic as Mailer's, examining the
relations between public life and private obsession, between
the institution and the individual, between--in this
instance--power and sex."
He gave up writing fiction in 1985, explaining "I think it's
a gift I've used up." I find that a remarkable
self-assessment as few writers recognize that point when they
reach it.
Richard Moore
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