@dlowan,
A loooonnnnggggg time ago, before I left Detroit in 1976, I read an article that claimed that many novels supposedly by famous writers were actually ghost-written by graduate students. Supposedly, the later works of an American laureate which were markedly dissimilar from early works were all ghost ridden.
The story was probably in the Detroit Free Press or the Detroit NEws. The first American winner was Sinclair Lewis in 1930, followed six years later by Eugene O'Neill (who couldn't have been included in the dodderers who were ghosted as he was not a novelist) and Pearl Buck in 1938. T. S. Eliot who is described as British/American won in 1948 but he was a poet. Faulkner won the next year.
Hemingway was the only American to win during the '50s, while Steinbeck was America's sole laureate in the '60s. Bellow won the year I left Detroit, so he couldn't have been the one referred to.
Lewis, Buck, Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck. So, how many would believe the story? Who might have fueled a ghost-writer industry? Frankly, do you think this story grew out of a distrust of/dislike for change?
I loved
The Good Earth but hated the one other Buck opus I tried to read: something about people possibly building a bomb with a tough Air Force officer doodling the profile of the only woman on the committee in his notes.
Heminway? Steinbeck?
Travels with Charlie in no way resembles
The Grapes of Wrath!
