When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31 I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments.
What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism.
