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Fewer & Better. Payne's latest, The Marshall Story, was dredged chiefly from Manhattan's well-stocked 42nd Street library. Payne met Marshall once for a few minutes in China in 1946, but he has neither asked Marshall for information for his book nor has he spoken to anyone who has known Marshall. Says Payne: "I wanted to stay clear of the military mind." The result is that The Marshall Story also stays pretty clear of the inner Marshall, reads like what it is, a glib job of carpentry.
Perhaps Payne might write better books if he wrote fewer, but he is not in a mood to consider that. His publishers (he has nine at present) have begged him to slow down: his books are competing with each other in the bookstores. Payne's answer: "I intend to go on writing six or seven books a year."