UNKNOWN AND DEFEATED
Written by George Jochnowitz
and Robert Roth to The New York Times Book Review, July 24, 1985

To the Editor:
It is mistake to imply, as Barbara Bauer and Robert F. Moss do (“Feeling Reject? Join Updike, Mailer, Oates …, July 21), that all good writers ultimately are recognized and that their early rejections are merely a source of embarrassment to publishers. The fact is that most writers die unknown and defeated, their works unread, never to be discovered by posterity.

—George Jochnowitz
—Robert Roth
—New York

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Given the tenor of this letter’s argument, we feel compelled to both reject and publish this letter simultaneously.