PrettyFakes

Don Harington, the great novelist, is in the hospital with pneumonia and a broken hip. If you’ve read his novels and admired them (and I frankly do not see how you could read them and not admire them), you might wish to send him a note at kimharington at sbcglobal.net. Kim is his wife and will deliver the messages. If you don’t know what to say, put yourself in his place: You suffer from diabetes, in the last ten years you’ve had throat cancer, a broken ankle from a disastrous auto accident, a broken hip, pneumonia twice, you can’t eat or drink (because of the throat surgery), but have to take glucerna several times a day, and although you are one of the most brilliant and beautiful writers this country has ever had, all your life you have been routinely neglected in favor of fakes, frauds, wannabes, also-rans, incompetents, and suck-ups.

Not that you have to address all of that. Hell, one line will do. Just tell the man what his writing means to you. Just say something, anything.

This culture is so obsessed with the new that we neglect the true achievers. Harington’s not just some factory process to produce stories. He’s a human, and right now a human in pretty serious trouble. He could use a bit of encouragement.