Letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, August 18, 1945

              im  SINCLAIR     LEWI S  2601    EAST   SECOND    ST.  DULUTH   5,   MINNESOTA  Saturday August 18  Sweet dear, I must arbitrarily pick out some day for  my start back East, and I have picked Wednesday,  September 5. Ace Lyons will be driving me East,  partly by way of Canada -- Sarnia to Cornwall, Ontario, and we'll be more leisurely, now that there is  gas, we'll take more time than on our four-day Western dash; take maybe eight or nine days, getting us  to New York probably between Wednesday Sept. 12 and  Friday the 14th. I'll telephone you en route and be  able to fix it much more exactly before I get there.  I'm writing to your mother telling her to be ready.  Ace's wife is coming with us; she is a nice, quiet,  competent Swede girl; I won't even know she's in the  car (no, no, Ace pays her expenses, not IJ) and I  think your mother will like having her along, for  chatter, all the way back here, Ace being mostly as  silent as most professional drivers. I Imagine they  will stay in New York City about one day. Ace will  drive out to East Orange for your mother and her  bags and if she wants, he can take care ofi expressing  her trunk or trunks to Dultoth.  I'll send my trunks and mail care of Harry Maule,  at Random House, so you won't be bothered with them.  What you can do for me is to enquire for me at both  Hotel Dorset and the Algonquin whether they will be  like to have room for me, for a month or so, starting  about September 14th (I'll let them know more exactly,  later.) You can see the Algonquin lords at a lunch-  hour.  Can you do this and let me know soon?  I don't really know my plans for the whole winter.  They depend largely on you and on whether I can get  some place to stay.  I may go South for a while. There  is no hurry about deciding all that, and we'll talk it  all over when I get there, and especially about whether  you are going to be able to get a week off so that we  can skip up to Provincetown.  About your mother spending the winter here (or as  much of it as she likes — she can always go back East  if she gets bored). Apparently, to her, the difference  between having this big, leisurely, quiet house —  with plenty of friends here for chatter and cards —  and having a cramped, dreary flat life in East Orange  is enormous.  It would be most selfish of you to expect her to stay there merely to clean your flat and do