patience toward writers

"Roger Straus was legendary for his patience toward writers on his list, blithely letting deadlines pass as long as he felt reasonably certain that someday the wait would prove worthwhile. But even he had a limit, as the epic vagaries of Charles Jackson would eventually bear out. By 1960, as Roger noted, his friend had 'red ink on the books to the tune of $9,398.94,' which didn't include personal loans in the neighborhood of $2,700 ('or at least that is the total of the traceable sums in my file'), though almost to the end he continued to encourage Charlie and help him make ends meet. However, there simply wasn't as much to talk about now that Charlie only made 'an occasional, embarrassed, dutiful allusion' to his stalled novel(s), as he would admit five years later in 'The Sleeping Brain,' where he nonetheless also claimed that his meetings with Roger had remained as frequent and affable as ever. His letters tell a different story: 'Wanna take any bets on my lunch date with Roger tomorrow?' he wrote Sarah in 1961. 'It's still on but momentarily I expect a cancellation.'"

~~ from Blake Bailey's Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of                                           Charles Jackson