""" I am also surprised by the meanness with which two of these writers refer to my wife. In order to imply that I am a tyrant, they suggest by both direct statement and innuendo that she is subservient, characterless, and stupid - a mere "device" easily forced to provide meaningless "free labor." I understand that it is impossible to make an adequate public defense of one's private life, and so I will only point out that there are a number of kinder possibilities that my critics have disdained to imagine: that my wife may do this work because she wants to and likes to; that she may find some use and some meaning in it; that she may not work for nothing. These gentlemen obviously think themselves femin- ists of the most correct and principled sort, and yet they do not hesitate to stereotype and insult, on the basis of one fact, a woman they do not know. They are audacious and irrespon- sible gossips. """

Things change but they stay the same.

Those responding saying he treats his wife as a tool are just mean-spirited. She was his editor and, apparently, as much a part of his creative process as his pencil and paper. I can certainly imagine that she was willing and happy in that role. (And yes, the marriage has lasted. She's been described as one of the most important fiction editors no one has heard of, thanks to her work with her husband.)

His reaction, though, seems to say that working on a computer rather than on a typewriter would completely eliminate her role in the process. This is, of course, a failure of imagination on his part. If she'd learned to use a word processor she would have been able to do the job she'd always done, probably with more flexibility and efficiency than when she had to type essays multiple times through the revision process.