HAILEY’S HOMELESS

Judith Freeman failed her critical duty in her review of “Home Free.”

For comparison, she invoked John Steinbeck, when her first obligation should have been to evaluate the author’s own intentions, then make a judgment as to style, characters, the place and time of the novel.

I think what caught Hailey’s attention was the notion that an upper-middle-class woman with pains of her own was suddenly alerted to a problem we all hear and talk about, but as individuals do very little to cure. That’s an interesting premise, for starters.

Ms. Freeman asks, “Where is John Steinbeck?” He is dead, and Mrs. Hailey lives and writes about our time and our city.

MARY LANSBURY, LOS ANGELES