Friends, Colleagues, Fellow Twaniacs:

    I love the Forum precisely because we get such an invigorating range of
opinions about our beloved Sam and those who love discussing him, and what
others have written about him.
    I'm not a Twain scholar by a long shot, just an ink-stained wretch who
has labored long in the Fourth Estate, always keeping in mind that Sam was a
newspaperman even before he took to learning how to pilot riverboats.
    One of the things, I think, that keeps discussions going on is that
there
will never be a "definitive" biography of SLC. The subject is just so big,
so
rich and so complex the best any biographer can hope to be is one or two of
the blind men after examining the elephant.
    Granted, Hoffman's extrapolations about Clemens' sexuality were the
worst
sort of using 20th century standards to write about a 19th century man, but
even his book had merit.
    This is a great group of people!
    Rave on!

Kathy O'Connell
Record-Journal
Meriden, Conn.