Letter from J.D. Salinger, Cornish, New Hampshire, to Gus Lobrano, [New York or Chappaqua, New York], [1955] : typescript signed

Saying he spoke to Lobrano's wife Jean while Lobrano was asleep, and rather than call back, he is writing to him; musing on the term "phlebitis" and imagining what his character Teddy would say about it; describing his views of the causes of illness and expressing a desire to "drive down to see you and bring my little black bag full of Zen and Vedanta"; imagining what he would do if Lobrano were to die-- "I'd never write for the magazine again. My God, I'd be so lost"; explaining why he could never bring himself to submit stories to Bill Maxwell by describing an outing to the movies he once made with Maxwell and his wife "Emmy"; expressing relief that Lobrano is going on a trip to Nassau; updating Lobrano on his progress with the story he is working on; segueing into an explanation of Lobrano's phlebitis that stems from Salinger's claim the "Somewhere in this lifetime or other lifetimes you've formed a concept of your blood stream as existing apart from the Total Concept ... The thing I wish you would do, Gus, would be to realize-- bang, with a terrible single impact-- that your whole body is a single perfect expression of God ... If you do it with a single explosive impact, you'll be well immediately"; quoting a long passage from Logan Glendening's "The Human Body," about healing mechanisms; returning to his theory of Lobrano's illness as "the result of prana ... having escaped from certain parts of your body as the direct and only effect of having separated those parts of your body from the whole, in your mind"; wishing he could talk to Lobrano about it; signing off, "I'm thinking of you and all my thoughts are good ones."