A Faulkner Story I Really Hope Is True

I heard this story while studying Faulkner as an undergraduate. I've never seen any confirmation of it, but I've decided it's too delicious not to be true.

You already know that Faulkner was the author of towering works of fiction like Absalom, Absalom!, Light in August and The Sound and the Fury. You may not know that he also wrote for the movies. In the 1940s, he worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for Howard Hawks, and had a hand in the scripts for The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not.

One weekend, Faulkner was invited to spend the day out fishing with some Hollywood bigwigs, one of whom was Clark Gable. During the trip, conversation turned to literature. Gable asked Faulkner, "Who would you say are the best American writers living today?"

Faulkner considered for a moment, then said, "John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and myself."

"Oh!" Gable said. "You're a writer?"

"Yes," Faulkner said. "What do you do?"