In light of what had happened to Bullet Park, it seemed sad and ironic that The World of Apples, as the collection was called, was widely praised by the critics. This time the New York Times Book Review devoted its front page to a rave review. I remember that day too. The Sunday morning in 1973 that the review appeared, I took it to Phelps Memorial Hospital to show my father. He had just had his first heart attack, and he was hallucinating that he was in a Russian prison camp. He thought the review was a confession that he was being asked to sign, and he swore at me and threw it on the floor.
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