NEED WRITERS BE WELL-ROUNDED?

Katherine Forrest was off the mark in her criticism of May Sarton’s “The Education of Harriet Hatfield� (Book Review, July 9). She complains that Hatfield has been unaware of basic women’s issues “despite� the fact that her companion of 30 years, now dead, was editor and owner of a small publishing house. Can we fail to recognize that we are all together in this amazingly diverse world? We know much, are unaware of a great deal more.

For starters, I doubt that I am alone in my ignorance of the Middle Ages, or of astrophysics. Why need we assume that Hatfield should have expertise in feminism, under the circumstances? I would wonder if every wife or companion of a surgeon, for example, is knowledgeable of the complexities and post-operative complications of a colostomy? Or, of an attorney, the infinite ramifications of tort law? This seems a trite criticism.

And, no, Ms. Forrest, if my brother were finally and desperately able to discuss his homosexuality with me, I would not then lecture him on the perils of AIDS. Of course it would be a concern. I would doubt that he did not know . . . but even so, then?

I (reluctantly) agree that this is not the finest of Sarton’s works. It is still of value. And a good read.

BARBARA L. SAX

PALOS VERDES