His writing featured his own viewpoints on things, and portrayed a very moral sort of person. In Once Upon a Town, he was suposed to be too embarrassed to go to a bikini contest alone. He was the star of his writing, so his character was an issue, since we were supposed to see things through his eyes. His character and personality were his product. He was celebrating the morality of this town in his book, while behaving immorally himeself. That makes his opinions pretty worthless. He didn't portray his writings through the eyes of an immoral person who admired the moral. He portrayed them through the eyes of someone who was himself moral.
But when writers choose to trade in personality, they would be advised to borrow a phrase from the legendary sports columnist Red Smith and ''open a vein.'' What emerges should be the truth, their truth.
Greene Cheese