James M. Cain
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“They threw me off the hay truck about noon.” The celebrated first line of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by JAMES M. CAIN (1892-1977) tersely illustrates his verbal and narrative economy as well as […]
Read This PostCategory: Literature
Literature, literary criticism, authors.
Mary McCarthy
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Today, the name MARY McCARTHY (1912-89) first brings to mind the frank bed-hopping and catty portraiture of The Company She Keeps and The Group, her biggest seller. But she was also an immaculate stylist, and […]
Read This PostAnd we lived beneath the waves
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Psychedelic revelations about the artificial nature of reality
Read This PostT.H. White
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“To and fro/Stop and go/That’s what makes the world go round…” Ugh. I pity the fool who sees Disney’s 1963 adaptation of The Sword in the Stone (from which these insipid lyrics are quoted) before […]
Read This PostStuds Terkel
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STUDS TERKEL (1912–2008): shovel-ready and irony free. Fifty years from now, who will remind our grandchildren what a progressive looks like? And without another Federal Writer’s Project, who’ll collect oral histories from the survivors of […]
Read This PostL. Frank Baum
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L. FRANK BAUM (1856–1919) is best known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and wrote 13 sequels. Which seems like a lot until you realize that the series was dwarfed by the number of other […]
Read This PostMikhail Bulgakov
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In The Master and Margarita MIKHAIL BULGAKOV (1891-1940) created a gang of villains so fantastical and vivid in their descriptions — stocky Azazello with his straw patch of flaming hair hanging down, solitary fang protruding […]
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Do what thou Wilt
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This morning I read Tom Sharpe’s 1976 campus novel, Wilt, because an AbeBooks survey of British readers named it one of the 10 funniest books ever. I was convalescing, and therefore receptive to inspiration. There’s […]
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