McCullers: Canon Fodder? McCullers: Canon Fodder?
What makes an American writer? In today's narrow, backlashed literary market the chain of command is quite clear. The "greats" are Updike, Pynchon, Mailer, Bellow and Roth.
Jun 8, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Sarah Schulman
Harrington’s Dilemma Harrington’s Dilemma
Maurice Isserman's The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington evokes and will enrich the legacy of the last great American socialist in the tradition of Eugene Debs and N...
May 25, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Tom Hayden
The Compleat Walker The Compleat Walker
Shortly before he died, Bruce Chatwin found God. This was on top of Mount Athos, after which he left for Katmandu. Looking down from the bees and grapes, he had seen an iron cros...
Apr 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard
Reparting the Waters Reparting the Waters
It is delightfully ironic that a site has been approved for the construction of a monument in Martin Luther King Jr.'s name on the Washington Mall, given that in the last months ...
Apr 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Jason Sokol
The ‘Casanova of Causes’ The ‘Casanova of Causes’
To her biographer, Simone de Beauvoir confided a less than rhapsodic one-night stand, in 1946, with the Hungarian malcontent Arthur Koestler: "One night I got so drunk I let him ...
Mar 22, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard
Bobby, He Hardly Knew Ye Bobby, He Hardly Knew Ye
Robert Scheer was the last journalist to interview Robert Kennedy.
Feb 3, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Robert Scheer
Was It Good Party Music? Was It Good Party Music?
Lionel Trilling once commented that "if ever we want to remind ourselves of the nature and power of art, we have only to think of how accurate reactionary governments are in thei...
Jan 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Jeremy Eichler
The Woman Who Would Be Senator The Woman Who Would Be Senator
As you may have heard once or twice, we have a little Senate race going here in New York.
Jan 20, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Michael Tomasky
Saying It Ain’t So on Joe Saying It Ain’t So on Joe
The cold war has been over for a decade but it lingers on the American home front.
Jan 6, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stanley I. Kutler
‘Our’ Gide? ‘Our’ Gide?
Whenever Gide wrote or spoke about himself directly, which was not infrequently, he would insist that his wars within were to be traced to his very genes.
Nov 25, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Patrick Smith