Obsession, Hope and Glory, Part One: Percy Fawcett’s Excellent Adventure
Sean MurphyLook at that guy. They don't make them like that anymore. The thing is, they didn't make them like that then, either. Col. Percy Fawcett was sui generis, supersized. And…
Mark Twain: The Big Daddy of American Letters
On April 21, 1910, author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Conn. Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he…
Straight, No Chaser
This Sunday's New York Times magazine features a lengthy, but worthwhile appraisal of John Cheever by Charles McGrath. The piece reassesses Cheever's current status (McGrath correctly concedes that Cheever, who died in 1982, has…
“In my stories is where I live.”
Of few writers can it more accurately be said that it is the work, not the life, that matters...That O'Connor was one of the great writers of the 20th century…
from PopMatters Best of Books 2008: Fiction
While Last Last Chance is recommended for the simple reason that it’s a fantastic book, it is also worth celebrating as an introductory statement from a young writer we should…
So It Goes
29 June 2007 Reflections on Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut would say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little…
American Chowder
Moby Dick: American Chowder "Reduced to more practical terms, if Jazz music is gumbo -- and it is -- the archetypal American novel, with Moby Dick as its progenitor and…