The Great Gatsby at 100
Sean MurphyF. Scott Fitzgerald got America in his sights, for all time Why is the The Great Gatsby the great American novel? Because it mattered then, and it matters now. Because it was…
1925, 2025
“Civilization’s going to pieces...I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard? Well, it’s a fine book,…
2023: A Final Farewell to Some Irreplaceable Icons
Wow, it's sad to look back and see the sheer number of all-times greats we watched depart our planet this year. Of course, these losses are invariably mitigated by the…
The Struggle of Memory against Forgetting: Why Milan Kundera Matters
i. Kundera almost killed me, still in my creative cradle, a writer needing nourishment. He arrived in my life too early. As a reader, it wasn’t soon enough, as what…
Kurt Vonnegut at 100
So It Goes: Reflections on Kurt Vonnegut (written after his death in 2007 and included in my first collection of non-fiction, Murphy's Law Vol. One). Kurt Vonnegut would say in…
THE BLACKENED BLUES, One Poem at a Time: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cigarettes
I’m happy to announce that my first poetry collection, The Blackened Blues, is available wherever you buy books (yes, *wherever*, so you don’t have to put more money in Rocket Man’s…
Melville at 200 and, of course, Moby Dick
Herman Melville is not only, arguably, our most American author; he is America. Author of the most successful second act in literary history (posthumous, alas), Melville is sui generis as…
National Poetry Month #6: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cigarettes
April, according to this poet, is the cruelest month. April, according to these lovers of poetry, is National Poetry Month, and the only cruelty is metaphorical (which isn’t to say T.S. Eliot was being…
Death of a Salesman and the American Dream
Burn all the political books and essays: trivia masquerading as analysis that mostly measures horse races and trends, at best attempting to make sense of what's already history; if you…
How to Kill a Cliché: Celebrating Sam Shepard (One Year Later)
Lee: …That’s stupid. That’s one a’ those?—whadya’ call it? Whadya’ call that? Austin: What? Lee: Whadya’ call it when somethin’s been said a thousand times before. Whadya’ call that? Austin:…