Southern Bookman

Farewell, Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom cashed in on middle-class Americans' hunger for literary culture.

The Yale professor and prolific author of best-selling books on Shakespeare and other great Western writers died Monday at age 89 in a New Haven hospital, according to a New York Times front-page obituary.

Like Clifton Fadiman, Mortimer Adler and the Harvard "Great Books" collection, Bloom sought to impart literary knowledge to average readers. While previous workers in the trade published great-book editions for home libraries, Bloom attracted those who wanted literary wisdom without reading the books. Dwight MacDonald called the earnest desire for self-improvement "middle brow."

With his wild hair, hound-dog eyes and portly figure, Bloom was a living academic charicature. Reveling in his resemblance to the comic actor Zero Mostel, Bloom was known for his florid lectures, among Yale's most popular.

A few of Bloom's female students. including author Naomi Wolf, accused him of sexual impropriety, which he denied. Wolf said he placed a hand on her thigh.

From his perch at Yale, Bloom defended the white-male-dominated Western canon, mostly British and American. He issued thunderclaps against ethnic and women writers, whom he disparaged as the "school of resentment."

In one of his controversial books, he found that a woman at King Solomon's court had written the Jewish bible. He also claimed that Shakespeare had "invented the human," or formed the modern consciousness.

Bloom possessed a photographic memory and could recite all of Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, "Paradise Lost" and "The Fairie Queen,"according to the Times. That seems more insane than laudatory.

A literary factory, Bloom also edited a number of critical books on American and British authors, handy tools for English teachers and students.

As a critic, he ruined several writers' reputations, including Robert Lowell's. The poet's standing has rebounded in recent years.

Many who picked up Bloom's books seeking a guide to literature were left mystified. His Yale colleague, the poet John Hollander, criticized Bloom for his unclear writing, according to the Times. Bloom was notorious for using obscure literary terms.

Bloom made his mark with "The Anxiety of Influence," a ground-breaking book that asserted that young writers seek to overthrow their literary forebears through misreading their works. That was a blow against the prevailing New Criticism, which focused on texts without examining their historical and biographical contexts.

Some considered Bloom a charlatan. His unmistakable Bloomian style of bombast and encyclopedic knowledge intimidated many readers who bought his missives. Many undoubtedly were inspired to go on and read the books, using him as a guide. He began a mini-boom in Shakespeare studies issued by other academics, which continues unabated.

He championed the traditional Western book culture as elite schools like Yale instituted programs in gender studies, film, TV and even cartoons. His pronouncements were the dying cries of a a long-established literary hegemony. That his literary elitism produced so many best-sellers is amazing. In the age of Twitter-short attention spans, such success is unlikely to be duplicated.

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Russo's "Chances Are" finds redemption for Vietnam War generation

Richard Russo's "Chances Are" is a valedictory for old men who came of age during the Vietnam War.

Now in their mid-60s, three friends from college gather at Martha's Vineyard to examine their pasts.

Lincoln, a successful real estate developer in Arizona, owns the ocean home in Chilmark, Mass., where they seek to re-create a similar get-together decades earlier, after their graduation from the prestigious private school where they met.

Mickey, a lifelong rock musician who never found stardom, and Teddy, a mystical book editor, are the other members of the trio who adopted the Three Musketeers' "All for one, one for all" motto.

Each of them is haunted by the memory of a young woman who disappeared after joining them on their first visit to the island. Meeting her in college, they all were in love with Jacy, their muse, confidant, temptress and moral center. Their efforts to find out what happened to Jacy make for a mystery that runs parallel to their ruminations, which dominate the novel.

Although the characters represent different traits of the 1960s male personality, they are fully developed individuals rather than symbolic abstractions.

Russo at 70 displays a master's craftsmanship. Each well-made sentence seems essential to the narrative. The book is like a well-constructed house with no board or nail out of place. The plot's different elements come together like a symphony.

After a slow beginning, the book gains momentum. Expertly using a third-person omniscient narrator, Russo alternates among each character's point of view.  The interior passages drift toward the solipsistic, but mostly remain on track. He succeeds in giving each character a distinct personality. The characters' viewpoints outweigh the detective story's suspense, making the book more literary fiction than thriller.

Showing the Victorian scope of Dickens and Wilkie Collins, the book also recalls Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" and Francois Truffaut's film "Jules et Jim." The book gives a fresh take on mythical and classical themes.

Millennials will see "Chances Are" as another monument to baby-boomer narcissism, a portrait of aging men still obsessed by Vietnam choices.

Prone to outbursts of violence and holding on to the '60s drugs, sex and rock-and-roll ethos, Mickey is the least appealing character. His impulsive behavior undermines Russo's painting him as heroic at the book's climax.

Lincoln, battered by the 2008 recession, is the most well-adjusted to the business world, and has a strong marriage and family. He launches an investigation into Jacy's disappearance that leads to a few contrived, unconvincing plot twists.

The cerebral Teddy, emotionally paralyzed by introspection and what used to be called nervous breakdowns, is the most sympathetic character, in the end rising from his self-absorption into a new course of action.

An engrossing closing revelation about Jacy allows the trio to make peace with their pasts. With elegiac tones, the book finishes with hope for renewal. Lincoln, Mickey and Teddy find new reserves of love, forgiveness and purpose.

"Chances Are" continues Russo's late career flowering. Along with Richard Ford, he has assumed the mantle of distinguished older male novelist from Philip Roth, John Updike and Saul Bellow.

 

Missing the Times Literary Supplement

I made my own Brexit: Canceling my longtime subscription to the Times Literary Supplement.

Although I still enjoyed many of the TLS' articles on British literature and culture, reading the venerable journal had become more of a dutiful chore than a pleasure.

Under Editor Stig Abell, who took over from Peter Stothard in 2016, the Rupert Murdoch-owned TLS had undergone a subtle dumbing down. It became more like other publications in covering popular culture. It also began publishing excerpts from trendy books. The once quirky letters page had turned dreary. The regular freelance feature grew predictable rather than giving readers a sense of discovery.

Trying to keep up with the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and Harper's, I was oppressed by the TLS copies piled up.

Yet, I miss the TLS. Even under Abell, the journal showed the high-culture sophistication that shames The New York Times Book Review. The TLS still cares about the English tradition, with informative and entertaining articles on classic writers. I also loved the chatty NB column at the back of the book.

I'm sure that my Brexit will end soon, and the TLS return to my mailbox.

 

 

Farewell A. Alvarez, Robert Hunter and Dr. Bob McClelland

The New York Times obituaries Wednesday served a feast for 1960s aficionados.

A. Alvarez, the British critic, poet and reporter who chronicled Sylvia Plath's final days, died Monday at age 90, according to his Times obituary. The newspaper also noted the death of Robert Hunter, born Robert Burns, who wrote the Grateful Dead's lyrics. Hunter died Monday at age 78.

Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons who operated on the mortally wounded John F. Kennedy, was also remembered. McClelland, who died Tueday at 89, also worked on Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, after he was fatally shot by Jack Ruby.

Alvarez's study of suicide, "The Savage God," introduced me to the saga of Plath. The Times obituary quoted Alvarez's recollections of Plath visiting him in the last days of her life, reading him the electric poems published in her posthumous "Ariel." The survivor of his own suicide attempt, Alvarez regretted not taking action to save the poet.

He also published a ground-breaking anthology of poets Thom Gunn, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Plath and others. He went on to write a nonfiction work on competitive poker that, according to the Times, popularized the pastime.

Hunter also gained renown as a wordsmith, writing the lyrics to Dead classics like "Uncle John's Band," "Truckin'" and "Dark Star." Hunter's words, joined with the music of his childhood friend Jerry Garcia. gave the band its identity. While his work lay on the other side of the poetic spectrum from Plath and Alvarez, they all achieved widespread popularity from the English lyric.

McClelland joined the surgical team that sought to save the president's life in the emergency room of Dallas' Parkland Hospital on Nov. 22, 1963. Two days later, he performed surgery on the dying Oswald.

The surgeon disputed the findings of the Warren Commission that Oswald had acted alone. He believed from his examination of Kennedy in the emergency room that the fatal, large wound at the back of Kennedy's head had not come from Oswald, shooting from behind the president's car. McClelland believed the shot causing the wound had been fired from the front, coming from a gunman stationed on the famous grassy knoll.

Watching the Abraham Zapruder film strengthened his belief in a second gunman. Completing a trifecta of treating Kennedy assassination figures, McClelland years later performed a cancer operation on Zapruder.

The lives of A. Alvarez, Bob Hunter and Bob McClelland covered a large slice of 1960s history and culture. Kennedy, Plath, the Dead are faces in a gallery of the age that might have been painted by Andy Warhol.

As the Trump-congressional collision dominated the Times' front page, the obituaries gave a historical longview of political tumult and cultural changes.

 

Nashville's literary scene more vibrant than Atlanta's

Nashville boasts a better literary scene than Atlanta's.

The recent death of popular novelist Anne Rivers Siddons highlighted that writers often leave Atlanta after launching their careers here. A writer for Atlanta magazine early in her career, Siddons examined Atlanta in her best-selling "Peachtree Road." But she left Atlanta behind and called Charleston home.

The late Pat Conroy returned to Atlanta for a while, but soon left for South Carolina. A couple of years ago, Tayari Jones, author of the acclaimed "An American Marriage," came back to her hometown. But the novelist recently accepted a professor's post at Cornell, according to the university's web site.

Georgia State professor David Bottoms and Emory's Jericho Brown are nationally known poets. But Atlanta was hurt by the departures of poets Natasha Trethewey and Kevin Young.

Nashville receives mega national attention from the presence of acclaimed novelist Ann Patchett, co-owner of the overrated independent bookstore Parnassus. Publication of Patchett's newest novel, "The Dutch House," brought a new burst of features about Patchett and Parnassus, including the obligatory mention of the dog who roams the store.

Accomplished short story writer and novelist Lorrie Moore is the star of Vanderbilt's creative writing faculty. Poet and critic Mark Jarman is a longtime pillar of the school's program.

Though her "our old silver" and Southern mists pieces make me shudder, Nashville-based Margaret Renkl frequently writes for The New York Times op-ed page.

A few miles south of Nashville, Sewanee boasts one of the nation's top summer writers' conferences, directed from the start by nationally regarded poet and critic Wyatt Prunty.

Noted novelist and short story writer Jamie Quarto stands out among the University of the South's faculty. Biographer, presidential historian and TV pundit Jon Meacham, a University of the South alum, lives in Sewanee.

The university also publishes the venerable Sewanee Review, which recently received a long overdue facelift and jolt of new energy from Editor Adam Ross, author of the novel "Mr. Peanut." Bottoms a few years ago established the literary journal Five Points, which publishes nationally known writers. But it lacks the stature of the Sewanee Rivew.

On a recent visit to Nashville, reading the weekly news magazine Nashville Scene, I wondered why Atlanta can no longer support such a publication that strongly covers politics, arts, books, food and music. Nashville's many local music venues give Nashville Scene a strong advertising base. Atlanta's once vibrant Creative Loafing is now a fading monthly, while Atlanta magazine's features show more desperation than creativity.

I'm sure Atlanta has a flourishing literary scene of which I'm unaware. The annual Decatur Book Festival brings out a huge population of readers, and a couple of independent bookstores seek to maintain the legacy of Oxford Books.

But the smaller Nashville outshines Atlanta.
 

 

 

 

The 200th anniversary of Keats' "To Autumn"

Refreshed by a pleasant breeze as I walked in my neighborhood last evening, I thought about John Keats' "To Autumn."

After observing freshly cut cornfields during a walk, Keats wrote the poem on this date 200 years ago. Each year, I reread the poem on one of those mild autumnal days like the one that inspired Keats.

I never realized until reading Garrison Keillor's now emailed "Writers' Almanac" this morning that Sept. 19 was the day Keats wrote "To Autumn," his last major poem. It was a revelation that the ode to autumn was written in late summer.

Many of the poem's images are more like summer, adding to the sense of longing for a new season. The evocation of summer adds to the poem's foreshadowing of death. Keats died a little more than a year after writing the poem.

"To Autumn" was the last of the great odes he produced beginning in the spring of 1819. Despite that astonishing outpouring, Keats grew despondent  over financial worries, the belief that he'd failed as a poet and the realization that he was dying from tuberculosis.

I, like others, believe the poem the most perfect in the English language. What appears a simple celebration of the arrival of autumn has received many interpretations, the coming of death the most prevalent. Noted critic Helen Vendler sees it as a metaphor for artistic creation. Somehow, it's been linked to the Peterloo Massacre, which happened the same year. Difficult to see that connection.

What haunts me about the poem is its understanding of the impermanence of human experience. A young poet knew the reality of walking, the vision of the cornfield, the writing of the poem. He was there 200 years ago, giving us a gift that has spoken to generations.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Paris Review uncovers William Styron's fictional account of his depression battle

William Styron attempted to write a novel about his debilitating depression.

"Spiral," an excerpt from the novel, runs in the Paris Review's current issue. The piece comes from a handwritten draft found among Styron's papers at Duke University, according to an introduction by Styron's biographer, James L.W. West III.

Publication of such pieces is a flourishing practice among literary magazines seeking a sales boost from a famous author long after his or her death. All too often, these are juvenilia or abandoned failures that should remain hidden. The Hudson Review recently published an early short story by Sylvia Plath that was unexceptional, work that any young writer might produce.

But Styron's fragment, while not among his best writing, is worthy of publication. The piece, describing the narrator's first night at a mental hospital, was based on Styron's admission into the neurological unit of Yale-New Haven Hospital in late 1985, after he had fallen into a deep depression.

The first person narrator, Paul Whitehurst, is a famed playwright who "is plagued by an unshakable malaise," West says. "Paul's narrative is based closely on Styron's recollections of his own breakdown and hospitalization."

After a steady beginning, Styron abandoned the novel. "The prose veers from fiction to exposition," West explains. After returning home, Styron read widely about clinical depression, and "in later parts of the manuscript he seems determined to tell all he knows, but cannot find a way to do so within a fictional framework," West says.

Styron later wrote a compelling account of his struggle with the disease in the bestselling nonfiction memoir, "Darkness Visible."

"While "Darkness Visible" has become Styron's iconic contribution to the literature of psychology, "Spiral" is the author's initial attempt to set down the story of his depression, to document the complexity of the disease and its malefic effect on personality and behavior," West writes.

Styron's account of a confused, frightened and depressed man encountering his first night in a hospital falls short of his best writing. But the fragment displays enough of Styron's humor and gift for creating vivid characters to make it an worthwhile addition to his published work.

Harper Lee loved Bear Bryant's Alabama Crimson Tide

"To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee had catapulted to fame when the Saturday Evening Post in March 1963 published an article alleging that Georgia athletics director Wally Butts and Alabama football coach Bear Bryant had fixed a game.

A  friend of Bryant and a rabid Alabama football fan, the author of the 1960 best-selling novel was consumed by the charges, along with football followers around the Southeast.

Lee in a letter to her agent, Maurice Crain, wrote a detailed account of the scandal, according to reporter Ben Cohen's fascinating article in Friday's Wall Street Journal. "A wonderful letter from Nellie Harper Lee," Crain scribbled on the envelope. The letter is at Columbia University, Cohen said.

The Saturday Evening Post's article was based on Atlanta businessman George Burnett's claims that he had overheard a telephone conversation in which Butts disclosed Georgia Bulldog plays and formations to Bryant before a 1962 game won 35-0 by the Crimson Tide. Burnett said that while trying to make a long-distance call, he had somehow gotten connected to the former Georgia football coach and Bryant.

Butts won a $3.06 million judgment in a libel suit against the Post, while Bryant reached an eventual settlement of $460,000. The case, which advanced to the Supreme Court, reportedly played a role in the Saturday Evening Post's demise.

While the controversy transfixed the South, as reported in this 1963 article by famed Sports Illustrated writer Dan Jenkins, Lee's had received greater fame from a 1962 movie based on the now-classic novel. Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for his portrayal of lawyer Atticus Finch and his heroic defense of a black man accused of rape in a segregated small town in Alabama.

Cohen's article says that Lee followed college football all of her life, even listening to Paul Finebaum's Alabama-biased college football talk show. Along with her allegiance to Alabama, Lee rooted for Auburn when the Tigers weren't battling the Crimson Tide in the annual Iron Bowl.

Lee was also a close friend of former Auburn coach Pat Dye, to whom she wrote a number of letters. Dye, who once called her book "To Kill a Blackbird," refused to disclose the letters' contents to Cohen.

Other famous names of Alabama football lore rise in the article. Lee believed in Bryant's innocence because scrappy All-American linebacker Lee Roy Jordan supported his coach. Jordan came from a town near Lee's Monroeville, and Lee believed in Jordan's honesty.

Lee remained a prolific letter writer, while not publishing another novel during her lifetime. The posthumous "Go Set a Watchman" was an early version of "To Kill a Mockingbid." A recent book says that Lee never finished a planned nonfiction book about an Alabama minister accused of several murders.

The new revelations enhance Lee's renown as a writer of letters. Her gifts in the genre were revealed several years ago in retired Auburn professor Wayne Flynt's collection of letters between him and Lee. Giving an endearing portrait of the author, the collection presents her views on religion, politics, Hollywood, the South, writing and fame.

Perhaps Cohen's piece will lead to the publication of a collection of Lee's college football letters. The writer of a masterpiece that inspires new generations of readers, she's also worthy of a complete letters collection.

A woman who during her life counted as friends Truman Capote, Maurice Crain, Bear Bryant, Gregory Peck, Pat Dye and Lee Roy Jordan had an expansive, intellectually adventuresome personality that such a collection would honor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels from the beginning

I've begun reading James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux books from the start of the series.

In the past few years, I've finished Burke's most recent Robicheaux books as they've arrived. But I was late in discovering the Robicheaux books.

The first novel, "The Neon Rain," published in March 1987, finds Robicheaux a homicide detective in New Orleans battling Crescent City organized crime figures while running afoul of federal law enforcement agencies. While not an apprentice work, the book shows a  young writer's uncertainty.

The vivid descriptions of nature that mark Burke's later work are restrained, and the plot implausible. Fully developed major and minor characters indicate the strengths of the later books.

Clete Purcell, Burke's soulmate in subsequent works, draws Robicheaux's contempt here. Robicheaux's disreputable brother is introduced, and I wondered if he would reappear later in the series. 

"The Neon Rain" also tells the romantic story of Robicheaux's courtship of his second wife, Annie, who later comes to a tragic end. The scenes of Annie and Robicheaux evoke New Orleans' easy-going culture of restaurants, bars and sensual pursuits.

With fewer of the meandering philosophical digressions of the later books, "The Neon Rain" flashes with the vivid language that Burke would later wield with greater mastery. The book defines New Orleans' Latin indolence, wild natural abundance and virulent corruption.

In the second book of the series, "Heaven's Prisoners," published in 1988, Burke's writing is more assured. Robicheaux has left New Orleans for New Iberia in southwestern Louisiana. Out of law enforcement, Robicheaux runs a bait shop, where he doesn't spend much time as he keeps getting drawn into investigating mysteries.

The book heralds the arrival of a major character of the series, Alafair, Robicheaux's adoptive daughter. The book details how Robicheaux and his doomed wife Annie rescue the young girl from a plane that they see crash into the Gulf of Mexico while out fishing. Luckily, Robicheaux, as any bait salesman would, has his diving gear onboard his boat, and dives into the plane to save the child. Happens every day, at least in Robicheaux's world.

I plan to keep reading the Robicheaux books until I catch up with those I've finished. My unread list includes standouts like "The Tin Roof Blowdown," "Last Car to Elysian Fields," "Dixie City Jam" and "In the Electric Mist With the Confederate Dead."

Of those I've read, I thought Burke's second to last book, "Robicheaux," showed the author in decline. But the 82-year-old was back at full power in his latest book, "New Iberia Blues."

With all of his cartoon violence and outlandish characters, Burke's writing like Flannery O'Connor's is "God haunted," Jesuit priest Edward W. Schmidt says in an article in the current issue of America, the Jesuit magazine.

Echoing Catholic theology and longing for redemption through the community and natural beauty of the past. Burke's language seeks to restore a lost communion. His Robicheaux is a broken medieval knight, wandering through a blasted landscape, seeking a mystical kingdom.

Carl A. Weiss Jr. convinced many that his father was innocent of Huey Long's death

The brilliant young doctor Carl A. Weiss Sr. fired the shot at the Louisiana State Capitol on Sept. 8, 1935, that led to Huey P. Long's death, according to the long-established official story.

After the encounter between Weiss and Long in the tumultous hallway between the Louisiana House and Senate chambers, the dictatorial Kingfish's bodyguards opened fire, killing Weiss with a fusillade of bullets. The 29-year-old suffered 62 wounds, according to reports. Receiving a single gunshot wound, Long lingered for 32 hours, dying at age 42.

Carl A. Weiss Jr. was an infant on the night when Long was wounded and his father killed. The younger Weiss, who died Aug 1 at age 84 at his Florida home, devoted his life to seeking to prove that his father was not Long's assassin, as recounted in a New York Times obituary Thursday. Like his father, and grandfather, Carl Weiss Jr. was a physician. He based his successful medical practice on Long Island.

According to the Times, Carl Austin Weiss Jr. discovered the details of his father's death at age 10 when he saw John McGrady's illustration in Life magazine of that wild Sunday night. The senior Weiss, a brilliant young Baton Rouge surgeon, shot Long with his .32 pistol, according to official reports.

But the younger Weiss believed that his father had not even been carrying a gun when he encountered Long for the third time that evening. He believed that Long's fatal wound came from a bullet that ricocheted from a bodyguard's gun.

Speculation about the Long assassination has spawned a number of investigations and books. LSU historian T. Harry Williams in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Long concluded that Weiss was the assassin, firing a single bullet.

Baton Rouge political consultant Ed Reed in "Requiem for a Kingfish: The Strange and Unexplained Death of Huey Long" sided with Weiss Jr.'s belief that his father was unarmed, and only sought to speak to Long. Weiss Sr. punched Long when the senator insulted him, according to Reed, and the bodyguards opened fire, inadvertently striking Long.

Reed and others believed that the bodyguards retrieved Weiss' .32 from his car, parked near the Capitol, and planted the gun near his body.

Baton Rouge journalist Lamar White in an in-depth article for the Pelican Brief web site supports Carl Weiss Jr.'s conclusion that his father was innocent.

Journalist David Zinman in the recently re-released 1962 book "The Day Huey Long Was Shot" gives a thorough account, without reaching a definite conclusion.

Long's assassination led to conspiracy theories from the beginning, including that President Franklin Roosevelt engineered the slaying. Reed and others say Carl Weiss Sr. was upset with Long because of legislation that would have removed his father-in-law from a judgeship in St. Landry Parish. But others discount that theory. Another belief is that the doctor was upset because Long claimed the family of Weiss' wife had Negro blood.

Carl Weiss Jr. met Long's son, Sen. Russell Long, at a cordial lunch, both men distinguished elderly gentlemen. Russell Long reportedly came to believe that Carl Weiss Sr. was innocent, although he backed the official account in public.

The truth will remain unknown, but Carl A. Weiss Jr. made a persuasive case for his father.