Southern Bookman

A new Thomas McGuane short story in New Yorker a treasured literary event

I'm happy that a Thomas McGuane short story appears in the current New Yorker.

"Thataway," about an elderly brother and sister reconciling after the death of another sister, isn't one of McGuane's best stories, but I read it with a quick rush of pleasure.

Most contemporary stories in the New Yorker and literary journals lose me after the first paragraph. McGuane at age 84 is one of the few remaining writers whose stories I look forward to reading.

McGaune began publishing stories in the New Yorker in 1994 after writing classic novels such as "Ninety Two  in the Shade" and "The Bushwacked Piano." He also turned to screenwriting and directing films.

Beginning in the 1960s, McGuane along with Jim Harrison, Raymond Carver, Sam Shepard, Harry Crews, Richard Brautigan and other writers brought a new macho energy to American literature.

Like many of his stories, "Thataway" takes place in the American West. He's lived in rural Montana and Key West, Fla. along with other "outsider" writers. 

While McGuane's reputation as a novelist has somewhat declined, he's established himself as a master of the American short story.

One of the last surviving writers of his generation, McGuane's still creating work of enduring value.

 

Matthew Klam's style deepens with short story "Hi Daddy," published in New Yorker

Writer Matthew Klam has displayed his distinctive talent in a small body of work.

Acclaimed as a fresh new voice with his 2000 collection "Sam the Cat and Other Stories," Klam appeared infrequently until the publication of his satirical 2017 novel "Who's Rich," which also received widespread praise.

Klam, now 60, makes a notable rare appearance with his short story "Hi Daddy" in the current issue of the New Yorker. The story, which examines a middle-aged man's coming to grips with his daughter's gaining independence as a young adult and caring for his aging parents, exhibits Klam's stylistic brilliance with a deeper maturity.

The short story follows Klam's "The Other Party," published in the New Yorker in 2022, which also focused on affluent professionals in suburban Washington, D.C. coping with life changes. 

New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman in an interview accompanying "Hi Daddy" asked Klam if he's working on a collection of "suburban-D.C. family stories."

Klam replied "there is certainly a conversation going on between that last story and this one, about families and neighbors in the D.C. area, but I don't know how much more I have to say."

Devoted Klam fans like me will be excited to discover Klam's work in whatever direction his career takes.

 

Rachel Kushner's "Creation Lake" raises literary firestorm

Rachel Kushner's"Creation Lake" is this season's literary lightning rod, drawing extreme critical reactions.

The 55-year-old Kushner's new novel, long-listed for the Booker Prize, received extravagant praise Sunday from The New York Times' Dwight Garner in the newspaper's Sunday Book Review, and condemnation from American novelist Brandon Taylor in the current London Review of Books.

While Taylor questioned why the novel was even written and joked in an X feed that the book "gave him Lyme Disease," Garner in his review said the book "consolidates Kushner's status as one of the finest novelists working in the English language. You know from this book's opening paragraphs that you are in the hands of a major writer, one who processes experience on a deep level. Kushner has a gift for almost effortless intellectual penetration."

Washington Post reviewer Ron Charles agreed with Garner, gushing that "Creation Lake" "bears all the hallmarks of her inquisitive mind and creative daring." In an expansive review in the Atlantic, Lily Meyer called the book a "swerve" that "suggests Kushner is ready for big change."

While the Guardian lauded the book, the Wall Street Journal reviewer Sam Sacks was lukewarm, relegating "Creation Lake" to his fiction roundup in the WSJ's Saturday Review.

Garner's review likely will do more than any other to boost the book's sales. Garner is the Times' most important book critic, now mainly writing for the Sunday newspaper rather than the daily Arts section, and the Sunday Book Review is the nation's leading literary arbiter.

Kushner's novels "The Flamethrowers," "Telex from Cuba" and "The Mars Room" also stirred heated critical debate, as did her essay collection "The Hard Crowd."

It'll be interesting to see if "Creation Lake" lands on the Times' best-seller list after garnering such media attention. These days, fantasy, horror and romance novels dominate the list, rarely crashed by "literary novels."

 

New biography acclaims longtime New Yorker editor Katharine S. White

Katharine S. White played a major part in shaping Harold Ross' vision for The New Yorker.

One of the first employees of the magazine after its founding in 1925, White added urban sophistication and literary ambition to Ross' idea of a racy Jazz Age trumpet blast.

White executed the details of Ross' editorial genius, yet her contribution has been slighted with more credit given James Thurber, William Shawn and her husband, E.B. White.

The longtime New Yorker fiction editor receives long overdue recognition with the publication of author Amy Reading's new biography, "The World She Edited: Kartharine White at the New Yorker."

White's purview at the magazine extended beyond her duties as fiction editor, expanding into poetry, humor pieces and the Talk of the Town essays at the front of the publication.

Under her guidance, serious short stories defined the magazine as much as its famous cartoons. Along with her protege William Maxwell, she developed the careers of John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov, John O'Hara, John Cheever, Peter Taylor, Jean Stafford, Nadine Gordimer, Mary McCarthy, Mavis Gallant and others

The mother of longtime New Yorker writer and editor Roger Angell, White retired in 1961 to a home in rural Maine with her husband, whose career flourished as the author of the children's novels "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little" and as a revered essayist for the New Yorker and other magazines.

Katharine White now receives her due as a great American editor.

 

 

 

 

Al Pacino in excerpt from memoir "Sonny Boy" looks back on South Bronx childhood

Al Pacino's three closest childhood friends succumbed to heroin.

Acting, and his mother's love, saved Pacino from a similar fate, as he vividly recalls in his forthcoming memoir "Sonny Boy." 

In an excerpt titled "Early Scenes" in the current issue of The New Yorker, Pacino looks back on his childhood roaming the South Bronx with his wild friends.

Abandoned by his father, Pacino and his mother lived with his Sicilian grandparents in a small apartment in a multi-cultural neighborhood near the Bronx River. His mother's father, a plasterer, really did come from the small Sicilian village of Corleone.

Pacino's emotionally fragile mother took her "Sonny Boy" to the movies from an early age and did her best to protect him from the worst excesses of the streets. Through the years, Pacino rarely saw his father, although he remembers him fondly.

At age 16, Pacino discovered the theater, viewing a small company's production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" at the Bronx's Elsmere Theater. 

The self-taught actor rode the subways reading the Russian writer's plays. Later, after classes at New York's High School for the Performing Arts and lessons at an actor's studio, he recited Shakespeare soliloquies while walking the city streets. He and his roommate, Martin Sheen, worked menial jobs at small theaters seeking to break into acting.

His mother's accidental drug death left Pacino numb with grief. In his warm recollections of her, he never mentions her name.

Despite the devastating loss, Pacino refuses an offer to return home and live with his grandparents. "Early Scenes" ends with his decision to begin the next act.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dynamic cover marked Sports Illustrated's first appearance 70 years ago

Sports Illustrated's first issue appeared on this date in 1954.

A framed copy of the magazine's inaugural cover hangs on our den wall, a cherished gift from my son.

In Mark Kauffman's color photo, Milwaukee Braves slugger Eddie Matthews, wearing No. 41, swings at a pitch as kneeling New York Giants catcher Wes Westrum reaches out his mitt and home plate umpire Augie Donatelli crouches.

White type above the famous title proclaims "FIRST ISSUE."  The cost is 25 cents.

Washington Post writer Frederic J. Frommer in an article about the 70th anniversary of the magazine's first appearance discloses that Time-Life founder Henry Luce's new sports magazine was considered a foolish gamble by many of the company's executives.

As Frommer reports, sports at the time had not yet obtained a widespread national appeal. Leagues had much fewer teams, and fan bases were regional. Sports followers were considered blue collar, not the wealthy consumers that magazine advertisers hoped to attract.

Despite the corporate misgivings, Luce's idea was an instant hit with readers and advertisers, revealing an incipient national sports market. In the late 1950s and 1960s, pro football's popularity soared as the biggest beneficiary of sports' new national appeal, with the rising AFL's merger with the long established NFL bringing new teams into the sports landscape.

As Sports Illustrated's first cover reflects, the magazine arrived at a time when major league baseball stood alone as a national sport. Each league only had eight teams, with the World Series dominated by the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Braves' move from Boston to Milwaukee prefigured an era of expansion, with the Dodgers moving to Los Angles, the Giants to San Francisco and the A's to Kansas City, then  Oakland. But the sport once known as the national pastime slowly receded as pro football surged.

The weekly Sports Illustrated, with its color photos and lively writing by Dan Jenkins, Frank Deford, Roy Blount Jr., Tex Maule, Mark Kram, Paul Zimmerman and others, chronicled sports' increasing hold on the American imagination.

Over the years, Sports Illustrated covers gained a mystique for athletes and fans. Making the cover meant a player had arrived as a star.

But the first cover surpasses them all in illuminating the magic of sports.

 

 

 

 

 

Griffin Dunne recounts Hollywood life of triumph, tragedy in "The Friday Afternoon Club"

Griffin Dunne's "The Friday Afternoon Club" upholds his family's glittering literary heritage.

The nephew of famed writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne and son of acclaimed author and crime reporter Dominick Dunne, Griffin Dunne looks back on a life of privilege, heartbreak and tragedy.

In the tradition of other revealing Hollywood memoirs, the 69-year-old actor, director and producer examines the intense pressures and fear of failure at the heart of film glamour.

Dominick Dunne enjoyed a blossoming career as a film producer, hosting sumptuous Hollywood parties with his wife, Ellen Griffin Dunne, that attracted a dazzling array of film stars. Griffin rccalls Sean Connery saving him from drowning, Elizabeth Montgomery serving as his babysitter, and his mother's close friendship with Natalie Wood.

It all crashed when Dominick Dunne at a dinner party told a cruel joke about the high-powered agent Sue Mengers. Suddenly, no one returned Dominick's calls, and he was finished as a film tycoon.

The book's tragic center is the murder of Griffin Dunne's beautiful and vivacious sister Dominique, a rising film star. The book's title derives from the name his late sister gave to a group of young actors with whom she frequently met.

The 22-year-old star of the movie "Poltergeist" was strangled by her boyfriend, John Sweeney, on Halloween in 1982. In a trial presided over by an incompetent judge who issued several prejudicial rulings in favor of Sweeney's attorney, the killer was found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder, eventually serving three years in prison.

Griffin Dunne recalls the family's outrage over the trial and the defense attorney's malicious tactics. But the family's anger resulted in Dominick's emergence as a writer for Vanity Fair. Tina Brown, the magazine's new editor, met Dominick at a New York dinner party, and when he mentioned the trial, asked him to write about it. 

Dominick's success from reporting on the trial upset his son, who grew up admiring his uncle more than his father. Griffin poignantly describes his reconciliation with his father before his death in 2009 from cancer at age 83. As Griffin details, Dominick was tormented by his homosexuality, which he struggled to resist until late in life.

At times not an admirable character, Griffin fearlessly recounts scandalous behavior and career missteps. Yet he never loses the reader's sympathy.

One of the book's most captivating vignettes is his youthful friendship with Carrie Fisher before she gained fame portraying Princess Leia in "Star Wars."

Dunne amusingly recalls how Fisher didn't expect the movie to be a hit and was shocked by her sudden rise to stardom. They remained friends, and he endearingly recalls his final goodbye to her before her death.

With inside glimpses of the New York and Los Angeles film and theater worlds, and a full cast of memorable characters, "The Friday Afternoon Club" affirms the enduring power of family love.

 

 

Farewell Lewis Lapham, stylish writer and innovative Harper's editor

New journalism zealots castigated Lewis Lapham for replacing beloved Harper's editor Willie Morris.

The Mississippi native Morris thrilled the New Yorker literati by shaking up the venerable journal, running articles like Norman Mailer's 90,000-word report on the Vietnam protest in Washington.

But Harper's, founded in 1850, hemorrhaged money. Morris' innovative but expensive pieces dismayed the magazine's corporate owners, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, which at last ousted Morris.

Lapham took over, restoring the magazine's editorial decorum and producing shorter, more economical articles. While the financial losses continued, Lapham kept Harper's going until a savior emerged

The patrician editor, who led Harper's from 1976 to 2006, with a hiatus from 1981 to 1983, died Tuesday at age 89 in Rome. He also served as the magazine's managing editor from 1971, when he replaced Morris, to 1975.

Descended from a wealthy family, Lapham wore stylish suits and enjoyed upper class amenities while lampooning the foibles of the elite. One of his grandfathers was a founder of Texaco and another served as mayor of San Francisco, where Lapham grew up.

After graduating from the Hotchkiss School, Yale and Cambridge University's Magdalene College, Lapham discovered a passion for journalism. He worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and New York Herald Tribune before finding success as a freelance magazine writer

Along with his insightful editing, Lapham was lauded for the progressive essays that skewered America's crass materialism and provincial outlook.

Satirizing his fellow members of the upper class, Lapham wrote with a haughty, Mandarin style that recalled 18th century British essayists. While he published writers like Tom Wolfe and Christopher Hitchens, Lapham as an author was a throwback to classic journalism.

While Lapham was seen as the corporate henchman who ousted Morris, he brought several innovations to Harper's that continue today, including an index of surprising facts and a compilation of  annotated writings titled "Readings."

After leaving Harper's, Lapham edited the Lapham Quarterly, which published selections from classical literature along with work by contemporary writers. Each issue was devoted to a particular theme.

I personally admired Lapham for a long, thoughtful response he made to a letter to the editor I sent to Harper's. He personally signed the typed reply.

Harper's financial difficulties persisted under Lapham, and the magazine hovered near death until 1980, when it was purchased by the John D. and Catherine T, MacArthur Foundation and the Atlantic Richfield oil company, which made the publication a nonprofit.

It continues on under the foundation's guidance, gamely competing against the well-endowed Atlantic,  also founded in the 19th century, and the New Yorker, whose corporate backer Conde Nast is under financial duress. Another intellectual journal, the New Republic, recently launched a revival.

While Morris is acclaimed for his ground-breaking editing at Harper's, Lapham saved the magazine, also giving it a new burst of energy.

 

Farewell Lewis Lapham, stylish writer and innovative Harper's editor

New journalism zealots castigated Lewis Lapham for replacing beloved Harper's editor Willie Morris.

The Mississippi native Morris thrilled the New Yorker literati by shaking up the venerable journal, running articles like Norman Mailer's 90,000-word report on the Vietnam protest in Washington.

But Harper's, founded in 1850, hemorrhaged money. Morris' innovative but expensive pieces dismayed the magazine's corporate owners, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, which at last ousted Morris.

Lapham took over, restoring the magazine's editorial decorum and producing shorter, more economical articles. While the financial losses continued, Lapham kept Harper's going until a savior emerged

The patrician editor, who led Harper's from 1976 to 2006, with a hiatus from 1981 to 1983, died Tuesday at age 89 in Rome. He also served as the magazine's managing editor from 1971, when he replaced Morris, to 1975.

Descended from a wealthy family, Lapham wore stylish suits and enjoyed upper class amenities while lampooning the foibles of the elite. One of his grandfathers was a founder of Texaco and another served as mayor of San Francisco, where Lapham grew up.

After graduating from the Hotchkiss School, Yale and Cambridge University's Magdalene College, Lapham discovered a passion for journalism. He worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and New York Herald Tribune before finding success as a freelance magazine writer

Along with his insightful editing, Lapham was lauded for the progressive essaays that skewered America's crass materialism and provincial outlook.

Satirizing his fellow members of the upper class, Lapham wrote with a haughty, Mandarin style that recalled 18th century British essayists. While he published writers like Tom Wolfe and Christopher Hitchens, Lapham as an author was a throwback to classic journalism.

While Lapham was seen as the corporate henchman who ousted Morris, he brought several innovations to Harper's that continue today, including an index of surprising facts and a compilation of  annotated writings titled "Readings."

After leaving Harper's, Lapham edited the Lapham Quarterly, which published selections from classical literature along with work by contemporary writers. Each issue was devoted to a particular theme.

I personally admired Lapham for a long, thoughtful response he made to a letter to the editor I sent to Harper's. He personally signed the typed reply.

Harper's financial difficulties persisted under Lapham, and the magazine hovered near death until 1980, when it was purchased by the John D. and Catherine T, MacArthur Foundation and the Atlantic Richfield oil company, which made the publication a nonprofit.

It continues on under the foundation's guidance, gamely competing against the well-endowed Atlantic , also founded in the 19th century, and the New Yorker, whose corporate backer Conde Nast is under financial duress. Another intellectual journal, the New Republic, recently launched a revival.

While Morris is acclaimed for his ground-breaking editing at Harper's, Lapham saved the magazine, also giving it a new burst of energy.

 

Rosanna Warren looks back on sunny Breton summers with her parents, Robert Penn Warren and Eleanor Clark

Poet, biographer and literary critic Rosanna Warren in an article in the current Harper's magazine recalls two idyllic childhood summers in France's Brittany region.

Warren and her brother Gabriel lived in local homes with their famous parents, the poet, novelist and critic Robert Penn Warren and the writer Eleanor Clark.

"My Mother's Oysters: Recollections of Breton Summers" gives an intimate glimpse of her family's life, portraying her illustrious father and mother as warm and loving parents.

The family came to the village of Locmariaquer in the summer of 1961 so that Clark could do research on the rustic village's oyster-based economy. The next year, the family lived in the Basque region in the south of France before returning to Brittany.

Rosanna celebrated her eighth birthday and Gabriel his sixth during their first year's sojourn. She remembers receiving a birthday gift of a small plastic carriage drawn by eight miniature horses.

Brittany, unlike other parts of France, was settled by Celtic tribes who migrated from Britain in ancient times and lived among the region's original inhabitants. The region was separate from France until 1532.

Rosanna Warren, interviewed by Southern Bookman in 2009, remembers going to school in Locmariaquer with oyster workers' children. She and Gabriel were taught by nuns who conducted their lessons in French, although she and her brother didn't speak the language.

The trips weren't always blissful: Rosanna broke an arm in a beach accident, and the entire family caught the mumps. When they left France in 1962, they found themselves thrust into the French-Algerian war. Clark tensely drove the family to the airport through Paris streets lined with machine gun-bearing soldiers.

In the article, Rosanna Warren examines Brittany's rich history and special geography. She recalls ancient churches with martyr's bones, and viewing in astonishment the ancient stone monuments known as dolmens and menhirs.

Clark's immersion with the rustic oyster workers resulted in her 1964 book "The Oysters of Locmariaquer," which won the National Book Award.

Rosanna Warren, now 71, says at the end that the region's people, history and oceanic geography remain real to her. Her fondest memory is of her parents, who allowed her to explore childhood wonder.

 

 

Taffy Brodesser-Akner's "Long Island Compromise" the summer's literary rave

Taffy Brodesser-Akner's "Long Island Compromise" looks like the summer's hottest pop novel.

"Long Island Compromise," published Tuesday, arrives with a rush of media attention, similar to the excitement surrounding Emma Cline's "The Guest" several years ago.

Brodesser-Akner's splash of media interviews included a revealing hour-long discussion Tuesday with "Fresh Air's" Tonya Mosley in which the writer looked back on her journalism career, her challenges in completing the book, and her childhood in a Jewish family with homes on Long Island and in Brooklyn.

“Long Island Compromise” is also receiving enthusiastic reviews.

The longtime profiles reporter for The New York Times authored the 2019 literary sensation "Fleishman Is in Trouble." She also wrote and producded a popular TV miniseries based on the book,

"Long Island Compromise," which Brodesser-Akner started writing before "Fleishman," examines a wealthy industrialist's1980 kidnapping at his home in Middle Rock, an exclusive Long Island town based on the real Great Neck.

The book explores the long-tem physic costs of the kidnapping on the factory owner’s three children.

As Brodesser-Akner disclosed to Mosely and other interviewers, the book is based on the real kidnapping of a close friend of Brodesser-Akner’s family.The crime occurred during Brodesser-Akner's childhood, and continues to haunt her, as she disclosed in a recent article for the Sunday New York Times magazine. In the article, she tells the story of the real kidnapping victim and his family.

"Long Island Compromise's" early acclaim identifies it as one of those rare books that blend literary ambition and popular appeal, asserting that the American novel remains vital.