Southern Bookman

Jonathan Lethem's "Brooklyn Crime Novel" marks return to roots

Jonathan Lethem's new novel/memoir "Brooklyn Crime Novel" revisits the Brooklyn neighborhood he made famous with novels based on his childhood there.

"Brooklyn Crime Novel" blends fiction, memoir and history to chronicle the 50-year transformation of his native Boreum Hill neighborhood, the setting of his acclaimed novels "Motherless in Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude."

White urban pioneer writers and artists in the 1960s began moving into the area, triggering years of intensive gentrification.

Lethem, the child of artistic parents, grew up on Dean Street, the shifting neighborhood's main thoroughfare. Attending the local New York public elementary school, he was attacked by young blacks whose lives were disrupted by the arrival of the more affluent newcomers. .

In a recent New Yorker article, Lethem details the transformation of the gritty Brooklyn neighborhood, originally known as North Gowanus, named for the polluted canal that runs through the area. He discusses how an early pioneer renamed the neighborhood Boreum Hill to give it a more appealing image.

Lethem's New Yorker essay looks back at the New Yorker writer Jervis Anderson, who in a 1977 article for the magazine examined the neighborhood's transition.

In the New Yorker piece, Lethem comprehensively chronicles the urban pioneers who led the neighborhood's makeover, undermining the lower-class black, Latino and working class whites who had lived there.

Lethem grew up near noted black playwright Lynn Nottage, with whom he rode the subway each day to the LaGuardia High School for the arts in Manhattan's Lincoln Center.

Nottage in an interview in the Paris Review's fall issue recalls growing up in the neighborhood, and its influence on her plays.

"Brooklyn Crime Novel" is the latest notable book in a bountiful fall season.

As AI encroaches upon human life, extreme weather worsens and political rancor rises, an abundance of new books brings hope. 

 

Gay Talese's friends gather to honor new book, "Bartleby & Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener"

Gay Talese at age 91 keeps the literary flame burning.

The elegantly dressed Talese recently attracted a crowd of old friends and colleagues to an old-fashioned book party marking the publication of his latest book, "Bartleby & Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener."

Graydon Carter, former Vanity Fair editor and publisher of the Air Mail online magazine, hosted the party at his Waverly Inn restaurant in New York City's Greenwich Village.

Washington Post features writer Ashely Fetters Maloy, covering the story that somehow eluded The New York Times, hailed the event as keeping alive a fading tradition.

Well-wishers included actors Tony Danza and Joel Grey, singer Judy Collins, Talese's longtime agent Lynn Nesbitt, New Yorker Editor David Remnick and Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

Talese, wearing a stylish blue suit, fedora and distinctive pocket square, basked in the praise along with his 89-year-old wife, the acclaimed publisher Nan A. Talese, who wore pearls and a fetching hat.

The book looks back on Talese's career and how he composed landmark New Journalism pieces like "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" and classic books like "The Kingdom and the Power," his acclaimed examination of newsroom politics at The New York Times, where he began his journalism career before gaining fame as a magazine writer and author.

In "Bartleby," Talese reflects upon his writing life, including the controversy over his 2016 book, "The Voyeur's Hotel." Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi pointed out factual inconsistencies in the work, and the Post's Erik Wemple raised ethical questions.

Post book critic Michael Dirda in a positive review of "Bartleby" says Talese admits to mistakes in challenging the Post's reporting and over-reacting to the negative press coverage.

Talese might identify with the independent spirit of Melville's Bartleby, yet he hasn't "preferred not to." Instead, Talese has fearlessly chronicled American life, from the hothouse existence of the famous to the every-day triumphs and failures of common people.

 

 

 

 

JFK assassination's "magic bullet" theory undermined by former Secret Service agent's new revelations

A former Secret Service agent's shocking disclosure about the John F. Kennedy assassination casts doubt on the Warren Commission's "single bullet" theory, long derided by conspiracy theorists.

Paul Landis, the 88-year-old former agent who witnessed the assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, says in a new book that he found a nearly pristine bullet on the back seat of Kennedy's limousine after the wounded president was rushed into Parkland Hospital's emergency room.

Landis, who had the duty of guarding first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, reveals the discovery in a new book, "The Final Witness," to be published by the Chicago Review Press in October

The revelation adds fuel to claims that more than one gunman fired at Kennedy. The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, based on the finding that a "magic bullet" passed through Kennedy's body, then severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally, seated in the front seat of the Kennedy limousine.

The single bullet finding supports the disputed conclusion that Oswald had time to fire three shots at Kennedy within several seconds, and acted alone.

Vanity Fair writer James Robenalt, who reviewed Landis' book and conducted extensive inerviews with him, wrote a detailed account of Landis' disclosure for the magazine. The New York Times' Peter Baker wrote a less comprehensive article, which has minor discrepancies with Robenalt's piece.

Landis stood on the running board of the limousine behind the Kennedy vehicle when the shooting occurred, ducking to avoid flying blood and brain matter.

After the limousines rushed to Parkland, he and Secret Service agent Clint Hill persuaded the first lady to release the stricken president's body, which she cradled while sitting in the convertible limousine's back seat.

When Mrs. Kennedy followed the president's stretcher into the hospital, Landis says he saw the nearly undamaged bullet sitting on the upper ledge of the back seat, near where it joined with the car's body leading to the trunk.

According to Landis, 60 years later, he took the bullet into the hospital and placed it on Kennedy's stretcher next to  his body, thinking doctors would find it when conducting a local autopsy, required by state law. He claims he forgot about the bullet, and never mentioned it to the FBI or Warren Commission investigators.

The bullet was later discovered, but doctors conducting an autopsy in Washington, D.C., not in Texas, concluded it came from Connally's body, although it was undamaged.

Investigators mistakenly thought the bullet had been found on Connally's stretcher, which sat beside Kennedy's in a hallway after the president was declared dead, and Connally underwent surgery.

Landis theorizes that somehow the bullet he found superficially entered Kennedy's back, and was jostled loose, either by Mrs. Kennedy embracing the president after he was wounded, or the impact of a shot from in front of the vehicle. The Zapruder film of the assassination appears to show Kennedy recoiling backward.

As Robenalt cites, Parkland doctors performing a tracheotomy on Kennedy used what they assumed was an entrance wound on his neck, indicating a shot from in front of him.

Hill in an interview with Baker casts doubt on Landis' recollections after the passage of so much time.

While some of Landis' recollections appear implausible, they display a specificity of detail that gives them credence.

After 60 years, Landis's questions about the dubious "magic bullet" theory will stir new controversy about the assassination.

 

 

 

 

Ann Beattie's short story collection "Onlookers" reveals human costs of Charlottesville violence

Ann Beattie is one of the writers who fostered an American short story renaissance in the 1970s.

A longtime lover of her work, I was happy to discover her new collection, "Onlookers," set in Charlottesville, Va., where she previously taught at the University of Virginia and still has a home.

The book's stories take place during the Covid shutdown as Charlottesville residents still cope with the 2017 riot that broke out when a right-wing group protested the removal of Robert E. Lee's statue from the city.

A woman was killed in the violence, one of the defining events of the Trump administration and a precursor to the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol.

Reading the collection's long first story, "Pegasus," I enjoyed a reference to the Southern short story master Peter Taylor, who also once taught at the University of Virginia.  The story's main fictional character, a retired Charlottesville doctor, also mentions Taylor's wife, Eleanor Ross Taylor, an accomplished poet whose work deserved greater recognition.

As the story notes, the Taylors lived in the home where William Faulkner stayed during his noted late-career residency at Virginia. Faulkner in his  lectures at the university memorably discussed his fictional art and career. Recordings released several years ago reveal Faulkner's distinctive voice, as if he's carrying on a conversation with the listener.

I had the honor of meeting the Taylors at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, where Mr. Taylor gave a heroic reading while still showing the after-effects of a serious stroke. Following Taylor's death, the Library of America issued collections of his work.

Like Taylor, Beattie writes short stories that reveal human personality and its connections to family and place.

Beattie began by writing about young professionals and their struggles in New York City and other Northeastern settings. In "Onlookers," she displays an understanding of history and community often associated with Southern writers, beginning with Faulkner.

Now 75, Beattie has again renewed my love for the American short story.

 

 

Bookforum's return an encouraging sign for literature

The revived Bookforum arrived in my mailbox Monday, brightening a stormy afternoon.

Bookforum appeared headed for the literary dustbin in December, when Penske Media closed the journal after purchasing sibling publication ArtForum.

After an outpouring of anguish over Bookforum's closing, the venerable Nation magazine stepped forward to revive the journal, known for its insightful reviews and cutting-edge coverage of the publishing world.

Bookforum's comeback issue picks up where it left off, like a hit show returning for the fall season.

The issue fully covers the summer's hottest novels, with Jane Hu's against-the-grain putdown of Emma Cline's "The Guest" and reviews of Paul Murray's "The Bee Sting," Jenny Erpenbeck's "Kairos," Lorrie Moore's "I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, Annie Ernaux's "The Young Man," and Maya Binyam's "Hangman," among others.

Non-fiction also receives compelling attention, especially Jesse Barron's review of Nick McDonnell's memoir of growing up among the Manhattan elite, "Quiet Street: On American Privilege."

Speaking of American privilege, I was amused to see an ad for the Nation's Caribbean cruises, several headed for Havana. Nothing denotes left-wing elitism like Nation cruises.

In a welcome back message, Bookforum's editors told its loyal readers, "our mission is to continue the conversation where we left off, publishing essays by writers who are deeply engaged with books and contemporary culture."

Noting that the journal's future remains perilous, the editors said "We weren't sure we'd ever be able to make this magazine again, and the essays reflect our own preoccupation with death, rebirth, money, belonging, and the place of art in society."

After a summer of extreme weather, violence and political turmoil, Bookforum's return shines a light in the darkness.

 

Emma Cline's "The Guest" proves novel can still excite audience

Emma Cline's novel "The Guest" was sold out at my local Barnes & Noble Wednesday.

Cline's book about a young sex worker using her wiles to move from couch to couch in the Hamptons has been the talk of New York City this summer. Young women escape into the book while riding on the subway, and New York magazine featured "The Guest" in its book club discussions.

When I placed "The Guest" on hold at the Atlanta-Fulton County Library, more than 60 readers were ahead of me. As usual, the library system hasn't purchased enough copies of a popular book to satisfy demand.

The novel's distinctive green cover poked out of every hamper at a Hamptons beach, according to a New York magazine article.

All of the Hamptons denizens interviewed said she knew someone like the title character, who begins her summer escapades at the Long Island playground of the rich and accomplished after her wealthy middle-aged boyfriend dumps her.

Cline's novel mirrors the lifestyle of her readers, as F. Scott Fitzgerald did with "This Side of Paradise" and "The Great Gatsby."

The author of the critically applauded 2016 novel "The Girls," based on the Charles Manson cult, and the accomplished short story collection "Daddy," Cline like the Irish writer Sally Rooney has revealed the novel's validity to a new generation of readers.

With serious fiction supposedly dead, the popularity of "The Guest" proves that novels can still generate excitement in the age of social media.

 

Dave Eggers' short story "The Comebacker" marks Atlantic's return to popular fiction

Dave Eggers must be channeling Ring Lardner.

Eggers' short story "The Comebacker" in the current Atlantic reads like one of Lardner's baseball yarns from the early 20th century, updated to today's volatile social media world of sudden celebrity.

"The Comebacker" tells of a minor league pitcher who receives a brief burst of fame when called up to the San Francisco Giants.

Like Lardner, Eggers displays a knowledge of baseball clubhouses and press boxes. The hard-luck pitcher gains national media attention when his thoughtful, expressive replies to a sportswriter's questions goes against ballplayers' typical cliched responses.

Recalling the popular fiction that once defined mainstream magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire, the story turns on an unexpected plot twist that explains the pitcher's surprising eloquence.

With its baseball theme, simple moral message and entertaining writing, "The Comebacker" gives a welcome contrast to the Atlantic's typical weighty nonfiction articles, like a fizzy drink or a light dessert after a heavy meal.

The story's mainsteam appeal offers an unexpected treat in the Atlantic, differing from the complex plots and dense characterization of stories published in The New Yorker and Atlantic's longtime doppelganger Harper's.

The New Yorker and Harper's kept publishing fiction when the Atlantic several years ago devoted itself to reporting and analysis on politics, culture and social issues.

"The Comebacker" is an apt name for the Atlanic's welcome come back to short stories.

 

 

 

Noted Time magazine writer Lance Morrow looks back at news weekly's glory years

Lance Morrow gained fame as Time magazine's lead essayist in the twilight years of the news weekly's dominance in American society.

Morrow's "The Noise of Typewriters: Remembering Journalism," published by Encounter Books, venerates Time's power for most of the 20th century. He looks back with nostalgia, if not mourning, at the era when magazines held a central place in American culture, even after the arrival of TV.

He briefly mentions the New Yorker, founded in the same year as Time and notorious for a satire of Time's feverish writing style. While slighting Luce's other publications, he fondly salutes the Saturday Evening Post, which like Time was a mainstay of middle-class American life, with thousands of subscribers.

Part memoir, part discourse on journalism and writing, the book ranges from Morrow's start as a clerk and police reporter for the Washington Star, the nation capital's exalted, long-vanished afternoon newspaper, to his career at Time as a reporter, news writer and back-page essayist.

He and Carl Bernstein worked together at the Washington Star before Bernstein moved to the Washington Post and rose to fame for his Watergate coverage along with Robert Woodward. Morrow and Bernstein are still close friends.

In the book's meditations on journalism, which Morrow believes holds a place in society comparable to that of religion, he examines writers ranging from Joan Didion and Norman Mailer to John Hersey and Time's Otto Friedrich.

Avoiding detailed recollections of his years at Time, Morrow devotes much of the book to an admiring biographic profile of Time co-founder Henry "Harry" Luce, who exerted immense influence over American politics and culture from Time's founding in 1923 until his retirement as editor-in-chief in 1964.

While Morrow never worked under Luce's regime and had one brief meeting with him, he presents a thorough examination of Luce's life, from his childhood in China, where his parents were Protestant missionaries, to his leadership of Time. Morrow neglects Luce's innovative photo magazine Life, and the influential business bible Fortune and never even mentions Sports Illustrated, the ground-breaking sports weekly.

Morrow extols Luce as a beneficial force in American society, while recognizing his near dictatorial control of Time's news coverage. He defends Luce against detractors who denounced Time as giving its vast readership pro-American propaganda rather than honest news. The criticism of Luce gained force during his steadfast support of the U.S. war in Vietnam.

Luce's domineering personality, momentous career and fractious marriage to Clare Boothe Luce come alive in Morrow's laudatory portrait. Morrow makes a persuasive case that Luce did more good than harm, especially when compared with Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News. Morrow, who writes for Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, never mentions Murdoch.

In one of his few recollections of his journalism career, Morrow devotes a chilling chapter to the murder of Washington socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer, which shocked the nation's capital in 1964.

The sister of Ben Bradlee's first wife and one of President John F. Kennedy's lovers, Meyer was killed at around noon on Oct. 12, 1964, on the towpath of the C&O Canal near Georgetown University and the Potomac River.

Morrow, then a young police reporter for the Washington Star, was the first journalist on the scene. He recalls viewing Meyer's dead body, left alone by the police as they searched for Meyer's killer, neglecting to secure the crime scene. After a few minutes, detectives arrived and ordered Morrow away from the body.

While a troubled black man named Ray Crump was convicted of the crime, Meyer's murder raised conspiracy theories. She was the estranged wife of high-ranking CIA official Cord Meyer, and some believed that she was killed because she knew from her relationship with Kennedy of the spy agency's alleged involvement with the president's assassination. The gun used to kill Meyer was never found.

Morrow says he was obsessed with the case for years, but has given up collecting information about the slaying, He believes that Crump was the sole killer.

The book closes with a look at Time's 75th anniversary banquet in 1998 at Radio Music Hall. The gala event was attended by an all-star group of celebrities who'd been featured on Time covers through the years.

When Morrow walks out from the music hall to Manhattan's Sixth Avenue and sees the dark Time-Life building, he knows that Luce's "American Century" is over.

 

 

 

Darryl Pinckney gives warm portrait of Elizabeth Hardwick in memoir "Come Back in September"

Elizabeth Hardwick is the moral and cultural center of Darryl Pinckney's memoir "Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan."

Pinckney, who came to Columbia University in the 1970s from an upper middle-class upbringing in Indianapolis, signed up for Hardwick's creative writing course, which she taught at Columbia and Barnard.

The Southern-born Hardwick grows fond of the young gay black student, inviting him to her Upper West Side apartment and introducing him to many of the great books of Western literature.

The long-suffering wife of the mentally unstable poet Robert Lowell, Hardwick gained an independent reputation as a critic, journalist, short story writer and novelist, especially after Lowell's death in 1977. 

In Pinckney's remembrances, Hardwick regally conducts her tutorials from her red couch in the apartment's living room, taking books from her shelves for Pinckney to borrow. The reader pictures her elegantly dressed, as in the winsome photo on the book's cover.

She wittily regales Pinckney with literary gossip from the past and present, and stories about her own youth in New York City and upbringing in Kentucky. Her voice rises from Pinckney's pages.

Pinckney's elliptical, lyrical style gives the impression of overheard conversations from a dangerous, thrilling era of New York City, when art, music, theater and literature swirled in ferment. Hardwick both upholds cultural traditions and welcomes new creative energy.

While often visiting Hardwick, Pinckney was receiving another education as a member of New York City's avant garde gay scene, frequenting all-night clubs and engaging in drugs and wild sex.

He recounts adventures with fellow young aesthetes Felice Rosser, Jim Jarmuch, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Luc (now Lucy) Sante, Howard Brookner and Nan Goldin. Athens' own B-52s appear several times as a favorite band.

The revels end with AIDS decimating an entire generation. Pinckney escaped succumbing to the disease but did require a stint in rehab. Whether for alcohol or a harsher addiction to heroin or cocaine is left unclear. In recovery, Pinckney heads to Europe, living in still divided Berlin and writing his first novel, "High Cotton."

A driving conflict of the book is Pinckney's efforts to keep his Bohemian lifestyle secret from his proper family. His father is a high-ranking NAACP official, and the family has ties with black leaders of the civil rights movement.

Pinckney treasures his family's prominence while seeking to escape their strictures. The serious health problems suffered by one of his two sisters gives a sad undercurrent.

Thanks to Hardwick, Pinckney falls into the New York Review of Books circle, working for editors Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein, Hardwick's neighbor and best friend. Epstein emerges as almost as important a mentor to Pinckney as Hardwick and the book is dedicated to Epstein's memory. Silvers is pictured as an unstable, bullying tyrant, whom Epstein endures.

Under Epstein's exacting editing, Pinckney gains his first publications in The New York Review, co-founded by Hardwick, Lowell, Barbara Epstein and her then husband Jason Epstein during the New York newspaper strike of 1963.

Now 70, long involved in a stable relationship with the English poet and political journalist James Fenton, Pinckney is known for his novels and the nonfiction works "Busted in New York and Other Essays," "The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy" and "Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature."

Fenton, a close friend of the late Christopher Hitehens and Martin Amiss from their days at Oxford, acts as sort of a Greek chorus, commenting on Pinckney's reminsceces and reading.

The powerful women writers Susan Sontag and Mary McCarthy also play significant roles in the book. Pinckney especially grows close to Sontag., who  over the years rises as the third feminine grace in Pinckney's life. 

McCarthy makes more of a subsidiary appearance, mainly as an old friend of Hardwick. Along with literary events in Manhattan, McCarthy and Hardwidk were neighbors in Castine, Maine, where they both had summer homes. Like Hardwick, McCarthy overcame a doomed marriage to a prominent male writer, in her case the critic Edmund Wilson.

Pinckney gives a Proustian view of a vanished era. The book ends in 1989 with the death of McCarthy, and an image of Hardwick taking the cross-town bus to see her old friend in the hospital as McCarthy was dying.

Hardwick lived on until 2007, her reputation eventually surpassing that of Lowell. Pinckney launched a recent revival of interest in Hardwick's work, editing her Collected Essays in 2017 and a collection of her New York City short stories. Hardwick's autobiographi9cal novel "Sleepless Nights," recently republished by the New York Review of Books, is considered a classic.

In summing up Hardwick's work, Pinckney says "Elizabeth Hardwick wrote to honor the literature she cared for."

Pinckney's beautiful work does the same.

 

 

 

Martin Amis' "The Moronic Inferno" revisits 1980s America

Martin Amis' "The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America" gives a literary portrait gallery of 1980s American culture and politics.

After Amis' recent death, I ordered the collection of his early journalism, first published in 1986. The "Mornonic Inferno" presents profiles and reporting mainly written for the British publications the Observer, the New Statesman, the Sunday Telegraph, Tatler and the London Review of Books. The work precedes Amis' move to Brooklyn after achieving fame as a novelist.

The book is like a literary wax museum of the era, giving profiles of then prominent writers and entertainment personalities, most of whom are now dead.

Amis turns his lens on Saul Bellow, Truman Capote, Diana Trilling, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Gore Vidal, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, William Burroughs and Joan Didion.

Taking a bemused view of the already well-established writers, Amis shows their vanity and quirks. He has not yet begun to rival them as a major author.

A few subjects remain current in the culture: Steven Spielberg, Gloria Steinem, Paul Theroux and Gay Talese.

In an article written for the then recently revived Vanity Fair, Amis examines the strange career of the film director Brian De Palma, a purveyor of gratuitous sex and violence to some and a brilliant auteur to others.

Amis' dismissive review of Albert Goldman's biography of Elvis Presley gains contemporary resonance following last year's lauded movie about the tragic rock star. While not completely sympathetic to Presley, "Elvis: He Did It His Way" blasts those who exploited him.

A 1979 account of then California Gov. Ronald Reagan's first campaign for the presidency raises the book's retrospective fascination. At the time, Reagan was challenging then President Gerald Ford, who eventually lost to Jimmy Carter. Amis perceptively examines Reagan's popular appeal that would lead to his two terms in the White House, and a seismic shift in American politics.

In a 1981 report for the Observer on the Atlanta child killings, Amis registers the terror that gripped the city. Amis updated the article with a postscript on the 1982 arrest of Wayne Williams, whose guilt is still disputed. The killings still haunt Atlanta, which recently dedicated a memorial to those slain.

"Double Jeopardy: Making Sense of AIDS," published in 1985 in the Observer, takes another early view of a historic event. The piece challenges the irrational panic the disease stirred when it first appeared. Looking back from today's vantage point, Amis'  report shows the AIDS epidemic as a precursor to today's cultural wars.

An amusing portrait of Palm Beach society written for the Tatler in 1979 seems prescient in light of Donald Trump's rise to the presidency and his recent debacles. The roots of Trump's Mar O Lago ethos are already visible.

Amis' Moronic Inferno blazes in today's America.