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.

 

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.

 

"Easy Rider's" cinematic beauty salvages film's fatuous script

"Easy Rider's" visual majesty contrasts with the film's time-worn performances.

Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda's counterculture epic creaks with the fatuous dialogue of their screenplay, co-written with Terry Southern. Under Hopper's direction, the film's fast pace does build suspense and narrative momentum. While the script seems dated overall, some of the lines retain their power.

Laszlo Kovacs' gorgeous cinematography eloquently expresses the film's message of corrupted American beauty. The soundtrack also enhances Hopper and Fonda's flamboyant performances as hippies riding from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

Hopper's zany antics as Billy result in a hippie caricature, more cornball than cutting edge after all of these years. Fonda's Wyatt - the equally trite "Captain America" - displays moments of quiet dignity reminiscent of his father Henry. Wyatt and Billy - yes, we get it, Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Instant irony, kids.

The two groovy dudes finance their trip with a cocaine deal - deemed heroic at the time, but contemptible now. Phil Spector makes an amusing cameo appearance as an all too easily pleased drug dealer who eagerly buys their cocaine stash, which they had acquired in Mexico.

Jack Nicholson's brief appearance in his breakout role as the dissolute lawyer George Hanson raises the film's temperature. Karen Black, Nicholson's co-star in the more accomplished film "Five Easy Pieces," also injects energy as a New Orleans prostitute forced to act out an unconvincing acid trip in New Orleans' above-ground tombs.

Once again, I resented the film for slandering my native state by depicting Louisianians as violent, prejudicial rednecks. Many are, but I doubt they'd murder white hippies. At the time, plenty of longhairs roamed the state.

Despite their heavy-handed performances, the shots of Fonda and Hopper cruising past American vistas deliver a rare cinematic excitement, thanks to Kovacs.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Doris Kearns Goodwin's "An Unfinished Love Story" gives vibrant portrait of 1960s

Richard Goodwin as a speechwriter and political insider witnessed the Democratic Party's rise and fall during the volatile 1960s.

Before Goodwin's death at age 85 in the spring of 2018, he and his wife, the acclaimed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, combed through his copious archives to write a retrospective of that turbulent decade.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's "An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s" impressively completes the project, combining a loving portrait of Goodwin's career, her own recollections of the era, and a day-by-day recounting of 1960s political events that shifts from inside views of decision making to public drama.

Goodwin began his career as John F. Kennedy's confidant and speechwriter during his 1960 campaign for the Democratic nomination for president and victory over Republican Richard Nixon.

Campaigning side by side with Kennedy, Goodwin witnessed moments such as Kennedy's inspiration for the Peace Corps in an early morning meeting with University of Michigan students, and Kennedy's dominant TV debate against Nixon.

In one of the shining moments of the Kennedy presidency, Goodwin and Jacqueline Kennedy planned the famous Dinner in Camelot, for which Nobel Prize winners gathered at the White House on April 29, 1962.

After Kennedy's assassination, Goodwin helped plan details of the slain president's funeral.

Although Goodwin later bitterly broke with Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War, Goodwin wrote LBJ's eloquent speeches that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act and other civil rights legislation.

Following his break from Johnson, Goodwin joined the campaign of Eugene McCarthy, whose success caused LBJ to decide not to seek re-election in 1968. Doris Kearns Goodwin, relying on her husband's recollections, gives an in-depth view of McCarthy's well-organized New Hampshire primary campaign whose success persuaded Johnson to withdraw.

When Robert F. Kennedy joined the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Goodwin shifted to the New York senator's campaign. Goodwin was at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when RFK was assassinated there in 1968.

Before meeting Goodwin, Kearns also participated in 1960s events such as the March on Washington in 1963. A Harvard graduate student, she served as a White House fellow during Lyndon Johnson's administration, eventually becoming his confidant and helping him write his memoirs after the left Washington to return to his Texas ranch.

The book takes a positive look at the 1960s, emphasizing the advances in human rights and equality for blacks and women. Sadly, the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, conservative resistance and political turmoil disrupted the advances.

Doris Kearns Goodwin expresses hope that her look back at the 1960s will illuminate today's efforts for political, social and economic equality. Her "unfinished love story" is also the nation's.

 

Drive to suburbs less horrible than feared

I recently made one of my rare trips to the Atlanta suburbs, driving to Kennesaw for a medical procedure.

My pre-travel dread lifted when I found the traffic less congested than I'd feared on I-285, I-75 and I-575.

I easily found my destination, a generic brick Piedmont Hospital building. The multi-purpose medical facility wasn't that far away from North Buckhead, where I live.

The cheerful medical technician efficiently carried out my CT scan, and I was on my way  back home. The traffic had increased, and I ran into congestion at the hair-raising curve from I-75 to I-285 at Truist Park and the Battery.

Metro Atlanta added nearly 60,000 new residents over a 12-month period ending in April of this year, according to Atlanta Regional Commission estimates. Gwinnett has joined Fulton County in the 1 million-resident club.

With inadequate mass transit, most of those newcomers must drive, further overwhelming the interstates and surface roads.

My suburban adventure proved less daunting than expected. But as the metro-area population soars, travel will grow more frightful.

 

Black Army officer Lemuel Penn's slaying 60 years ago shocked nation

Two shotgun blasts broke the early morning silence at the Broad River Bridge near Athens, Ga., on July 11, 1964, killing black Army officer Lemuel Penn, a Washington, D.C. educator and World War II veteran.

Penn and two fellow black officers were returning home after two weeks of Army Reserve training at Fort Benning, now Fort Moore, in Columbus, Ga.

The assistant superintendent of Washington's public schools, the 48-year-old Penn received a World War II Bronze Star, serving in New Guinea and the Philippines.

As Penn's Chevrolet Biscayne sedan approached the bridge on Georgia State Route 172 near Colbert in Madison County, three Klansmen in a station wagon pulled beside the soldiers' car.

The shots were fired into Penn's vehicle, killing him instantly as he sat at the steering wheel. His passengers, Maj. Charles F. Brown and Lt. Col John Howard, stopped the automobile from going into the river.

Penn's killing nine days after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act shocked the nation with its brutal display of entrenched white Southern resistance to the black civil rights movement.

The three Klansman saw Penn and his companions stopped near the University of Georgia arch in downtown Athens, where Penn took over driving duties for the trip. 

Noting the car's Washington license plate, Athens Klan members James Lackey, Cecil Myers and Joseph Howard Sims decided to follow the officers. Sims reportedly said "that must be one of President Johnson's boys" and vowed "to kill me a nigger."

The Klansmen in their Chevy II station wagon at last caught up to Penn's car 22 miles north of Athens at the Broad River Bridge, marking the boundary between Madison and Elbert counties. Myers raised his shotgun and fired, and Sims did the same from the back seat, according to Wikipedia.

Penn's three assailants were charged in the highly publicized slaying. Myers and Sims, accused of firing the fatal shots, were acquitted of murder in a nationally publicized Madison County trial. Lackey was found innocent in a separate trial.

Sims, Myers, Lackey and three other Klansmen later were charged in a federal conspiracy case. While the other defendants were found innocent, Sims and Myers were convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to 10 years each.

A ceremony at the Madison County Senior Center Thursday marked the 60th anniversary of the slaying. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Fletcher Page in a front page article about the remembrance presented a detailed account of the slaying and Penn's life.

Legendary Atlanta Constitution political columnist Bill Shipp gave the definitive history of the slaying in his book "Murder at Broad River Bridge: The Slaying of Lemuel Penn by the Ku Klux Klan," published by the University of Georgia Press.

Acclaimed Atlanta broadcaster John Pruitt fictionally portrayed the slaying and its media coverage in his compelling 2022 novel "Tell It True."

Penn's slaying was one of the most appalling of the civil rights era. Sixty years later, racial violence burns with new intensity.

 

 

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.

Farewell Robert Towne, acclaimed "Chinatown" screenwriter

Robert Towne raised the prominence of scriptwriting in American culture.

Towne, who died Monday at his Los Angeles home at age 89, received the critical acclaim once given directors and novelists.

Although recognized by Academy Awards categories, screenwriting was undervalued until Towne and other "New Hollywood" script mavens arrived in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Following Towne, many young literary aspirants turned to writing movies rather than plays, magazine articles and books.

Receiving the 1975 Academy Award for his "Chinatown" screenplay, Towne also wrote "The Last Detail" and "Shampoo" and made significant contributions to "The Godfather" and "Bonnie and Clyde," along with other movies.

While Towne's "Chinatown" script is known as an exemplar of the screenwriter's art, director Roman Polanski changed the ending, to Towne's intense opposition.

Still grieving the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by the Charles Manson gang, Polanski insisted that the movie end with the shocking slaying of Faye Dunaway's character Evelyn Mulwray by her father, the despicable Noah Cross, chillingly played by John Huston. In Towne's original script, Cross is killed by his daughter.

Mrs. Mulwray's tragic end leads to the famous last line, "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."

It's never been disclosed who wrote the finale, but Towne originally had the idea of Chinatown as a symbol of Los Angeles' greed and immortality, which he said derived from a conversation with a Los Angeles detective.

According to author Sam Wasson's "The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood," Towne received uncredited help on his "Chinatown" script from his Pomona College classmate Edward Taylor, with whom Towne worked throughout his career.

Towne like his close friend Jack Nicholson began writing, directing and acting for B movie horror master Roger Corman, who recently died. Nicholson portrayed Towne's 1930s Los Angeles detective Jake Gittes in "Chinatown" and Navy officer Billy L. "Badass" Buddusky in "The Last Detail," two of Nicholson's defining roles.

Warren Beatty, another Towne friend, also portrayed a memorable Los Angeles prototype, the hairdresser George Roundy, in the 1975 movie "Shampoo," which Beatty co-wrote with Towne.

Towne directed several movies, including the 1988 crime thriller "Tequila Sunrise" and the 2006 romantic drama "Ask the Dust," starring Collin Farrell and Salma Hayek.

Inspired by Los Angeles writer Raymond Chandler and his famous detective Philip Marlowe in writing "Chinatown," Towne also wrote the screenplay of  "Ask the Dust," saluting John Fante, another classic Los Angeles author. 

Towne's cinematic visions of Los Angeles match Chandler and Fante's depictions of the city as a soulless place of broken dreams.

While "Chinatown" and other Towne movies will excite new generations of viewers, young writers will also study his scripts for their literary value.

 

 

 

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis' travails threaten newspaper's future

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis' tenure increasingly looks tenuous, endangering the newspaper's long-term survival.

The New York Times Tuesday fired the latest salvo at the former Rupert Murdoch consigliere, alleging Lewis destroyed evidence during a Scotland Yard investigation of phone hacking allegations against Murdoch's News of the World.

Lewis, supposedly cooperating with police and leading clean-up of the scandal at the now defunct tabloid, instead oversaw the destruction of millions of newspaper emails, the Times reported.

Murdoch's newspaper was accused of hacking the phones of prominent news subjects, most egregiously a 13-year-old murder victim. Prince Harry and others have filed lawsuits seeking damages in the hacking scandal.

The embattled Post publisher, a former executive at Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, incited a staff revolt after announcing a newsroom reorganization that led to the departure of former Post editor Sally Buzbee.

Post owner Jeff Bezos installed Lewis to stave off losses reported to have reached $77 million last year. Before Lewis' arrival, the Post suffered severe staff cuts. 

Under the shakeup, Lewis presented a new leadership team of fellow WSJ alum Matt Murray and London Telegraph editor Robert Winnett. Murray immediately replaced Buzbee and runs the newspaper's daily operation, which has published several articles critical of Lewis. 

After the presidential election, Murray is to direct a new Post department devoted to social media news, video and lifestyle features. Winnett was supposed to have come in to take charge of the Post's "core" newsroom, but he decided not to leave the Telegraph after the Post staff's unrest grew.

A rising drumbeat of stories drew attention to Lewis' efforts to cover up the phone hacking allegations. Recent articles disclosed conflicts of interest in public relations and news ventures Lewis launched after leaving the Journal. His consulting firm WJL Partners, bearing his initials, advised former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The revelations consistently point out the looser standards of British journalism, including paying news informants, a practice in which Lewis reportedly engaged.

Sad that such a disreputable journalist now leads the newspaper of Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham, famous for breaking the Watergate scandal that led to the downfall of former President Richard Nixon. 

To save the Post from further damage, Bezos needs to replace Lewis.

Perhaps former editor Marty Baron, who faced his own staff dissension, can be brought out of retirement to take the publisher's role, although he's revered as a newsroom leader.

London Guardian media writer Margaret Sullivan, a former newspaper executive and New York Times ombudsman, could also bring restorative leadership.

Bezos appears to value the Post, but he might decide to give up the sinking newspaper. Even a multiple billionaire like Bezos doesn't like to lose millions. A sale to a hedge fund or a right-wing media billionaire like Murdoch would further devastate the newspaper. Or Bezos could close it for good.

Post lovers like me hope the newspaper survives and flourishes once more.