In Memoriam
April 3, 2012
Harry Crews and the Death of Southern Literature 11
by Baynard Woods
When we look past the haggard face and the thrilling biography full of fights and fornication, Harry Crews’ fictional world is closer to Kafka’s Eastern Europe than to today’s good ole boy.
February 26, 2012
Dmitri Nabokov Dies 2
by C. Max Magee
“Dmitri Nabokov, the son of Vladimir Nabokov, who tended to the legacy of his father with the posthumous publication of a volume of personal letters, an unpublished novella and an unfinished novel that his father had demanded be burned, died on Wednesday in Vevey, Switzerland. He was 77.” At MetaFilter, the son daughter of the [...]
February 20, 2012
Remembering Anthony Shadid in Beirut 3
by Nathan Deuel
The wind was blowing as morning broke over Beirut. In the kitchen, I poured a glass of milk for our daughter. Firing up the iPhone, there it was: New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid had died on assignment in Syria. He was 43 years old.
January 13, 2012
A Weed in My Flower Garden: Remembering George Whitman of Shakespeare and Company 2
by James Gregor
A friend was coming from Atlantic City. We needed another bed! Ignoring the line of waiting customers, George ordered me to climb out onto the dilapidated roof to retrieve a piece of rotting plywood, skewered with nails. I obliged, of course. Later, he brought me gluey pancakes, which I clandestinely flushed down the toilet.
December 16, 2011
Remembering Hitch 4
by Mark O'Connell
It took a particularly potent kind of charisma to allow a person to engage in such concentrated namedropping, urinating all the while, and still manage to come across as utterly charming. Hitchens had that kind of charisma.
December 16, 2011
We’ll Miss Hitch 0
by C. Max Magee
Vanity Fair remembers Christopher Hitchens, a favorite of ours who was always fun to root for, and who, as you’ve no doubt heard by now, died last night. Andrew Sullivan remembers an email exchange from happier times. Hitchens’ ebook from this year, The Enemy, is in our Hall of Fame, and we reviewed his memoir, [...]