Those Who Left Us: Literary Obits of 2021
This highly selective list of literary lights that were extinguished during the past year ranges from brand names to barely-knowns.
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The Anti-Adventures of Gary Paulsen
While Hatchet provided readers with some much-needed escapism, The Island centered its focus on what we can never escape—mortality, which, in the immediate aftermath of Paulsen’s passing, takes on new significance.
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Nightcap with Gian
We need generous readers with the courage of conviction in their own taste, who believe in books and stand up for those convictions. Who know, as Gian did, that artistic integrity is tough to maintain without opposition to the reigning pieties.
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Those Who Left Us: Select Literary Obits From 2020
This was, after all, the year when everything stopped making sense.
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Those Who Left Us: Select Literary Obituaries of 2019
Death didn’t discriminate in 2019—it took down the acclaimed, the obscure, and a little bit of everything in between.
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I Know He Enjoyed Your Calls
I kept finding reasons to visit Frank. Did he still have letters he and Irma exchanged during the war when he was in the Pacific? Photos of the two of them?
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Gene Wolfe and the Book of Gold
His example was a welcome counter to the romanticized notion of the philandering rebel artist. Regular habits, a strong work ethic, and a love of revision were the secret ingredients to a successful writing career.
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The Saving Grace of Mary Oliver
Oliver’s queer identity and search for meaning provided the subtle underpinning for much of her work and we—in search of understanding, comfort, fortitude—often saw ourselves and our questions reflected in it.
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On Mary Oliver and Resisting Poems of Gladness
Was it possible that, despite my best efforts to resist proscriptive poetry doctrines, somewhere along the line I’d internalized the unspoken tenet that accessible poems of praise and wonder are less worthy of real attention?
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Literary Obituaries of 2018: Let Us Now Praise the Under-Sung
Here is a highly selective list of a handful of these wonders, several of whom touched my life in deeply personal ways.
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Remembering Shiva Naipaul
His books are long out of print, basically forgotten. And when they were current, his last name always overshadowed his first.
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Leonard Cohen and Zen
This seemed to be Leonard’s way. He transformed the world into his image of it. Those of us who were around were brought into a land of ancient poetic lore.
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What I Saw When I Really Looked: My Late Brother, Heroin, and Grief
How would our relationship have been different if, while he lived, I had really seen my brother? What if I had welcomed his vision of the world into my own?
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Reading Vonnegut to Cope with Death
“So it goes.” It bespeaks the way I had always approached death—sometimes scratching my head, sometimes with cynicism, and sometimes with a shrug.
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Childlike Wonder, Adult Wisdom: Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin, Donald Hall, and Aretha Franklin
Going over 80 with Le Guin is wondrous. Reincarnation would be a fine belief to have, but short of that, thank goodness Le Guin’s books are immortal.
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A Eulogy for Two Unsung Heroes of Egyptian Literature: Yahya Haqqi and Sabri Moussa
Yahya Haqqi deserves a eulogy about his place in Egyptian literary heritage. Sabri Moussa deserves a eulogy for his film scripts, short fiction, and novels.
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Not Half Bad: Remembering My Friendship with John Goulet
He read the new intro to his novel out loud. I gave him some pages I was working on. This was what we had. We were writers. We were friends.
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Shining and Whole: In Remembrance of Donald Hall
He’s now, if not with his beloved Jane Kenyon, at least no longer in a world without her. Only the words they wrote are left behind, breathing without them.
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