This is the voice of a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, patient, and author who wrote a memoir on her own terms. I can’t wait for Sarah Ruhl’s next play.
Book Review: “Mike Nichols: A Life” — Portrait of a Protean Artist
This nearly 600-page text is a closely detailed, comprehensive portrait by a biographer riveted, as many of us are, by his charismatic subject.
Book Review: “From Left to Right” — The Story of Holocaust Historian Lucy S. Dawidowicz
This biography of Lucy S. Dawidowicz performs the invaluable function of gathering relevant documents and drafting a narrative that rescues a fascinating historian from oblivion. But it does not add much to the history of the New York intellectuals.
Book Review: “Fallout” — Memorably Detailing the Defeat of the Hiroshima Cover-Up
I heartily recommend M.M. Blume’s excellent Fallout, which ably synthesizes large amounts of archival, historical, and biographical material from three continents.
Life Commentary: A Cultural Journalist Dealing with Cancer During Covid
It’s never a good time to be diagnosed with cancer, but June 10th, 2020, was among the worst. By that day, 7,454 people had died of COVID-19 in my state of Massachusetts.
Book Review: “Twilight of Democracy” — A Slim Investigation of the “Clerks”
Twilight of Democracy made me yearn (uncharacteristically) for hard scientific data to supplement Anne Applebaum’s punditry about the pundits.
Film Review: “There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv” — The Story of Rabbi Doolittle
This is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, one that I plan to view again and again.
Book Review: “Here We Are” — Philip Roth’s Boswell
This glimpse into the relationship of two American Jewish writers makes for good reading during the pandemic: an intelligent, gracefully written memoir of friendship.
Book Review: “These Fevered Days” — Exploring an Enigma
From the first page of Martha Ackmann’s new book on Emily Dickinson, you know you’re reading something entirely different.
Book Review: Vivian Gornick’s “Unfinished Business” — Remembrance of Pages Past
Vivian Gornick is an elegist of the transformative experience of reading and writing, what she calls “the companionateness” of books.