|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Garry Wills, Lead Time: A Journalist's Education (Doubleday & Co., 1983) Garry Wills dropped out of Catholic Seminary a month before graduation (he went on to earn a Doctorate in classics at Yale). Given the inveterate skepticism that marks his work, it's a little surprising he lasted so long. His tone is tempered by a sympathetic thru-line, though, as is evident in this collection of magazine work spanning three decades, and covering primarily political topics. In his pieces on draft-dodgers, garbage collectors championed by Martin Luther King, Nixon, and other bastions of the Civil Rights and antiwar eras, Wills is at his best; he blends keen historical insight with a laconic literary flare, drawing on oft-arcane sources (the synoptic Gospels, for a comparison to Bert Lance; Alexander Pope's vision in "The Dunciad" as a metaphor for Richard Nixon's White House) to make his point. Robert Sherrill writes in the New York Times Book Review, "One reason Mr. Wills is such as fascinating writer is that he is such a mixture, combining the faith of Cardinal Newman with the skepticism of Ambrose Bierce. Part of his education was at a Catholic Seminary; part of his career was spent chasing stories over police blotters and through barrooms and jails. Metaphysics and fleshpots—what better training for a political writer?" (New York Times Book Review, July 3, 1983, page 2) MORE: Online interview with The Atlantic Multiple NPR audio interviews with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross |
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||