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The quiet voice. Jefferson’s first inaugural.
Note to readers: Contemporaries of Thomas Jefferson would not be surprised that he left explicitly detailed instructions for the creation of his tombstone. “A plain die or cube of 3 …
The writer and the tightrope. The fiction of Dennis Lehane.
When I read Dennis Lehane, I think of The Flying Wallendas. He deftly walks the curiously thin line between fiction and literature. The first draft of his novel, A Drink …
Pat Conroy, Transcendence, and My Reading Life
Early in his novel, The Prince of Tides, Pat Conroy brings the character of Lila Wingo to life with this brief paragraph. “She saw the world through a dazzling prism of …
The decline of eloquence
One of my favorite lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is understandably overlooked. Like a tiny ship, those five words are swamped by such iconic leviathans as: “To be, or not to …
Some scattered thoughts on EndPoint and Other Poems by John Updike.
John Updike’s prose was so rich and intimate, I never felt compelled to pry into his life beyond the printed page. But his final book, Endpoint and Other Poems is an invitation …
Hawthorne and the Veil of Sin Part 2
Sins real and imagined, inherited and acquired are the limitless fountain of many of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s best works. In my second reflection on his famous parable, The Minister’s Black Veil, …
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Veil of Sin
“What is this secret sin; this untold tale. That art cannot extract, not penance cleanse? Horace Walpole, 1768 On that bright, crisp Wednesday morning, there was the lingering smell of …
Fleming, Bond and Casino Royale.
If you have a spare $5,000 or so in your pocket, you can spend an evening in the villa where James Bond was born. On a balmy morning in January …
David Long and the art of writing
I discovered David Long in the pages of a tattered copy of GQ carelessly tossed among week-old newspapers in a laundromat in Maine. The story was called Eggarine and it …
Melville and the Leviathan. Random thoughts on his masterpiece.
“Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook?” Job 41:1 Melville’s great creation,Captain Ahab, would have a defiant answer to God: Yes. Biblical scholars debate whether this mighty Leviathan is …
BakerMuse Essays 