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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 …
The Window of Richard Ford
Like many writers, Richard Ford is definitely a “regarder par la fenêtre” — one who “looks through the window.” In his short story Privacy and his novella-length story Occidentals, Ford’s protagonists …
A Multitude of Sins. The Stories of Richard Ford
Age bestows its many gifts with a kind of mysterious grace. My father, a witness to the many horrors of World War II, developed a passion for gardening when he …
A writer’s mind. Thoughts on Orhan Pamuk.
Culture grants no monopolies on great writing. While Europe has grabbed the lion’s share of the Nobel Prizes in literature — over 70% since 1901, more recent winners include writers …
John Updike, Racism and The Doctor’s Wife.
Preface 18 years ago, I spent a day at a long, scuffed wooden table in the Barbados Archives. The table was stacked with baptism records of 11 parishes – a …
A short missive on Shakespeare and Sonnet #2
Typically the purveyor of Shakespeare’s Sonnets is likely to be a dewy-eyed romantic or a reedy-looking professor of English with a corduroy sport jacket with reinforced elbows. Well, since I …
Sense and Sensibility. John Updike.
In late November 1961, a 29-year-old John Updike finished the draft of his short story, In Football Season. Since we share equally aquiline noses, this story has always been among …
Mortality and wisdom. Or, I’ll take Nirvana with the points.
We all negotiate with life. As one of my literary mentors, David Quammen, elegantly wrote, “we do it invisibly, sometimes unconsciously, and alone, without benefit of collective bargaining. We come …
Mark Twain and the panic of 1907
Yes, even years have super stars. 1492. 1776. 1865. But 1907 isn’t one that usually invites memory or reverence. 1907’s highlights have to be coaxed from history books. Oklahoma became …
BakerMuse Essays 