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| James Gurney |
Friday, September 26, 2025
David Levine on writers: Don DeLillo
David Levine (1926-2009) was one of America’s most prominent illustrators during a career that spanned decades. No less an authority than Jules Feiffer described him as "the greatest caricaturist of the last half of the 20th century,” although Levine continued to work in the early years of this century as well. Levine’s subjects included himself (above) and people from many walks of life. Authors, scribes and scribblers were a big part of the mix, as these caricatures make clear.
First Lines: Jack Kerouac
All right, wifey, maybe I'm a big pain in the you-know-what but after I've given you a recitation of the troubles I had to go through to make good in America between 1935 and more or less now, 1967, and although I also know everybody in the world's had his own troubles, you'll understand that my particular form of anguish came from being too sensitive to all the lunkheads I had to deal with just so I could get to be a high school football star, a college student pouring coffee and washing dishes and scrimmaging till dark and reading Homer's Iliad in three days all at the same time, and God help me, a WRITER whose very “success,” far from being a happy triumph as of old, was the sign of doom Himself.
Vanity of Duluoz
Jack Kerouac
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Review: "Don't Let Him In," Lisa Jewell
By Liz Soares
Ash is devastated by the loss of her personable, successful father, Paddy Swann. But things get worse when her mother falls for a former colleague of Paddy’s, Nick Radcliffe. Nick writes a letter to Nina Swann after he hears about Paddy’s death, and they correspond for awhile. When they meet, they hit it off. Nick is handsome, generous and full of ideas for expanding Paddy’s small restaurant chain. But Ash is suspicious. She contacts Paddy’s long-ago girlfriend, Jane, and together they begin an investigation.
Just who is Nick Radcliffe? The story unfolds in chapters narrated by alternating voices: Ash, an unnamed man, and a woman named Martha. She runs a successful flower shop in a village near Ash and Nina’s home in Kent. Martha is head over heels in love with her new husband, Alistair, but his strange behavior and frequent absences worry her. She begins an investigation of her own…
Jewell is in fine form in her latest psychological thriller. Ash is a fragile but likable character who is struggling to find herself as an adult. Martha, a mother of three who has built a fine life for herself, engenders compassion as she makes a succession of bad choices. Nick is a hateful, yet fascinating, character. The story’s setting in scenic coastal Kent lends a cozy vibe that contrasts nicely with the intensity of the plot.
Readers will definitely echo “don’t let him in,” as they furiously turn the pages to learn the depth of Nick’s depravity. A near-perfect, gut-wrenching thriller!
David Levine on writers: S.J. Perelman
David Levine (1926-2009) was one of America’s most prominent illustrators during a career that spanned decades. No less an authority than Jules Feiffer described him as "the greatest caricaturist of the last half of the 20th century,” although Levine continued to work in the early years of this century as well. Levine’s subjects included himself (above) and people from many walks of life. Authors, scribes and scribblers were a big part of the mix, as these caricatures make clear.
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