The Impossible Presidency

The Impossible Presidency

Professor and historian Jeremi Suri’s The Impossible Presidency shines. Neither ornate nor prosaic, his words are well-chosen, his metaphors apt, the construction of the argument convincing (to me, at least). A previous work, Kissinger, rests on my desks...
First Impressions and bad judgement

First Impressions and bad judgement

I work on my next novel “Resurrection” every day. My first objective is to tell a good story. My second it to get the spelling, punctuation and grammar right. Somewhere along the way, I would hope to illuminate how good-intentioned (at least in their own minds) men...
Perfume River – The storyteller and truth

Perfume River – The storyteller and truth

The Storyteller and Truth Robert Olen Butler and Perfume River The novel is a pack of lies hounding the truth. Carlos Fuentes Robert Olen Butler is in my estimation the finest living American author and his just released book, Perfume River, his finest novel. It is...
On Bullshit: Liars and Storytellers

On Bullshit: Liars and Storytellers

On Bullshit and On Truth I had long visualized the lexicon landscape between The Truth and The Lie as a continuum along which lay a rich and varied vocabulary––deception, denial, camouflage, working truth, baloney, etc––with full equivalents in every language on the...
Lying: Sissela Bok

Lying: Sissela Bok

Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (Sissela Bok) deeply informs  Liars and Storytellers. I have carried a copy in backpack and briefcase for decades,  reading it cursorily now and then, edition after edition disintegrating from disuse,  always children,...