cover image Double Lives: American Writers' Friendships

Double Lives: American Writers' Friendships

Richard R. Lingeman, . . Random, $24.95 (255pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-6045-0

Rivalry, generosity, inspiration, camaraderie, sexual passion and love color the six pairs and one trio of literary friendships presented by Lingeman, biographer of Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser. Ernest Hemingway publicly denigrated the writing of his champion, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and lampooned him as a childish buffoon in A Moveable Feast . Mark Twain and William Dean Howells, both ambitious westerners who sought acceptance by the Boston literary elite, collaborated for 40 years with barely a ripple of discord. Sarah Orne Jewett encouraged Willa Cather to be honest about her lesbianism and write about the Nebraska she knew and loved. And while Edith Wharton bristled at being called Henry James's disciple, she listened to the master and found her niche writing about New York high society. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady shared drugs, beds and life stories, and in the process, forged a beat aesthetic. H.L. Mencken's ambivalence toward Theodore Dreiser, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's fatherly understanding of the passionate egoist Herman Melville round out the volume. Although its scope is narrow (all the subjects are white, and none more recent than the '50s) and lacks the originality and vision of Rachel Cohen's Chance Meeting , this well-researched volume has many insights to offer serious students of American literature. (On sale Apr. 18)