A CBS and NPR commentator, New York
magazine reviewer and literary editor for the Nation, Leonard (This Pen for Hire,
etc.) has also worked as editor of the New York Times Book Review. This collection of 27 essay-reviews, most previously published in the Nation, seems oddly defenseless without the buttressing context of the magazine, since each one remains oriented toward pub-date–driven summings up. Subjects range from late or gray writers Arthur Koestler (Leonard lifts part of his subtitle from the Koestler bio he reviews), Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Hardwick and Saul Bellow, along with Commentary
editor Norman Podhoretz, to Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam and novelists Bambara, DeLillo, Kingsolver, Powers and Rushdie. Everywhere in these pages are attempts at liveliness: "Once upon a time, I was a Wunderkind. Now I'm an old fart"; "Picasso was nasty, brutish, and short, but he changed the way we saw the world." While effective in giving a blunt quick take on careers or pieces of writing, Leonard's commonsense approach obscures more than it reveals, as when, for example, he gives a free pass to the late writer Bruce Chatwin, who lied until the end about his AIDS infection: "... I am not so presumptuous as to instruct a stranger on how to die heroically. We didn't know about Rock Hudson in advance, so why should we have known about Bruce Chatwin? Who says writers have a higher obligation than actors? Or politicians?" Even though this book fails to deliver the coherent moral or aesthetic vision that would live up to the profundity of the subtitle, Leonard's infectious energy and love for reading and writing come through clearly. (Feb. 28)
Forecast:Despite Leonard's high profile, this diffuse book has no clear hook, as
Nation readers will have seen the pieces before, and Leonard's rattling style works less well between hard covers. Viewers of Leonard's
Sunday Morning segments may account for some sales if they run across the book.
