Dispatches from the Gilded Age: A Few More Thoughts on Interesting People, Far-Flung Places, and the Joys of Southern Comforts

Garden & Gun columnist Reed (Julia Reed’s New Orleans), who died in 2020, profiles activists and artists, travels to exotic locales, and offers tart advice on food and fashion in this colorful essay collection spanning her 40-year career. The book opens with Reed’s first byline, a Newsweek story about the 1980 murder of Scarsdale Diet doctor Herman Tarnower by his girlfriend Jean Harris. (Reed, a college sophomore and “part-time library assistant/phone answerer” at the magazine, got the assignment because Harris was the headmistress at her former private school in McLean, Va.) Elsewhere, Reed has a spirited sit-down with death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean (“I quit trying so hard not to take the Lord’s name in vain when she told me an old Mickey Mouse joke with the f-word in it”); recalls how her friends treated her “like someone just diagnosed with a brain tumor” when she called off her first wedding; visits a beauty school in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan; and reflects on how cooking brought her solace during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sharp and fearless, these essays are a fitting tribute to Reed’s life and career. (Aug.)