Fire Season: Selected Essays 1984–2021

Verbal artistry is in plentiful supply in this spirited collection of 39 essays in which critic Indiana (Horse Crazy) trains his eye on major court cases, politics, and pop culture. “Northern Exposure” is a look at the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primaries in which Indiana eviscerates the personae and platforms of Bill Clinton and Pat Buchanan (the latter summed up as a “belligerent turd at the podium with his socks falling down”) and notes Sen. Tom Harkin’s silent nonresponse to an anti-Semitic comment: “I cannot imagine Mario Cuomo or Jay Rockefeller letting such remarks just sit there in the room, just to grub a couple of votes.” “Murdering the Dead” takes down Steven Hodel’s argument in his bestselling Black Dahlia Avenger that his father killed Elizabeth Short: “It isn’t nice to drag a lot of famous dead people into your family muck.” Each entry is marked by vivid imagery and the author’s scathing, eloquent wit: “There is acid in everything Indiana writes, but it is of the sort that acts as a purifying agent,” Christian Lorentzen writes in the introduction, adding, “His essays are humane to the core.” Trenchant and thought-provoking, this is a great look at a gifted writer’s mind. (Apr.)