Keep This Going

Read and re-read the American authors.

Two of the greats. From 1900 to 1960, Sacco and Vanzetti to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Through their eyes, it all looks a little bit different.

Far left, with Hemingway

Dos Passos is an interesting case — shifting from left-wing, IWW sympathizer all the way to right-wing through the course of his career. His U.S.A. trilogy manages to say it all. The disillusionment, the gradual loss of hope. The growing pains of this country. He hung out with Hemingway in his time, and then fell out with him, too. He gets a slight dig in A Moveable Feast. That says it all.

Center, with Gay Talese and Norman Mailer

Doctorow is just a master. Snatch up Ragtime quick if you haven’t had the pleasure for a quick run-through of America’s awakening. Harry Houdini to Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan and Sigmund Freud, the poor and the rich. Book of Daniel’s a darker read, and well worth it. Like angry poetry.