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James Agee: A Life, by Laurence Bergreen (Dutton, 467 pp., $20)
James Thurber’s “Something to Say,” a story from The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, is a wicked spoof of that quintessentially American literary genre, the memoir of genius unrealized. Elliot Vereker, the “genius” of Thurber’s tale, is an alcoholic writer whose knack for self-dramatization is surpassed only by his inability to get anything written:
About the Author
Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. Satchmo at the Waldorf, his 2011 play about Louis Armstrong, has been produced off Broadway and throughout America.
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James Agee: A Life, by Laurence Bergreen (Dutton, 467 pp., $20)
James Thurber’s “Something to Say,” a story from The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, is a wicked spoof of that quintessentially American literary genre, the memoir of genius unrealized. Elliot Vereker, the “genius” of Thurber’s tale, is an alcoholic writer whose knack for self-dramatization is surpassed only by his inability to get anything written:
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About the Author
Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. Satchmo at the Waldorf, his 2011 play about Louis Armstrong, has been produced off Broadway and throughout America.
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