Books, Arts & Manners: Jacob, Esau, and Nixon

Inside, Outside, by Herman Wouk (Little, Brown, 544 pp., $19.95)

This absorbing story by Herman Wouk takes place in the novelist’s favorite locales—Manhattan and the Bronx, where he was born, educated, and lived for about half his life (he has just turned seventy); Washington, D.C., where he has resided on and off for two decades; and Israel, his spiritual home. Much of the novel parallels Wouk’s early life: growing up in the Bronx; attending Columbia College during the Depression; after graduation, earning enough money as a radio gag writer to afford a bachelor pad with all the attendant joys in the Essex House hotel, which in the novel is called April House.

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About the Author

Arnold Beichman

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Inside, Outside, by Herman Wouk (Little, Brown, 544 pp., $19.95)

This absorbing story by Herman Wouk takes place in the novelist’s favorite locales—Manhattan and the Bronx, where he was born, educated, and lived for about half his life (he has just turned seventy); Washington, D.C., where he has resided on and off for two decades; and Israel, his spiritual home. Much of the novel parallels Wouk’s early life: growing up in the Bronx; attending Columbia College during the Depression; after graduation, earning enough money as a radio gag writer to afford a bachelor pad with all the attendant joys in the Essex House hotel, which in the novel is called April House.