Books, Arts & Manners: James Clavell, Storyteller

He lamented that no new writers of the stature of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Scott Fitzgerald (he tired of Hemingway early) had emerged since then in America. . . . On the other hand, he immensely enjoyed the big fat modern American novels with narrative quality, such as The Caine Mutiny, all Irwin Shaw’s best-sellers, and up to The Godfather, the last he read; the kind you “couldn’t put down.”

— Cole Lesley, Remembered Laughter: The Life of Noel Coward (1976)

About the Author

Terry Teachout

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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He lamented that no new writers of the stature of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Scott Fitzgerald (he tired of Hemingway early) had emerged since then in America. . . . On the other hand, he immensely enjoyed the big fat modern American novels with narrative quality, such as The Caine Mutiny, all Irwin Shaw’s best-sellers, and up to The Godfather, the last he read; the kind you “couldn’t put down.”

— Cole Lesley, Remembered Laughter: The Life of Noel Coward (1976)

About the Author

Terry Teachout

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.