Shield

A Prodigal Son Glimpses Salvation On the Road to L.A.

“First order of business on any long drive is to find yourself a shield,” I say to no one in particular as I rev up my car. I can still hear my latest, soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend screaming in the background, but whether it’s at me or about me, or just residual echoes in my head, I can’t be sure.

My heart is pounding, so I take a breath and look around. I’ve done a pretty good job considering the circumstances. There’s food and soda in grocery bags …

The Noir of the San Joaquin

A New Generation of Writers Takes a Hard Look at Life in California’s Dark Rural Heart

In the 1960s, Leonard Gardner’s novel Fat City and Sherley Anne Williams’ poem “The Iconography of Childhood” revealed the dark recesses of life in California’s supposedly bucolic San Joaquin Valley. …

Why We Keep Coming Back to Gatsby

The Book Changes Every Time You Read It. (Confession: I Even Rooted For Daisy At One Time.)

One of the enduring qualities of The Great Gatsby, just released in yet another filmed adaptation over the weekend, is that it’s a perfect book to read as a teenager, …

American Voters, American Writers, American Indians

Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy by Gary May

The nutshell: University of Delaware historian May chronicles the civil rights struggles—including the assassinations of Medgar Evers …

Novelist Lisa Zeidner

Flexible Is Not Something I’ve Been Accused Of

Lisa Zeidner is the author most recently of the novel Love Bomb, the story of a wedding that goes very wrong when the guests are taken hostage. She is also …

Letting Go of Philip Roth

Thoughts On the Retirement Of the Genius Who Immortalized My New Jersey World

I grew up surrounded by Rothschilds (the judge and his wife), Roths (owners of a chain of urban sneaker stores, they made a fortune off many iterations of Air Jordans), …