Is Mark Twain’s old age best forgotten?
Mark Twain conquered almost every challenge that came his way except old age. Living well into his seventies, he was…
Life’s dark side: the catastrophic world of Stephen Crane
Long before Ernest Hemingway wasted his late career playing the he-man on battlefields and in fishing boats, or Norman Mailer…
Bugsy Siegel — the gangster straight out of a Hollywood movie
Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel was about as meta-gangsterish as a real life gangster could get. Born in the slums of Manhattan’s…
Murder most casual: why Patricia Highsmith’s thrillers are so chilling
Patricia Highsmith’s life was filled with more eccentric, disturbing brilliance than most readers can normally handle; and so the chief…
No writer was better suited to chronicle the Depression than John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck didn’t believe in God — but he didn’t believe much in humanity either. When push came to shove,…
