The Ideal Reading Experience For CNN's Don Lemon

Don Lemon, the CNN host, was asked in the New York Times Book Review's "By the Book" Q & A column (March 21, 2021), to describe the "ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how)."

His answer sounds like something that would appeal to me: "The ideal reading experience is a Sunday afternoon in fall or winter with PJs, fur-lined slippers, a roaring wood-burning fireplace, WBGO Jazz 88 playing quietly in the background with a good book in hand and the Sunday New York Times in reach."

Lemon is later asked to name three writers, alive or dead, he would invite to a literary dinner party: "Obvious answer: [James] Baldwin, [Toni] Morrison, and [Truman] Capote."

A fascinating choice of writers. However, he would have to be careful what he told Capote. Anything said in confidence might end up in a short story or article. I would suggest Lemon read a biographical novel called The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin (Delacorte Press, 2016). It's about Babe Paley (the wife of broadcasting mogul William Paley) and her wealthy friends who befriended Capote and revealed their secrets to him; they later felt betrayed by Capote when those secrets were published in an Esquire article he wrote. That ended those friendships and Capote never recovered from those losses.

Kooky Conservatives

One of my co-workers (a staunch conservative and conspiracy theorist) at a call center that specialized in political surveys sent me a text message that said: " See [Matt] DRUDGE on Alex Jones sites for [John] PODESTA* doing Satanic ritual." (Sent to me on November 4, 2016.)

That brought to mind a quote from conservative columnist/Firing Line host/National Review publisher and founder William F. Buckley, Jr. In a 1962 letter to William Loeb, the publisher of the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, Buckley wrote: "Why is it our side [that] is afflicted with all the loonies?" (From Buckley: William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism by Carl T. Bogus, Bloomsbury Press, 2011.)

Bogus, a liberal, points out on the same page that "...not all conservatives were dull-witted or dysfunctional, but conservative causes attracted far more than their fair share of kooks and bigots."

Judging by the Trump era, that's still true.

*John Podesta (born January 8, 1949), former chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

A Translator's Literary Advice

Margaret Jull Costa is described by the New York Times Book Review's "By the Book" interview column (March 7, 2021) as a "prolific translator" of Spanish- and Portuguese-language literature.

In the interview she was asked what book she would recommend be read by everyone before age 21. Her response: "I would say probably read everything you can lay your hands on, then reread it when you're 40 or older to find out whether it was any good and, if so, what it was really about. But," she continued, "if I had to choose one it would be The Great Gatsby, just to see what it's possible to do with the English language."

If I had to choose one book to reread it would probably be A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I first read it when I was 11 or 12. I can still remember certain scenes from it: preadolescent Francie Nolan reading a book on the fire escape; her mother on her hands and knees scrubbing the wood floors; her father's corpse in repose in a casket in the apartment.

Magazines For Writers Are Finally Acknowledging Writers Of Color

From the 1970s to the early 2000s, when I subscribed to Writer's Digest magazine, the only black writer I can remember seeing on the cover was Alex Haley of Roots fame. In all that time I never saw any articles about black writers or other writers of color in its pages. It was as if  other writers of color like John A. Williams, Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Ernest Gaines didn't exist.

I recently resumed my subscription to Writer's Digest (no longer a monthly; it is now published every two months). I was delighted to see writers of color like Zadie Smith and Viet Thanh Nguyen featured as well as an article about Patrice Caldwell, a young black literary agent.

Finally, Writer's Digest and other writing magazines have ceased ignoring writers, editors, and literary agents of color in their pages.

Rupert Murdoch's New York Compost

People today know the New York Post as a conservative tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul.

But in the 1940s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, the Post, under the ownership of Dorothy Schiff, was very liberal and published liberal names such as Pete Hamill, Harriet Van Horne, Max Lerner, Murray Kempton, and James A. Wechsler, the editorial page editor. (Ms. Schiff sold the paper to Rupert Murdoch sometime in the mid-1970s.)

According to Winchell (Doubleday), Bob Thomas's 1971 biography of Walter Winchell, the once powerful and controversial columnist and broadcaster (as well as the narrator for the TV crime drama The Untouchables), referred to the Post as "the New York Compost."

Today that label might be considered by the paper's left-wing detractors as a more suitable description of its current content and political views.

Proofreading Cloris Leachman's Autobiography

Among the last books I proofread at Kensington Books was actress Cloris Leachman's autobiography called Cloris, which was actually ghostwritten by her husband, George Englund, who predeceased her. (Ms. Leachman recently died at age 94.) It was the first and only celebrity autobiography I ever proofread.

She was in her 80s at the time (this would be around late 2008 or early 2009) and I guess because of her age, she misremembered certain things. Whenever there was a factual error, I pointed it out on the galley proof. The one error I remember correcting was the one where she said she replaced June Lockhart as the mother on the television series Lassie. Actually, it was the other way around, it was Lockhart who replaced her.

While visiting the Countee Cullen branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem, about two or three years later, I found a copy of Cloris on the shelf in the Biography section. Skimming through the book, I couldn't find that particular error. Maybe they deleted it from the finished book. Or maybe the correction was there and I couldn't find it among the thousands of words because I couldn't remember the page it appeared on. Unfortunately, I neglected to photocopy those pages for future reference. Anyway, I might try to track the book down and do a careful page by page search for that correction.

Mislabeling Richard Wright's Bigger Thomas

Here is how Claudia Roth Pierpont described Richard Wright's Native Son protagonist, the ill-fated Bigger Thomas, in an essay on James Baldwin--"A Negro rapist and murderer" who "raped and murdered a white woman." (The essay appears in her book, American Rhapsody: Writers, Musicians, Movie Stars, and One Great Building (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016.)

Anyone who has ever read Native Son knows that Bigger Thomas murdered but did not rape the daughter of his white employer. (He also killed his girlfriend.) In fact, the murder of the daughter was unintentional, caused by fear rather than malice. (He later incinerates the body to cover up the killing.)

I would advise Ms. Pierpont to re-read the book.