Description:The author's third collection of essays discusses literary figures such as Hemingway and Salinger, fatherhood, Ronald Reagan, television, politics, American humor, the Catholic Church, and other topics
Whether writing on Sinatra or Updike, Hemingway or the Catholic
Church, the Mafia or Salinger, Sheed's always-exciting prose style and
his uncanny way of extracting the most from his subjects never fail to
leave his readers satisfied. His wit, neither Wildean nor aphoristic,
does at times become gently biting, especially when considering, say,
the intrusion of televised politics into American life. In this, his
third collection of reviews, extended essays (many of which first
appeared in the New York Review of Books ), and occasional pieces, Sheed
is in top form. With his novelist's eye for detail and the nuances of
language, he lets little escape his attention, or ours, a fact all
serious readers must applaud every time they pick up one of Sheed's
books.