Originally a New Deal liberal and aggressive anticommunist,Senator Eugene McCarthy famously lost faith with the Democraticparty over Vietnam. His stunning challenge to Lyndon Johnson in the1968 New Hampshire primary inspired young liberals and was one ofthe greatest electoral upsets in American history. But the 1968election ultimately brought Richard Nixon and the Republican Partyto power, irrevocably shifting the country’s political landscape tothe right for decades to come. Dominic Sandbrook traces one of the most remarkable andsignificant lives in postwar politics, a career marked by bothcourage and arrogance. Sandbrook draws on extensive new research –including interviews with McCarthy himself – to show convincinglyhow Eugene McCarthy’s political experience embodies the largerdecline of American liberalism after World War II. These weretumultuous times in American politics, and Sandbrook vividlycaptures the drama and historical significance through his intimateportrait of a singularly
Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions:the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The mostfamous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: Shesmoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single andmarried), flouted convention sensationally, and became theembodiment of the New Woman. Thirty years after her landmark biography of Zelda Fitzgerald,Nancy Milford returns with an iconic portrait of this passionate,fearless woman who obsessed America even as she tormented herself.Chosen by USA Today as one of the top ten books of the year, SavageBeauty is a triumph in the art of biography. Millay was an Americanoriginal—one of those rare characters, like Sylvia Plath and ErnestHemingway, whose lives were even more dramatic than their art.
From the author of the best-selling biography Woody Allen—themost informative, revealing, and entertaining conversations fromhis thirty-six years of interviewing the great comedian andfilmmaker. For more than three decades, Woody Allen has been talkingregularly and candidly with Eric Lax, and has given him singularand unfettered access to his film sets, his editing room, and histhoughts and observations. In discussions that begin in 1971 andcontinue into 2007, Allen discusses every facet of moviemakingthrough the prism of his own films and the work of directors headmires. In doing so, he reveals an artist’s development over thecourse of his career to date, from joke writer to standup comedianto world-acclaimed filmmaker. Woody talks about the seeds of his ideas and the writing of hisscreenplays; about casting and acting, shooting and directing,editing and scoring. He tells how he reworks screenplays even whilefilming them. He describes the problems he has had casting Ameri
In his life and in his music, Cole Porter was "the top"--thepinnacle of wit, sophistication, and success. His songs--"I Get aKick Out of You," "Anything Goes," and hundreds more--were instantpop hits, and their musical and emotional depths have made themlasting standards. William McBrienhas captured the creator of these songs, whose life was not merelyone of wealth and privilege. A prodigal young man, Porter found hisemotional anchor in a long, loving, if sexless marriage, arelationship he repeatedly risked with a string of affairs withmen. His last eighteen years were marked by physical agony but alsounstinting artistic achievement, including the great Hollywoodmusicals High Society, Silk Stockings, and Kiss Me Kate (recentlyand very successfully revived on Broadway). Here, at last is a lifethat informs the great music and lyrics through illuminatingglimpses of the hidden, complicated, private man.
Jack Stewart was a longtime editor at the New York Times.Linda was the U.S. representative of a French publishingconsortium. Theirs was a marriage graced with good luck, a unionfrom which each drew strength and joy in equal measure. In hisearly seventies, Jack opted for retirement but continued to work asa freelance editor and literary agent. The passing years wereenriched by travel, strong family ties, and the delight offriendships. Illness descended abruptly one October afternoon. Jack, awakingconfused and disoriented from a nap, was rushed to the hospital.There the diagnosis was both swift and horrifying: Alzheimer'sdisease. It was a pronouncement that instantly overwhelmed allother considerations. Against her husband's loss of self-awareness,Linda quickly found she had no preparation, no defense. As hismemory vanished, the essence of who he was vanished as well. 25Months documents the struggle of a husband and wife to navigate thetreacherous terrain of illness. Alzheimer's is being diag
