Brian Murray is a literary critic and author who contributed book reviews and cultural essays to The Weekly Standard from 1998 to 2012. His pieces ranged widely across literary subjects, covering figures such as Aldous Huxley and H.G. Wells, as well as broader cultural commentary. He is a professor of English and has written several books on literary topics.
It’s been almost 25 years since Tom Wolfe issued a call for “the new social novel.” His 1989 manifesto, “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” argued that, since the end of the Second World War, American novelists had lost their way, having convinced themselves that the high calling of Art required…
F. X. TOOLE made excellent copy. He was, for starters, a study in persistence--an ambitious fiction writer who plugged away for more than 40 years without notching a single publication. In the meantime, he also compiled a rather varied curriculum vitae: actor, bullfighter, cabdriver, bartender.…
Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit
THE HERO of Bill Naughton's 1966 novel Alfie is a cocky fellow, well-dressed and glib, a Cockney playboy who knows what it takes to woo the girls. When he first appears, Alfie is with Siddie, a "married woman of twenty-nine, so she said." She's his "regular Thursday night bint," he explains, and "a…
Copies in Seconds
Hef's Little Black Book
Aldous Huxley
Bestsellers Popular Fiction Since 1900 by Clive Bloom Palgrave Macmillan, 292 pp., $60 I'M NOT SURE who started the rumor--it may have been Sam Goldwyn or, more probably, Marshall McLuhan--but somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, people came to believe that books were doomed. The…
A Great, Silly Grin The British Satire Boom of the 1960s by Humphrey Carpenter Public Affairs, 400 pp., $27.50 THE HIT REVUE "Beyond the Fringe" opened in London in 1961. Humphrey Carpenter, then fifteen, attended the show with his father, a bishop in the Church of England. Carpenter recalls that…
A CERTAIN SUSPENSE surrounds the June 8 heavyweight bout between Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson. Lewis is the defending champion, a tall, talented boxer who tends to work very fast or very slow. Against Tyson, will Lewis rush his attack, seeking a quick knockout? Or will he hang back, flicking jabs,…
A Legacy by Sybille Bedford Counterpoint, 320 pp., $15 A Favourite of the Gods by Sybille Bedford Counterpoint, 320 pp., $16 A Compass Error by Sybille Bedford Counterpoint, 240 pp., $16 Jigsaw An Unsentimental Education by Sybille Bedford Counterpoint, 320 pp., $15 SYBILLE BEDFORD: The name rings…
Later in his life, long after he became a cinematic legend, Orson Welles was often asked to name filmmakers who had influenced him the most. "I studied the masters," Welles liked to reply, "by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford."
Football, for better or worse, is America's dominant spectator sport. In much of the country -- certainly throughout the South and Midwest -- it inspires a frenzied devotion that baseball, with its loose pace and long summer season, never achieves.
Skin and Other Stories
The Knox Brothers
Preston Sturges's career stands as one of the most successful -- and curious -- in the history of Hollywood. From 1940 to 1944, Sturges was among Hollywood's highest paid directors, producing a remarkable run of hits, including The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, and Sullivan's Travels, winning an…
Julian Watkins knew a good pitch when he saw one. In 1949 the veteran copywriter published The 100 Greatest Advertisements. Most of these first appeared in the 1920s and 1930s, but they promoted products -- Coca-Cola, Camel cigarettes, and Campbell's soup -- that remain mainstays in the marketplace…
It's October 30, 1974 and the fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali is about to start. Set in Kinshasa, Zaire, the bout has been hyped for months, dubbed "The Rumble in the Jungle" by its promoter, Don King. Foreman is the reigning heavyweight champion and heavy favorite; he's a massive,…
In 1936, Eugene Fodor published On the Continent, the first book-length travel guide to bear his name. Subtitled "the entertaining travel annual," On the Continent covered Europe from Portugal to Turkey, offering neither pictures nor maps, just relaxed advice and lively prose.
Initially, Emma Peel was a man. When The Avengers debuted on British television in 1961, John Steed's crime-fighting partner was a male physician played by Ian Hendry. The actor Patrick Macnee was -- as he remained through the nine seasons of the program -- Special Agent Steed. But in most respects…
In the late 1960s, the fiddle-playing bandleader Bob Wills became one of the first performers elected to the country music hall of fame. Ailing and near the close of his long career, Wills was by all appearances delighted to accept the honor that gave him a place beside such legendary figures as…
Leonard J. Leff
Thomas Frank