“As glam rock waned and disco had yet to wax, punk style provided the perfect cultural jolt, a new kind of 'No!' that brought together fashion, music, press, and politics to tell the world a story England still can't be too eager to bear”
Originally published March 1, 1992
“Kerouac and Mailer have long been literary brothers, even if under each other’s skin. Which one founded the Beat Generation and which one merely found it is just a matter of semantics”
Originally published May 18, 1960
“Woodward is hardly trying to cripple a presidency. (He's already done that, right?) But like his fellow permanent Washingtonians, he thinks it only fitting to put Clinton in his place.”
Originally published June 28, 1994
“Dear reader, we begin a collaboration, which may go on for three weeks, three months, or, Lord forbid, for three-and-thirty years. I have only one prayer — that I weary of you before you tire of me”
Originally published January 3, 1956
“In America, poetic truths have real-life consequences, and Mailer is one of the few American intellectuals to perceive this fact as both fundamental and fundamentally good”
Originally published February 14, 1983
“Despite his penetration of the national psyche, and his status as more or less the George Washington of American letters, the respect Cooper has received at home has rarely been more than grudging”
Originally published June 25, 1986
“Most vampire tales I’ve read lately read like little Kinsey reports, full of tasty trivia about vampire life, a subject that used to be shrouded in mystery and fear, like sex. Are you ready to open the forbidden curtain?”
Originally published June 25, 1982
“Everybody wanted to know where Tom Wolfe had sprung from, this brilliantly talented, seemingly ubiquitous, altogether mysteriously third-person journalist”
Originally published June 24, 1965
“My mother is an urban peasant and I am my mother’s daughter. The city is our natural element. We each have daily adventures with bus drivers, bag ladies, ticket takers, and street crazies. Walking brings out the best in us.”
Originally published March 17, 1987
How did people ever swallow the supposition that the real Warhol was a white-wigged idiot standing around saying, “Great”?
Originally published July 1, 1988