To write about the poems of Denis Johnson, I’m inspired to quote Richard Howard on James Dickey on Randall Jarrell (skipping Emerson, who also gets cited in there somewhere) on the “yearning to transcend, by the flights and frauds of . . .
Robert Stone’s writing has often been called “moral.” This loaded, pop-gun adjective is often levelled to no meaningful effect at novels also called “political,” as if to distinguish them from “small” novels, or novels about dogs on roller skates, but . . .
Mavis Gallant had no natural constituency. Her childhood transplantings left her without early allegiances to population or place. At the time of her emergence as a writer, Canada had a small serious readership and a low regard for women artists, . . .
