I got back from New Orleans just in time for Christmas — and for the blizzard, which has been really exciting, I say from my perch on the sixth floor. On Wednesday I’m off again, to South Florida, where Max and I will be staying at the Biltmore Hotel. Writing and our Downton Abbey binge will keep me occupied till . . .
True Grit divides Charles Portis’ admirers. Some, like Donna Tartt, believe it’s a classic on the order of Huck Finn; others, like Ron Rosenbaum, resent that it detracts attention from the rest. I like them all.
“When J. D. Salinger finished Catcher in the Rye, he drove to the Maxwells’ house in the country and in the course of an afternoon and evening read it to them on their porch.”
“If we tell other people our stories, we do it so badly — or so well — that we turn them into something else, art or lies or half-truths…, whatever can outlast the clean moments of real life.”