The Autobiography Of Mark Twain – Mark Twain [Edited by Charles Neider, 1959] ★★½

Twain In Twilight: Disorganized, Dis-spiriting, Still Quotable

Mark Twain produced one of the most celebrated autobiographies in American literature. This was not his own, but rather that of Ulysses S. Grant, which Twain painstakingly midwifed to great commercial success and lasting popular acclaim. It still ranks high among presidential memoirs.

Twain also wrote an autobiography of his own, a very notable work even if it is hard to similarly declare a success. Four radically different versions of The Autobiography Of Mark Twain exist in print, without a clear consensus as to which, if any, should be considered definitive. 

But of the four currently extant, including a three-volume set completed this year, the autobiography edited by Charles Neider and published in 1959 may well be the most digestible.

A Man In Full – Tom Wolfe, 1998 ★★½

Half a Man Is Better than None

Tom Wolfe is a deft print pictorialist, crafting word pictures that crawl inside your skull and stay there –however forgettable the subjects of his prose may be.

Reading A Man In Full, his second novel, is to discover how even great writing, produced with vim and energy and a decade’s worth of research, can hit a wall when concerns of plot and character are ignored.

Yet you can’t help but enjoy the ride, however slow it becomes around the middle or how suddenly it stops at the end.

The Lincoln Conspiracy – Timothy L. O'Brien, 2012 [No Stars]

Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln...

Historical fiction is one of my favorite literary genres, when it’s done well. The spinning nature of time is never better appreciated than when one sees a page from our past come into focus as if for the first time.

A thoughtful fictional treatment can lend a fresh and divergent perspective on what has become well-trod ground.

But when historical fiction is done badly, it makes for a rough trudge. Take this story set in the United States after the Civil War, centering on the mystery surrounding the country’s first presidential assassination. As fiction, as history, as action-adventure, the novel fails so badly as to defy reason.

The Night Of The Moonbow – Thomas Tryon, 1989 ★★★★

The Other Side of Summer

Adolescent summertimes frequently are the stuff for gentle nostalgia. Thomas Tryon’s The Night Of The Moonbow goes for a different effect. 

In this tale about a 14-year-old orphan who struggles to make a good impression at a Connecticut sleepaway camp in 1938, Tryon presents a chilling suspense story in the guise of a rustic coming-of-age experience at a lakeside paradise.

Shakespeare: Cardenio – Charles Hamilton, 1994 ★½

In Search of Lost Shakespeare

It’s perhaps the world’s most exclusive club. They let in 36 members back in 1623; since then only two more have been admitted. Others wait beyond the velvet rope, including a knight named Ironside, a saint named Tom, and a crazed Spanish wanderer named Cardenio no one has seen in 400 years.

A wonderful assortment of strange characters occupy what is known as the Shakespeare Apocrypha. Some of these plays are widely championed as being at least in part authored by the Bard, like an early work entitled Sir Edmund Ironside and a later work, Sir Thomas More, based on the life of the English saint.

All have champions. Only one, Cardenio, has both a distinct identity, an itinerant, lonely character made mad by lost love who features in Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel Don Quixote; and direct attribution to Shakespeare in the form of a 1653 register entry for the play.

Sinatra: An Unauthorized Biography – Earl Wilson, 1976 ★★

Life in King Frankie's Court

A courtier’s life is never easy. Flatter too much, and you risk being taken for granted. Offer candor, and it may be resented.

You may benefit from great kindness in certain moments, but the higher one’s master rises in life, the more callous and cruel they are inclined to become.

Earl Wilson experienced this, and wrote a book about it.

Journey Into Fear – Eric Ambler, 1940 ★★★★½

A Phony War Gets Real

Popular in its day, Journey Into Fear deserves credit for helping popularize a more sophisticated type of spy novel. Reading it reveals something else, a stock-taking exercise just after the beginning of World War II when it seemed Europe might step back before beginning in earnest the century’s worst conflagration.

Eric Ambler’s message reads like a warning: Be ready for a rough ride, and be strong.