When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
Anyone watching the Hemingway documentary? Honestly, it’s better with the sound off. There’s almost nothing I’m more interested in than writers’ lives, but I couldn’t get past the first half hour. I’m so tired of the man, the myth nonsense. I don’t care about bullfighting and deep sea fishing. I’m tired of family secrets and tinted photographs. Four marriages, blah blah blah. Why am in such a mood? Give me Dorothy Parker any day of the week.
Who’s your literary hero.?
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Betsy Lerner 
Big ditto on Hemingway. I just don’t get it. Where’s the 10 part series on Carol Shields?
Yes!
Yes Bobbi!
Curse you WP.
Yes, exactly!
I watched some of it but hated seeing all those suffering bulls and dead wildlife, so I switched over to Carnival Eats. He’s just not my kind of guy.
Grace Paley is my literary hero. I used to see her some summers when I was a free range kid biking around Provincetown. I loved how she was with her grandkids and family. She was so human and funny, and what a fine writer. She did more than write, too, which inspired me to pick up the pen and give it a try.
november here
Good choice. I met her at an anti nuclear protest/occupation in southern Vermont 30 something years ago. She was a genuine, wise person dedicated to what she believed in.
Erma Bombeck
Hemingway may have tortured and killed bulls, and been a literary genius but Bombeck knew bull 🙂
I did not post a smiley face.
I don’t feel that way about any writer. The work itself might be lovely and admirable, even heroic, but writers as people tend to disappoint.
Kesey. Acid prose.
Steinbeck. Understood mid 20th century America.
Norman MacLean. The river flowed through his heart.
Annie Proulx is my all time number one literary hero. What a writer. What an intelligent articulate woman. I once had the privilege of seeing her speak here in Perth, Western Australia. She was brilliant. She was witty and funny she certainly didn’t take herself too seriously. She was outward looking, she was concerned about the world.
Are you new in these parts? Welcome to the dark side.
No, I’m not watching the Hemingway. Some few years ago, I did what so few any longer will do — I read what he wrote. I could give you a list (of course I kept a list), but it was nothing extraordinary, just the usual suspects, some of which were extraordinary, we know them, we’ve studied them, it was worth it.
“Literary hero”? Aw, come on, what is that supposed to mean? We toss the word hero around so flippantly now, it has almost no meaning left to it.
“Literary hero.” I really do not know what that means, or what it’s supposed to mean. There was a time when I would have known, or would have presumed to have known, and I would have given names. Now, I think I’ll have to leave it at —
No, I’ll just leave it. So many writers, so much writing, so little time.
Right now my literary hero is Emma Cline as I have just finished her spectacular collection of short stories, “Daddy.” From a more historical point of view, I would say John Le Carre who turned the spy thriller into literary masterpieces.
Larry? One of the greatest publishers on earth. Is that you???
John Rechy. He was my mentor and he did not disappoint.