There were some obits that got kind of buried in the shuffle of events over the weekend. Here’s a round-up:
Winston Groom, noted author. He is perhaps most famous for Forrest Gump, but he did a lot of other work:
“‘Forrest Gump’ is not the only reason to celebrate him as a great writer,” P.J. O’Rourke, the political satirist and journalist who knew Mr. Groom for decades, wrote in an email.
In Mr. O’Rourke’s view, Mr. Groom’s debut novel, “Better Times Than These” (1978), “was the best novel written about the Vietnam War.”
“And this is not even to mention Winston’s extraordinary historical and nonfiction works,” he added.
Those books include the Pulitzer Prize finalist (for general nonfiction), “Conversations With the Enemy” (1983), an account of a Vietnam-era prisoner of war written with Duncan Spencer; “Shrouds of Glory” (1995), about the Civil War; and “Patriotic Fire” (2006), about the Battle of New Orleans.
At his death, Mr. Groom was awaiting the publication of “The Patriots,” a combined biography of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams; it is to be published in November by National Geographic.
I have not seen, and have no interest in seeing, “Forrest Gump”. However, I recall reading some years back that the book is much more vicious and satirical than the movie, and that Mr. Groom somewhat resented how the movie watered down his work. I might have to seek out some of his non-fiction, especially if P.J. O’Rourke endorses it.
Anne Stevenson, poet. She was also famous, perhaps more so, as the author of a biography of Sylvia Plath.
Ms. Plath committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30, and many of her admirers blamed her husband, Mr. Hughes, who was having an affair with a woman named Assia Wevill (who herself would commit suicide in 1969). But Ms. Stevenson’s book painted a different picture, portraying Ms. Plath as “a wall of unrelenting rage” prone to outrageous behavior, while depicting Mr. Hughes as generous and caring.
The book was written with the cooperation of Ms. Plath’s literary estate, which was controlled by Mr. Hughes and his sister, Olwyn Hughes. Ms. Stevenson wrote in the preface that she “received a great deal of help from Olwyn Hughes,” so much so that “Ms. Hughes’s contributions to the text have made it almost a work of dual authorship.”
That did not give “Bitter Fame” much credibility in some critics’ eyes. The poet Robert Pinsky, reviewing it in The New York Times, called out a bias in the presentation.
“Since Ms. Stevenson’s book is, as it had to be, largely about a marriage, the tilting of viewpoint toward one side is a difficult problem for the biographer,” he wrote. “Marriages are complex and mysterious stories, each with a minimum of two sides. Writing about a marriage demands tact, respect for the unknowable and more acknowledgment of a limited viewpoint than I think Ms. Stevenson provides.”
In the British newspaper The Independent, Ronald Hayman was even harsher, calling “Bitter Fame” a “vindictive book” that sought not only to blame Ms. Plath for the failed marriage but also “to undermine her poetic achievement by representing her verse as negative, sick, death-oriented, and comparing it unfavorably with his.”
Great and good FotB RoadRich sent over an obit for Long Cat (aka Nobiko) the subject of Internet memes.
yes, it’s true. long cat, known as nobiko in japan, has left us. https://t.co/Alk76dB98h pic.twitter.com/8MOSnWYH60
— isabella steger (@stegersaurus) September 20, 2020