John Leonard

Contributing Editor

John Leonard, the TV critic for New York magazine, a commentator on CBS
Sunday Morning
and book critic for The Nation, is the author, most recently,
of When the Kissing Had to Stop: Cult Studs, Khmer Newts, Langley Spooks,
Techno-Geeks, Video Drones, Author Gods, Serial Killers, Vampire Media, Alien
Sperm-Suckers, Satanic Therapists, and Those of Us Who Hold a Left-Wing
Grudge in the Post Toasties New World Hip-Hop
(The New Press 1999),

He has been editor of the New York Times Book Review and literary co-editor
of The Nation. Other recent titles include The Last Innocent White Man (The
New Press, 1993) and Smoke and Mirrors (The New Press, 1997).

The Drowned and the Unsaved The Drowned and the Unsaved

He jumped, of course. But also he was pushed. And when Primo Levi, on "a sudden violent impulse," threw himself down three flights of stairwell in the Art Nouveau apartment hou...

Mar 22, 2001 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

On Shooting at Elephants On Shooting at Elephants

They laughed when I sat down with these two writers--and never mind that both books arrived in the same box. The bad gay boy and the cold war saint! The apostle of derangement an...

Nov 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

How a Caged Bird Learns to Sing How a Caged Bird Learns to Sing

This article is adapted from a lecture that was part of a series on self-censorship in the media given at New York University. The lecture series is being published this month in T...

Jun 8, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

A Closing of the American Kind A Closing of the American Kind

You will recall that when Augie March went to Mexico, he hooked up with an eagle, which he called Caligula.

May 11, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

The Compleat Walker The Compleat Walker

Shortly before he died, Bruce Chatwin found God. This was on top of Mount Athos, after which he left for Katmandu. Looking down from the bees and grapes, he had seen an iron cros...

Apr 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

The ‘Casanova of Causes’ The ‘Casanova of Causes’

To her biographer, Simone de Beauvoir confided a less than rhapsodic one-night stand, in 1946, with the Hungarian malcontent Arthur Koestler: "One night I got so drunk I let him ...

Mar 22, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

Curtain Call With Terkel Curtain Call With Terkel

Charles Kuralt, who got around a lot himself but wore out faster, once remarked: "When Studs Terkel listens, everybody talks." Not so many years ago, in fact, we asked Kuralt to ...

Nov 25, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

Mr. Debs, My Darling Mr. Debs, My Darling

In offhand, birdsong passing, Marguerite Young observes: "As for the nineteenth century, it may be said that it was probably the leakiest century there ever was and so would rema...

Oct 28, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

Emancipation Proclamation Emancipation Proclamation

Upon his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison left behind some 2,000 pages of a never-finished second novel--more than forty years of fine-tuning what his literary executor, John F.

May 27, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

Rushdie as Orpheus, on Guitar Rushdie as Orpheus, on Guitar

From the Satanic Versifier, more love and more death, with a song in his heart.

Apr 21, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

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