Word: authored
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...turns out, but The Facts, in which the previously reticent writer points out instances in which his life, after all, has been lugged directly into his fiction. No one who has carefully followed Roth's career could have expected this mid-life striptease, least of all, apparently, its author. His confession begins with an apologia of sorts, a letter to Zuckerman explaining how the book came to be written and wondering "Why should anybody other than me be reading it, especially as I acknowledge that they've gotten a good bit of it elsewhere, under other auspices...
This, given Roth's previous intransigence on the subject, is a stunning concession. But before the champagne is uncorked and the balloons go up -- Roth has come clean at last! -- a little caution should be maintained. For one thing, the author essentially blames this book on a period of physical distress and mental depression that he experienced during the spring of 1987: "In order to recover what I had lost, I had to go back to the moment of origin." To an inveterate novelist, apparently, telling the truth is a manifestation of disorienting illness. More troubling, there is that letter...
...academic writers' workshop. The device of alternating the voices of the two narrators is schematic and of limited tonal interest. Plot is subordinated to episodic tours de force. In small doses, the graphic descriptions are impressive, but they can also be so relentless as to make the author sound like the thinking reader's Jean Auel...
...Kellogg's Cracklin' Oats cereal, for example, is made with coconut oil, a dietary no-no. And many muffins are loaded with eggs and sugar. Moreover, oat enthusiasts are mistaken if they think scarfing down oats allows them to gorge on steak and French fries. Says Dr. Kenneth Cooper, author of Controlling Cholesterol and head of the Aerobic Center in Dallas: "It reminds me of the people who use artificial sweeteners and then drink a soda loaded with sugar...
...Author Albert Goldman strips bare the best and brightest of the Beatles in his controversial biography The Lives of John Lennon...