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...Silk Parachute,” John McPhee’s latest anthology of essays, is already a relic. A slender addendum to McPhee’s two previous collections of personal essays and literary journalism, this book evokes a rapidly fading epoch in which compendia of previously published works (not to mention books in general) could still turn a profit. Indeed, “Silk Parachute” often feels as though it was rushed to press too quickly. The highlight of the book, “Spin Right and Shoot Left,” which examines the history...
...essay, “Silk Parachute,” opens the collection. Despite being McPhee’s most anthologized piece, it mainly excels at its style, and its content is not as intellectually rich or complex as the later pieces. It serves as an adequate introduction to the book and establishes an introspective tone that will stand out to readers more accustomed to McPhee’s journalistic mode...
...most resonant piece in “Silk Parachute” can be easy to overlook. Near the end of the book, seemingly an afterthought to the fact-heavy pieces that precede it, “Checkpoints” explores the process of fact-checking at “The New Yorker.” The essay is a triumph of form, weaving together a broad swath of anecdotes and characters without feeling like what it is: a hodgepodge. But more importantly, it offers something unusual and valuable—a clean and frank description of the toil of writing...
Attempting to flesh out the life of this peculiar prophet in a work of imaginative historical fiction is Milton Steinberg, formerly the rabbi of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City and a prolific author on Jewish thought. Much like its subject matter, the book is unusual. Though it was released to much fanfare this March, Steinberg died in 1950. “The Prophet’s Wife” is an unfinished manuscript, long preserved in boxes of papers and correspondence, and only now edited and presented to the public. The book has no ending, though...
...every biblical book that opens with God commanding his prophet to go marry a prostitute. But this is exactly what the prophet Hosea is told to do at the outset of his biblical career. “The Lord said to Hosea: ‘Go get yourself a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land will stray from the following of the Lord.’” Few readers of this story have ever taken it literally, especially given that in the ensuing fourteen chapters of the book, Hosea’s problematic marriage...