But No One Walks Out Of His

My Attraction To Story Is A Ceaseless Current That Runs Through The Center Of Me. My Inexhaustible Ardor For Reading Seems Connected To My Hunger For Storylines That Show Up In Both Books And In The Great Tumbling Chaos Of Life.

Will His Work Survive? Alas, I Worry That It Will Not. As An American Liberal With Impeccable Credentials, I Would Like To Say That Political Correctness Is Going To Kill American Liberalism If It Is Not Fought To The Death By People Like Me For The Dangers It Represents To Free Speech, To The Exchange Of Ideas, To Openheartedness, Or To The Spirit Of Art Itself. Political Correctness Has A Stranglehold On Academia, On Feminism, And On The Media. It Is A Form Of Both Madness And Maggotry, And Has Already Silenced The Voices Of Writers Like James Dicky Across The Land.

From The Very Beginning, I Wrote To Explain My Own Life To Myself, And I Invited Any Readers Who Chose To Make The Journey With Me To Join Me On The High Wire.

Here's What I Want From A Book, What I Demand, What I Pray For When I Take Up A Novel And Begin To Read The First Sentence: I Want Everything And Nothing Less, The Full Measure Of A Writer's Heart. I Want A Novel So Poetic That I Do Not Have To Turn To The Standby Anthologies Of Poetry To Satisfy That Itch For Music, For Perfection And Economy Of Phrasing, For Exactness Of Tone. Then, Too, I Want A Book So Filled With Story And Character That I Read Page After Page Without Thinking Of Food Or Drink Because A Writer Has Possessed Me, Crazed With An Unappeasable Thirst To Know What Happens Next.

One Can Learn Anything, Anything At All, I Thought, If Provided By A Gifted And Passionate Teacher.