What do you think?
Rate this book
In Fact: Essays on Writers and Writing
From the acclaimed novelist (Henry and Clara, Two Moons), essayist (A Book
of One's Own), and critic (1998 National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing)--an engaging new collection of essays.
In Fact gathers the best of Thomas Mallon's superb criticism from the past twenty-two years--essays that appeared in his GQ column, "Doubting Thomas," and in The New York Times Book Review, The American Scholar, The New Yorker, and Harper's, among other publications. Here are his evaluations of the work of contemporary writers such asNicholson Baker, Peter Carey, Tom Wolfe, Do DeLillo, Joan Didion, and Robert Stone, and reassessments of such earlier twentieth- century figures as John O'Hara, Sinclair Lewis, Truman Capote, and Mary McCarthy. Mallon also considers an array of odd literary genres and phenomena--including book indexes, obituaries, plagiarism, cancelled checks, fan mail, and author tours. And he turns his sharp eye on historical fiction (his own genre) as well as on the history, practice, and future of memoir.
Smart, unorthodox, and impassioned, this collection is an integral piece of an important literary career and an altogether marvelous read.
of One's Own), and critic (1998 National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing)--an engaging new collection of essays.
In Fact gathers the best of Thomas Mallon's superb criticism from the past twenty-two years--essays that appeared in his GQ column, "Doubting Thomas," and in The New York Times Book Review, The American Scholar, The New Yorker, and Harper's, among other publications. Here are his evaluations of the work of contemporary writers such asNicholson Baker, Peter Carey, Tom Wolfe, Do DeLillo, Joan Didion, and Robert Stone, and reassessments of such earlier twentieth- century figures as John O'Hara, Sinclair Lewis, Truman Capote, and Mary McCarthy. Mallon also considers an array of odd literary genres and phenomena--including book indexes, obituaries, plagiarism, cancelled checks, fan mail, and author tours. And he turns his sharp eye on historical fiction (his own genre) as well as on the history, practice, and future of memoir.
Smart, unorthodox, and impassioned, this collection is an integral piece of an important literary career and an altogether marvelous read.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 2, 2001
8 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Mallon
40 books286 followersThomas Mallon is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author's crisp wit and interest in the "bystanders" to larger historical events. He is the author of ten books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Two Moons, Dewey Defeats Truman, Aurora 7, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers (recently adapted into a miniseries by the same name), Watergate, Finale, Landfall, and most recently Up With the Sun. He has also published nonfiction on plagiarism (Stolen Words), diaries (A Book of One's Own), letters (Yours Ever) and the John F. Kennedy assassination (Mrs. Paine's Garage), as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets and Rodeos and In Fact).
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 6, 2008
This book was a delight. I had read two of Mallon's books - "Stolen Words" (on plagiarism) and "A Book of One's Own" (people and their diaries) - quite some time ago, and found them both charming and fascinating. So maybe the charm of these essays shouldn't have been a surprise. But I was bowled over, both by the breadth and depth of Mallon's coverage. Not to engage in hagiography, but he comes close to my notion of a perfect reviewer. In many instances his evaluations are a more eloquent expression of my own thoughts about a particular book or author. And in those cases where our evaluations were different, his views are expressed with a persuasive clarity that stimulates me to go back to the work in question and see what I might have missed. He's smart, erudite, witty, someone who has obviously read widely, with catholic tastes and a broad-ranging curiosity. But, refreshingly, his criticism comes squarely from the point of view of someone who obviously wants to give the writer the benefit of the doubt. Which is not to say that he pulls his punches, but there is none of the besetting sin that afflicts most critics - the cruel putdown whose primary aim is to remind you of the critic's own smartness. Nor does he ever give the sense of targeting someone solely because of their success.
A good illustration of what I mean is his essay "Snow Falling on Readers", which examines the work of David Guterson. It is characteristic of Mallon's approach that, to understand the success of Guterson's biggest hit, he takes it on himself to read and discuss the author's entire work. Having done so, he ultimately finds it wanting. Characteristically, his summation is gentle, but damning nonetheless:
"I must confess that the real mystery to me is not what happened to Carl Heine aboard his fishing boat but just what on earth the PEN/Faulkner jurors were thinking - and beyond that, what all the local book-group readers who have made this No.1 can be seeing. A majority of these group readers - a discerning constituency who do much to keep literary fiction alive in America - are women, and it's the female characters in Guterson's books who are flimsy to the point of mere functionality, projections of male desire and indecision."
Compared with the mean-spirited hatchet job on Guterson that appears in "A Reader's Manifesto", which cannot escape giving the impression of being motivated by resentment at another's success, Mallon's evaluation reads like genuine literary criticism.
Which is not to say that all is high-minded and serious. Elsewhere in the same essay he makes the following throwaway, but devastatingly on-point, remark:
"I have been against homeschooling ever since that family-taught girl won the national spelling bee a few years back. This child who became such a point of pride to homeschooling parents couldn't stop shouting and jumping around and crowing about her moment of onstage accomplishment. I didn't care if she could spell 'arrhythmia' backwards; this unsocialized kid needed Miss Crabtree to put her in the corner."
Essays I particularly enjoyed were those on the David Leavitt-Stephen Spender lawsuit, on Howard Norman (whose 'The Bird Artist' I have always considered the antidote to the appalling 'Shipping News'), on Will Self, on Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full". The essays on letters from his readers, on obituaries, on the ups and downs of the 'author book tour', and on the challenges of writing historical fiction are equally fascinating.
But what clinched things, and what earned this book its fifth star is the essay "Enough about Me", which expresses his civilized but eloquent antipathy to the "emergence of memoir as a hot new publishing commodity". Someone who mirrors my own thoughts on the matter, and can express them far more eloquently than I could. What's not to love?
A good illustration of what I mean is his essay "Snow Falling on Readers", which examines the work of David Guterson. It is characteristic of Mallon's approach that, to understand the success of Guterson's biggest hit, he takes it on himself to read and discuss the author's entire work. Having done so, he ultimately finds it wanting. Characteristically, his summation is gentle, but damning nonetheless:
"I must confess that the real mystery to me is not what happened to Carl Heine aboard his fishing boat but just what on earth the PEN/Faulkner jurors were thinking - and beyond that, what all the local book-group readers who have made this No.1 can be seeing. A majority of these group readers - a discerning constituency who do much to keep literary fiction alive in America - are women, and it's the female characters in Guterson's books who are flimsy to the point of mere functionality, projections of male desire and indecision."
Compared with the mean-spirited hatchet job on Guterson that appears in "A Reader's Manifesto", which cannot escape giving the impression of being motivated by resentment at another's success, Mallon's evaluation reads like genuine literary criticism.
Which is not to say that all is high-minded and serious. Elsewhere in the same essay he makes the following throwaway, but devastatingly on-point, remark:
"I have been against homeschooling ever since that family-taught girl won the national spelling bee a few years back. This child who became such a point of pride to homeschooling parents couldn't stop shouting and jumping around and crowing about her moment of onstage accomplishment. I didn't care if she could spell 'arrhythmia' backwards; this unsocialized kid needed Miss Crabtree to put her in the corner."
Essays I particularly enjoyed were those on the David Leavitt-Stephen Spender lawsuit, on Howard Norman (whose 'The Bird Artist' I have always considered the antidote to the appalling 'Shipping News'), on Will Self, on Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full". The essays on letters from his readers, on obituaries, on the ups and downs of the 'author book tour', and on the challenges of writing historical fiction are equally fascinating.
But what clinched things, and what earned this book its fifth star is the essay "Enough about Me", which expresses his civilized but eloquent antipathy to the "emergence of memoir as a hot new publishing commodity". Someone who mirrors my own thoughts on the matter, and can express them far more eloquently than I could. What's not to love?
September 2, 2023
A fascinating collection of essays where Mallon provides outlooks on many authors but also delves deeper into the writing of historical fiction and writing in general. The observations are sharp. The only parts that make the reading feel more academic--and less entertainment-oriented--are when he goes into the mechanics and actual hard work required to write HEAVY books. It's sometimes hard to follow his various paths dedicated to various authors when he goes into the insider practice of writing, from the inside. This, when so much is based on his own reflections. As always, Mallon's style is extremely readable and exciting, even when his vocabulary gets massively challenging. There are still words I'm looking up in the dictionary.
February 22, 2012
I had never thought of "essays" as something people read for fun and entertainment - but TM explained it all to me. This book opened up the world of literary nonfiction for me, and made me laugh more than I have with any book, before or since. He is deliciously snarky and erudite as Aristotle, and is truly an artist of prose.
Read
March 10, 2014On a shelf for some years. First half is about other writers/their work. Second half, which I just discovered, is about Mallon's own....and so more interesting (to me), though I don't recognize his name.
I should find his historical novel, "Henry and Clara" (couple who were at Ford's Theatre w/ Lincolns).
Giving this away.....too many books!
I should find his historical novel, "Henry and Clara" (couple who were at Ford's Theatre w/ Lincolns).
Giving this away.....too many books!
September 20, 2015
I remember one (paraphrased) line from this collection: something in an essay about obituaries. ". . . and the first paragraph always ends with the same verb."
If you consider this careful whipping together of style and substance with a hint of allegory to be a genus of wit, you are or were in all likelihood an English major, and you may enjoy these columns.
If you consider this careful whipping together of style and substance with a hint of allegory to be a genus of wit, you are or were in all likelihood an English major, and you may enjoy these columns.
September 23, 2010
As much as I like his fiction I think I like Mallon's non-fiction ("Stolen Words," "A Book of One's Own") even more.
A test of a good critic is if you find him interesting even if you disagree with him. That wasn't an issue with this book as Mallon's literary opinions often jibed with mine.
A test of a good critic is if you find him interesting even if you disagree with him. That wasn't an issue with this book as Mallon's literary opinions often jibed with mine.
June 20, 2010
Superb book. I've used several of the essays in the "Historical Fictions" section when teaching.
September 23, 2012
Interesting and diverse set of essays and reviews on both contemporary and older fiction and nonfiction.
February 14, 2008
I have only read a few chapters, but I like Mallons criticism.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews