First published 2012
Edmund Morris opens his collection by examining the physicality of artistic creation, lamenting how digital screens now separate inspiration from execution. The acclaimed biographer of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan gathers forty years of essays that reveal his cross-cultural perspective shaped by Africa, Britain, and America. Morris analyzes Barack Obama's imagery and Bill Clinton's prose style while exploring unexpected territories like the New York Public Library Dance Collection and proposing a satirical diet for music lovers. He investigates Beethoven's deafness and its influence on the composer's strange sonic effects, celebrates forgotten figures like pianist Ferruccio Busoni, and resurrects anonymous Americans from a 1902 memoir anthology. Morris attacks The Chicago Manual of Style, mourns an extinct fruit he suspects grew in Eden, and recounts ordering a suit from London's most expensive tailor. Throughout these pieces, he demonstrates how even unlettered individuals can illuminate sophisticated shadows cast by public figures who hide their private failings.
Genres: art, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, art-history, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: cross-cultural-perspective, intimate-portrait, literary-analysis
Setting: Africa, America, Britain, Chicago, Eden, London, New York
Period: 1902, 20th-century, 21st-century
530 pages · Kindle Edition · Random House