I just finished the occasionally startling 1949 novel by Frederic Wakeman, The Wastrel. This obscure piece of fiction is about a man shipwrecked and trying to save his life and that of his young son, afloat together in the sea. Chapters alternate between the current survival-struggle and flashbacks to the man's past failures as a husband and human ( Read more... )

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Fifty years ago today on June 18, 1958 I took an early train up to Boston from Providence ($3.41 round trip fare) to spend the day in the city, with a good deal of book-shopping. But the first thing I did was to see a movie musical program of Oklahoma and Carousel at R.K.O. Keith's Memorial Theatre on Washington Street, now known as the Opera House ( Read more... )

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I won first prize in Latin class at La Salle Academy that day for the highest half-year average, 99.5. Veni, vidi, vici! Father Hogan offered me first choice from among the books he was giving the three top winners: the collected works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, of Robert Louis Stevenson, or a book in the Giovanni Guareschi Don Camillo series. I ( Read more... )

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