Review of Orpheus Emerged by Jack Kerouac. Perhaps it is appropriate that the previously unpublished work of a novelist who wrote a whole book (On the Road) on a continuous roll of paper in a matter of days should be the basis for the first e-text from a new online publisher of electronic books. The hyperlinked experience of the novella accords well with the hyped-up pace of Kerouac's own literary output and the hyperactivity of his characters. Published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. February 11, 2001. Click here or on title.
Review of Milton In America by Peter Ackroyd. In 1660, John Milton was both the poet of “Lycidas,'' “L'Allegro,” and “Il Penseroso” and the well-known Protestant author of controversial tracts condemning the royal government of England and defending the beheading of Charles I… Novelist Peter Ackroyd chooses this moment in Milton's life to set his new novel. We find the blind writer skulking through English backroads in a covered wagon. A young rapscallion, who becomes his guide through the visible world and his amanuensis, hops in. (Originally published in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Sunday, July 13, 1997. Click here or on title.)
