The Biographer’s Quest by Jeffrey Meyers (Mercer University Press). Reviewed by Kitty Kelley. “A tenured professor for decades, Meyers has written 58 nonfiction books, including lofty tomes on Katherine Mansfield, Wyndham Lewis, Edmund Wilson, and George Orwell. When he left academia to become a full-time writer, he found ‘writing to earn a living, as opposed to writing and research as part of the job at a university, presented challenges I had not anticipated.’ At that point, he pivoted. He searched for a subject who would sell, one who would appeal to a wide audience, not simply to a limited field of scholars.”

Cool Machine: A Novel by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday). Reviewed by Ryan Davison. “This first section captivates the reader with gritty realism, yet we are still unprepared for the intensity of the next. It begins two years later, when Ray’s wife, Elizabeth, enlists his longtime friend and colleague, Pepper, to serve as bodyguard for a shady art dealer. The chewed-up skeleton of an unglamorous Manhattan forms the backdrop to this hip, dark tale. Mutilated bodies lay in the wake of a hitman with a flat affect, creating disturbing situations and an existential climax with a vicious, unpredictable antagonist. Fear, humor, and violence all influence the tone of this section, but most memorable are its richly drawn, eccentric characters.”

Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America’s Future by Fergus M. Bordewich (Knopf). Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski. “Yet, underneath the tent tops and colorful bunting, the Centennial Exhibition began a period of social and cultural upheaval that extended far into the 20th century. Bordewich uses the lives of four disparate Americans as the lens through which to view this watershed year: Rutherford B. Hayes, Alexander Graham Bell, railroad tycoon Tom Scott, and sculptor Edmonia Lewis. Each embodies an aspect of change and transformation, for both good and ill.”

Red Sheet: A Novel by James Ellroy (Knopf). Reviewed by Diane Kiesel. “Now comes October 29, 1962, the day the Cuban Missile Crisis ended and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. ‘Party! Party! Fuckhead Jack and Bobby Kennedy saved the world,’ Ellroy writes in his signature intended-to-offend style. ‘The Russkis blinked, wimped, and pulled their missiles out of Cuba…An Anti-Dick-Nixon Show runs concurrent. The ex-veep drags ass in the governor’s race…The packed-tight crowd’s here to celebrate. It’s a double dose of jerkoff jubilation.’ From here, Ellroy is off and running, taking a grain of tabloid truth to sow a field of alternative-fact-based (i.e., fictional) history.”

A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, the Myths, the Legacy by Tony Lee Moral (University Press of Kentucky). Reviewed by Art Taylor. “In the end, it was those bookend chapters of A Century of Hitchcock — the opening one on ‘The Pleasure Garden’ and the closing survey of Hitchcock’s legacy — that left me inspired and motivated. Not only have I added some fresh films to my own need-to-watch checklist, but as it turns out, I learned ‘The Pleasure Garden’ is available for streaming, too. From page to screen — that’s where I’m headed.”

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