Hamilton Leithauser is the lead singer for the rock band The Walkmen. They released their fourth record You & Me this fall. He lives in Manhattan.
A few books that I really enjoyed this year were:
Roger’s Version by John Updike. The novel follows a weathered, sour divinity professor (Roger) who surprises even himself with some over-compensating good will toward two youngsters who energetically barge in on his life. He gets in pretty deep, and even stomachs an affair between the young squirt (Dale) and his own wife. Roger’s monotonous social life (cocktail parties, fantasizing about neighbors’ happiness) is funny the whole time. This was a fantastic book.
The Transparent Man by Anthony Hecht. It’s so hard to write about why I like these poems. It’s just incredible how much he can cover in so little space, and how effortless it all seems when everything has such a formal structure. I would also recommend his Flight Among the Tombs and The Venetian Vespers.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth. I was surprised at how much I didn’t like Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, but I figured I should give him another shot so I picked up American Pastoral and enjoyed it. The main action centers around a guy named Swede – a high school sports superhero who eventually married Miss New Jersey and ran a very successful glove manufacturing business in Newark. The first half of the book paints them as an entirely boring family, but after Swede’s daughter sets off a bomb in a nearby convenience store things take a nasty turn for the family. The narrator then dissects the family’s history to uncover what may not have been such a boring story.
The Comedians by Graham Greene. Three men meet aboard a ship to Haiti. They’re all traveling for different reasons and you definitely begin to wonder immediately who’s telling the truth about anything. After they arrive, they’re all assaulted by Papa Doc’s corrupt and violent regime, and each man’s character and intentions reveal themselves. This was one hell of a story. I loved it.
