The D.C. newspaper novel, the media, the Washington area, tech and other surrealism: David Rothman at large
Stone statues honoring the dead helped draw me to the University of North Carolina. Thomas Wolfe wrote unforgettably of his father the stonecutter in Look Homeward, Angel, a classic coming-of-age novel. After reading Angel, I knew I must go to Chapel Hill. Back in the 1960s when I was at “Pulpit Hill, as Wolfe called the university in […]
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Never mind fiscal cliffs, or the fact that the real danger isn’t a Mayan-style apocalypse but a nuclear one (with the Doomsday clock last set at five minutes to midnight). For more than a few of us, the big threat is the year ahead, 2013. Perhaps 85 percent of the world’s office buildings lack marked […]
Read More"Jeffrey wasn’t sure why no one would hang around with him anymore. Maybe it was his new deodorant?" – Animals being dicks, via Court Merrigan. Here’s the full story—G-rated—via an animation. Oh, and please ignore the meaningless “Similar Posts” links below unless they’re of interest to you in your “random” mode. My cyber-elves must be […]
Read More“He would fit in well here.” – Chronicle of Higher Education commenter quoting a CNN report on just-captured mobster Whitey Bulger: “An ‘avid reader with an interest in history,’ Bulger was known to frequent libraries and historic sites, the FBI said. “ Whitey’s brother, William, aka “Billy,” spent years as a university president, not just […]
Read MoreAlmost to the day, 66 years ago, on April 28, 1045, Mussolini’s enemies shot him and kicked and spat on his body, and on April 30 of that same year, Hitler killed himself with a Walther PPK 7.65 mm pistol (right photo). Now it is 2011 and we’ve TWEPed and buried Osama bin Laden. A […]
Read MoreI date back to the Smith Corona days of newspapers, and I can fondly recall a group named something like the Anti All Digital Dialing League. I’ll not bow blindly to the gods of technology. Within the book industry, I’m rooting for the survival of paper books and especially of the small independent stores selling […]
Read MoreWashington, D.C., the main setting of The Solomon Scandals, is like Hollywood or an Army base. It’s a city of hierarchies, both official and social. Read on and find out where you stand in the social order. You don’t have to live in D.C. to take the related poll in this post—one visitor has even […]
Read MoreRebecca Kitiona-Fenton: Great-grandniece of Jonathan Stone, the narrator. Tireless student of “previrtual media,” the inky old paper kind. Jon Stone, the narrator: A reporter whose curiosity might kill his career and maybe him. Sees Washington as a white-collar factory town. Covered the Kent State massacre while working in a blue-collar town. A Jew raised in […]
Read MoreA free MP3 of the start of The Solomon Scandals—one hour of a total of about eight—is now downloadable for iPods or other players. Click here to get the audio file, which includes an introduction. Big thanks to librarian Tom Peters, the narrator, who is with Online Programming for All Libraries. If you’re blind or […]
Read MoreRebecca Kitiona-Fenton: Great-grandniece of Jonathan Stone, the narrator. Tireless student of “previrtual media,” the inky old paper kind. Jon Stone, the narrator: A reporter whose curiosity might kill his career and maybe him. Sees Washington as a white-collar factory town. Covered the Kent State massacre while working in a blue-collar town. A Jew raised in […]
Read More“Tracing the conscientious reportage of hard-nosed Washington Telegram correspondent Jon Stone, Rothman’s thriller weaves together society gossip, zoning reportage, and union grumblings into a pulp-ish web of international intrigue. Stone is the Cassandra of the D.C. press corps—his hunches mocked, his scoops unpublished until it’s too late. In the meantime, we get to relish his […]
Read MoreThe Solomon Scandals vividly depicts a city of lobbyists, crooked lawyers and other manipulators. Herbert Stone, father of Jonathan Stone, the reporter protagonist, works for a provider of PR and “public affairs” services. It’s “a nice, safe pseudo-Civil Service, so to speak, for careerists keen on abetting the more obnoxious of the corporate profiteers.” But […]
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