Dispatches from the Gilded Age
A Few More Thoughts on Interesting People, Far-Flung Places, and the Joys of Southern Comforts
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- €10.99
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- €10.99
Publisher Description
From the heart of the American South to the African bush, Dispatches from the Gilded Age is a dazzling collection of essays from Julia Reed, one of America's most engaging and insightful chroniclers.
Reed's sharp eye and wit illuminate the high and low of a spectacular era, from her first byline covering the shooting of Dr. Herman Tarnower by headmistress Jean Harris, to profiles of luminaries like Andre Leon Talley, Sister Helen Prejean, President George and Laura Bush, and Madeleine Albright. Readers will savor steaks at Doe's Eat Place, consider the fashions of the day, and get the recipe for her famous hot cheese olives, all while joining Reed on a ride through her beloved South and beyond.
With a foreword by Roy Blount, Jr. and edited by her longtime assistant Everett Bexley, Dispatches from the Gilded Age showcases Julia Reed at her perceptive and entertaining best, delivering travelogue, political journalism, and cultural critique with her signature Southern charm.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Garden & Gun columnist Reed (Julia Reed's New Orleans), who died in 2020, profiles activists and artists, travels to exotic locales, and offers tart advice on food and fashion in this colorful essay collection spanning her 40-year career. The book opens with Reed's first byline, a Newsweek story about the 1980 murder of Scarsdale Diet doctor Herman Tarnower by his girlfriend Jean Harris. (Reed, a college sophomore and "part-time library assistant/phone answerer" at the magazine, got the assignment because Harris was the headmistress at her former private school in McLean, Va.) Elsewhere, Reed has a spirited sit-down with death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean ("I quit trying so hard not to take the Lord's name in vain when she told me an old Mickey Mouse joke with the f-word in it"); recalls how her friends treated her "like someone just diagnosed with a brain tumor" when she called off her first wedding; visits a beauty school in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan; and reflects on how cooking brought her solace during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sharp and fearless, these essays are a fitting tribute to Reed's life and career.
