“Fitzgerald's work was almost entirely out of print when 'The Lost Weekend' was published in 1944—even 'Gatsby' seemed well on its way to being forgotten—and Jackson had meant to be 'deliberately prophetic' in calling attention to a writer he considered… — Blake Bailey Copy Share Image
“In other words Yates had remembered the lesson of his first great master, Fitzgerald—namely, that people rarely say what they mean, and good dialogue is a matter of catching one’s characters “in the very act of giving themselves away.” — Blake Bailey Copy Share Image
“Fitzgerald's work was almost entirely out of print when 'The Lost Weekend' was published in 1944—even 'Gatsby' seemed well on its way to being… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
I myself am consummately middle class. We grew up in upper-middle-class suburbs in Oklahoma City, and thats very much the same ethos as what… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
The funniest novel you've never read. . . . Afternoon Men is a revelation to sophisticated readers of every stripe, but especially to a… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
I'm a huge fan of 'The Lost Weekend.' I have this dog-eared copy of the 1963 Time Reading Program edition, which was a series… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
“Largely to spare his feelings, she’d spoken in rather vague terms about wanting to “find herself,” and Yates concluded that she’d become a “womens’-libbing… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
“Repeatedly Yates went berserk—raging over grievances old and new, hurling furniture at phantoms out of his past. The nurses who lived upstairs complained about… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
My father was a golden boy from a very small town. He won a very prestigious law scholarship to NYU Law School, and there… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
“As Monica Yates pointed out, “Dad didn’t notice other people. He picked up on asshole people, he could figure people out in general, but… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
“ The Lost Weekend was the only book, out of five books, that I wrote sober, without stimulus or sedative.” — Blake Bailey Copy Share
I keep three framed photographs on my desk: the latest school picture of my daughter; a photo of my wife getting her diploma from… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
“But what ultimately made Yates the scourge of copy editors was his simple aversion to criticism; any emendation in his manuscript, be it a… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
“One of the more curious paradoxes of Yates’s nature was his almost archaic courtliness toward women on the one hand, and his lifelong tendency… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
“Not only had Yates continued to grow as a writer in terms of craft, but also philosophically, salvaging from the ruins of his life… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
I'm not an academic; I'm just a bookish Joe who gets passionate about certain writers and suddenly wants to read everything they've ever written… — Blake Bailey Copy Share
