Book Fight Ep 261: Winter of Wayback, 1992 (Larry Brown and Oxford American)
This week we're time-traveling back to 1992, and the first issue of The Oxford American, which in its early years was frequently referred to as "The New Yorker of the South." We read an essay by Larry Brown called "Fire Notes," which would later be published as part of Brown's memoir, On Fire. Brown was a firefighter and a self-taught writer who began banging out fiction on a typewriter during downtime in the firehouse. The essay we read is about his work for the fire department, and how he got his start as a writer.
We couldn't really talk about The Oxford American without talking about the cloud of scandal under which its founding editor, Marc Smirnoff, was dismissed.
Also this week, Mike takes a look at what it was like to be an editorial assistant for a big New York magazine in 1992. And Tom reports on early research into whether video games were breaking kids' brains. Plus font news, 90s Movie Club, and much, much more.
Episode Links:
Larry Brown, "Fire Notes" (from The Oxford American Issue 1)
John Grisham, "The Faulkner Thing"
"Editor Fired Following Harassment Accusation," New York Times
Editors In Love (website of Marc Smirnoff and Carol Anne Fitzgerald)
Janet Maslin reviews Boomerang in The New York Times
Thanks for listening!