American Writers (One Hundred Pages at a Time)

Part one of my review of the frustrating, fascinating, and beautiful work LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN. I still do not know fully what to think of this one. It explores the lives of sharecroppers in the South during the Great Depression, but goes off the rails.

If you are interested here are some thoughts on a few pieces of James Agee's assorted journalism for FORTUNE and TIME, including some book reviews. The most interesting may be his look at cock fighting and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

For the first time in this podcast, I am looking at a screenplay. This one was by James Agee based on the book NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, about a Bluebeard character. Contains some real horror elements.

An episode where I try to look at a bunch of H. P. Lovecraft's letters from his time in New York.

In this episode, I look at a short story by Harry Houdini (ghost written by H. P. Lovecraft) called "Under the Pyramids". It is a beautiful story of the exploration into deep history even if the scare at the end is fairly typical of its writer. Narrated by Houdini, the "was it all a dream" suggestion has a bit more punch.

In this episode we finish up with Agee's film reviews for TIME. Overall, I think they are worth reading in the context of re-exploring some of the films of the 1940s.

Lovecraft revised a couple of interesting stories by Sonia Greene, his future wife. While we can identify a few Lovecraftian themes Sonia Greene brings her how thoughts to these tales.

In this episode I finish looking at Agee's NATION reviews and then jump into some he wrote for TIME. In 1948 Agee stopped writing film reviews for both publications.

In this episode I look at three of Lovecraft's revisions with Winifred Jackson and Anna Helen Crofts ("The Green Meadow", "The Crawling Chaos", and "Poetry and the Gods"). They are all interesting tales. The first two were mostly written by HPL. "Poetry and the Gods" was more of a true revision.

Part three of my review of James Agee's film reviews get us through some more of THE NATION reviews, including his review of MONSIEUR VERDOUX, the Chaplin classic.