I remember being awed by it - the uniqueness and nicety of style - and I suspect I was a bit jealous because we were more or less of the same generation.

Rick Bass is one of the best writers of his generation.

Art has something to do with the arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

It is also one of the pleasures of oral biography, in that the reader, rather than editor, is jury.

He still has the same way of calling to me, as if I'm still new to him, as if he has yet to get over me.

The New York Times published the guest list on the front page. The masks were a brilliant concept.

I remember being awed by it - the uniqueness and nicety of style - and I suspect I was a bit jealous because we were more or less of the same generation.