The Books That Take Revenge, Centuries Later
A new history of the Red Scare prompts the question: Does literature still have enough influence to bring down the powerful?
Fiction
Books
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Who Came Up With That?
Contrary to what we think of as intellectual property, most ideas are difficult to trace back to one human mind.
The Questionable Triumph of the ‘Baling Wire Hippies’
Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog was seen as a countercultural milestone, but his new book reveals his alliances with the powerful.
What To Read
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Eight of the Most Fascinating Biographies to Read
Each is animated by the author’s love—for their subject, for language, and for pushing the boundaries of what the genre can do.
Six Books That Simply Must Be Talked About
These six books demand discussion—with a pal, a date, or a book club.
Nine Books to Reset Your View of the World
Each of these titles will widen your perspective, offering you original insight and vision.
Seven Books to Read When You Have No Time to Read
These titles are worth picking up, even if you have only a moment to spare.
The State of Grace
The author of sixteen novels, MARCEL AYMÉ is particularly well known in France for his many short stories, fables, and plays. The following story is taken from his new book, LE VIN DE PARTS.This translation by Norman Denny has been made available to the ATLANTICby The Bodley Head of London.
Glory
Born in Littleton, Massachusetts, MAURICE FLAGG GREW up on his father’s 200-acre farm, which he left at the age of twenty-one. Since his graduation from Bates College in 1949, Mr. Flagg has been in newspaper and publications work in Washington, D.C. This is an Atlantic “First.”
Androcles and the Army
Irish man of letters, Frank O’Connor is loved and admired for the wit and warmth he has shown in his stories. Mr. O’Connor, who has taught several courses on the writing of fiction, is now living in the United Stales.
The Word From Space
A Nebraskan by birth, WRIGHT MORRIS has tired at various times in California, at Wellfleet on Cape Cod, on a mesa north of Gallup, and now resides in Wayne, Pennsylvania. In 1957 he received the National Book Award for his novel, THE FIELD OF VISION.
Westerns
ROBERT O. ERISMAN, who lives in North Stonington, Connecticut, was 1957 judge of the Western Writers of America short-story contest, with the result seen below,
Courtship of the Blue Widow: An Atlantic Story
HARRY MARK PETRAKIS was thirty-three years old, happily married, the father of two sons, and busily employed in a steel company in Pittsburgh before he succeeded in breaking into ATLANTIC print. His story, “Pericles on 34th Street,” won the Atlantic “First” Award for 1957; this is his second story, and he is now at work on a novel.
Love Affair
A New Zealander now in his early thirties, IAN CROSS had seen service as a journalist before coming to Harvard as an associate Nieman Fellow in 1954. During this year of study and refreshment he found time to write his first novel, THE GOD BOY, published last autumn by Harcourt, Brace. This is his first story to appear in print.
The Honeymoon
For the last several years BETTY ANDREWS BLUNT has been, as she says, “hanging on a but clause — that phrase in an editorial letter that likes your work but . . .”Mrs. Blunt, a Nebraskan who spent her girlhood in Lincoln, is now married to Jerry Blunt, chairman of the Theatre Arts Department at Los Angeles City College.
That Beautiful Shore
An English major at Dartmouth College, class of 1942, JAMES M. IDEMA studied composition under the late Sidney Cox and in his senior year was awarded the Grimes Prize for one of his short stories. After three years as a patrol bomber pilot for the Navy, he returned to Michigan, his native state, where he sells life insurance and devotes a part of each week to writing.
The Guest
A short story