The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature

by Pollack, Neal

• ISBN13: 9780970335500
• ISBN10: 0970335504
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-09-01
• Publisher: McSweeney's

Summary

After World War II, American literature faced extinction. With the sorrowful decline of John O'Hara, the typewriter shortage of 1946, and the advent of television, it was apparent that American writing, so dominant in the first half of the century, was about to fade into a cruel oblivion. But then Neal Pollack manifested himself in our national conciousness as the pre-eminent American writer, a position he has not relinquished except for a brief period in 1972, when the title belonged to Erica Jong. Incredibly, this is the first comprehensive collection of his work ever published, largely because the government is afraid of his ideas. Contained within are excerpts from his most popular novels, such as Leon: A Man of the Streets, and his most significant nonfiction works, including his landmark essay on U.S. foreign policy, "The Decision to Invade New Zealand and How It Wasn't Made." This book is pointed and funny, moving and eloquent, but more importantly, it is a comprhensive chronicle of the world in which we live, have lived, and are yet to live. It is a must-read for every American with access to a computer, and also those who go to public libraries. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Publishing Notes	vii
Introduction	ix
Chronology	xii
Acknowledgments	xvii
The Albania of My Existence	1	(2)
I am Friends with a Working-Class Black Woman	3	(6)
It is Easy to Take a Lover in Cuba	9	(6)
Portrait of an Andalusian Horse Trainer	15	(4)
The Burden of Internet Celebrity	19	(4)
Interlude: ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' March 15, 1996	23	(6)
My Week at Sea	29	(6)
Letter From Paris	35	(4)
I Have Slept with 500 Women	39	(2)
Introduction to the New Slavery	41	(4)
Stand	45	(4)
John
A Doctor Cannot Save Your Life	49	(4)
An Interview with My Sister, Who Is a Lesbian	53	(4)
To Search for the Celtic Tiger	57	(6)
Interlude: The Pollack-Wilson Letters	63	(4)
Photographs	67	(10)
Teenagers: The Enemy Within	77	(18)
Interlude: The Paris Review Interview, June 27, 1976	95	(8)
The Subcomandante Rides at Dawn	103	(14)
One Writer's Routine	117	(4)
Why Am I So Handsome?	121	(10)
Witness for the Revolution	131	(8)
Secrets of the Mystery Jew	139	(10)
Coda: A Review of My Contemporaries	149