Wednesday, July 17 - David Margolick on J.H. Burns

Tonight on Bibliocracy Radio, 8 PM on KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California:  DAVID MARGOLICK.  I read, eagerly, the latest from my guest tonight based solely on a favorite book he wrote some years ago, one of those small, perfect, complete stories which stays with you because it succeeds in every way.  That was Strange Fruit:  The Biography of a Song, about the ballad of lynching written by Abel Meeropol and sung most famously by Billie Holiday.  Its author, David Margolick, has written plenty since, but I am catching up with him tonight on the occasion of his biography of a literary character with whom most of us are unfamiliar, a mostly forgotten and in many ways unattractive personality, an important and talented and fascinating American writer.  In Dreadful:  The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns, David Margolick both introduces and attempts to explain the “dreadful” – as in the colloquial “gay” as in homosexual slang - for a difficult and weirdly exemplary life by the author of one of the once most acclaimed World War II novels by an American, The Gallery.  This is in fact writer David Margolick’s fifth book.  He is also a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.  Thanks for listening on the radio, online or anytime you like as a free download from the station archives.  Buy a book today.  This book!  Find me on Facebook.