The year was 1976. It was nearing deadline time at the The Boston Phoenix. Editor Bill Miller, formerly of the Boston Globe, emerged into the newsroom from his small office. A hush fell as reporters turned to face him. Waving his hand in the air, Miller announced, "A hundred dollars to the first reporter who …
Month: May 2026
When damaged people damage others
The Elements by prolific Irish writer John Boyne is an intense novel that takes you into the darkest places of human behavior and miraculously brings you into the light with a slender promise of hope. Broadly speaking, it is about depravity, crime, guilt, complicity, prostitution, pedophilia, rape, suicide, estrangement, betrayals, loss and reconciliation. And more. …
The invisible woman who took on the Third Reich and saved art for the ages
The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland by Michelle Young is a richly researched account of an apparently nondescript art historian who rose from a low-level volunteer job just prior to the Second World War to a preeminent curatorial position at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris. There, …
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A Trump trompe? Echoes from the past?
The Order of the Day by award-winning French novelist and film maker Eric Vuillard is a well-researched and creatively presented story of the Anschluss, Hitler’s move to take over Austria and incorporate it into Germany. It is a brief cautionary tale in narrative non-fiction form. Where direct quotes are available, Vuillard uses them. Where they …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 