Getting Personal: Selected Essays

Front Cover
Basic Books, 2008 M11 5 - 416 pages
From the man who is practically synonymous with the form of the modern personal essay comes a delightful collection of prose, poems, and never-before-published pieces that span his career as an essayist, novelist, poet, film critic, father, son, and husband. Organized in six parts (Childhood; Youth; Early Marriage and Bachelorhood; Teaching and Work; Fiction; Politics, Religion, Movies, Books, Cities; The Style of Middle Age) Getting Personal tells two stories: the development of Lopate's career as a writer and the story of his life.
 

Contents

Hanging Out Chekhov for Children Suicide of a Schoolteacher
17
Samson and Delilah and the Kids
25
Youth
34
4
47
Washington Heights and Inwood
85
My Drawer
91
Never Live Above Your Landlord
119
On Shaving a Beard
130
Detachment and Passion
288
The Story of a Marriage
302
Confessions of a Shusher
311
Reflections on Subletting
316
The Style of Middle
325
Portrait of My Body
327
25
335
The Dead Father
339

AgainstJoie de Vivre
143
The Brunch
157
Resistance to the Holocaust
263
The Movies and Spiritual Life
280
The Story of My Father
358
5
386
First Love 169 189 220 263 280 288 302 311 316 327 335 339 358
397
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About the author (2008)

Currently the John Cranford Adams Chair of the English Department at Hofstra University, Phillip Lopate is the author of five works of nonfiction, two novels, and two books of poems, as well as serving as editor of the bestselling collections Writing New York and The Art of the Personal Essay. The recipient of two Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts grants, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

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