Forty essays on history, art, and literature from one of the most incisive, and most exhilarating, critical minds of the twentieth century. Guy Davenport was perhaps the last great American polymath. He provided links between art and literature, music and sculpture, modernist poets and classic philosophers, the past and present—and pretty much everything in between. Not only had Davenport seemingly read (and often translated from the original languages) everything in print, he also had the ability, expressed with unalloyed enthusiasm, to draw connections between how cultural synapses make, define, and reflect our civilization. In this collection, Guy Davenport serves as the reader’s guide through history and literature, pointing out the values and avenues of thought that have shaped our ideas and our thinking. In these forty essays we find fresh thinking on Greek culture, Whitman, Spinoza, Wittgenstein, Melville, Tolkien, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Charles Olson, Marianne Moore, Eudora Welty, Louis Zukovsky, and many others. Each essay is a tour of the history of ideas and imagination, written with wit and startling erudition.

The story of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him."


From the Trade Paperback edition.

A "New York Times" Notable Book for 2011 One of "Entertainment Weekly"'s Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011A "Time Magazine" Top 10 Nonfiction book of 2011A "Boston Globe" Best Nonfiction Book of 2011One of "Library Journal"'s Best Books of 2011 A sharp-eyed, uniquely humane tour of America's cultural landscape--from high to low to lower than low--by the award-winning young star of the literary nonfiction world.
In "Pulphead, "John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us--with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own--how we really (no, really) live now.
In his native Kentucky, Sullivan introduces us to Constantine Rafinesque, a nineteenth-century polymath genius who concocted a dense, fantastical prehistory of the New World. Back in modern times, Sullivan takes us to the Ozarks for a Christian rock festival; to Florida to meet the alumni and straggling refugees of MTV's "Real World, "who've generated their own self-perpetuating economy of minor celebrity; and all across the South on the trail of the blues. He takes us to Indiana to investigate the formative years of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose and then to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina--and back again as its residents confront the BP oil spill.
Gradually, a unifying narrative emerges, a story about this country that we've never heard told this way. It's like a fun-house hall-of-mirrors tour: Sullivan shows us who we are in ways we've never imagined to be true. Of course we don't know whether to laugh or cry when faced with this reflection--it's our inevitable sob-guffaws that attest to the power of Sullivan's work.

"Sullivan has found the transcendent in the horse."--"Sports Illustrated"
Winner of a 2004 Whiting Writers' Award
One evening late in his life, veteran sportswriter Mike Sullivan was asked by his son what he remembered best from his three decades in the press box. The answer came as a surprise. "I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73. That was ... just beauty, you know?"
John Jeremiah Sullivan didn't know, not really-but he spent two years finding out, journeying from prehistoric caves to the Kentucky Derby in pursuit of what Edwin Muir called "our long-lost archaic companionship" with the horse. The result-winner of a" National Magazine" Award and named a Book of the Year by "The Economist" magazine-is an unprecedented look at Equus caballus, incorporating elements of memoir, reportage, and the picture gallery.
In the words of the "New York Review of Books," "Blood Horses" "reads like Moby-Dick as edited by F. Scott Fitzgerald . . . Sullivan is an original and greatly gifted writer."
"Wisdom that is both personal and universal . . . Brilliant"--"Chicago Tribune"
"A splendid account of [the] Triple Crown . . . In horses' beauty and power, and with their hint of danger even when schooled, Sullivan senses a restoration of what has been lost to us."--"The New York Times"
"As unconventionally lovely a book as you are likely to read for some time."--"The Arkansas Democrat Gazette"
"A clear picture of a highly specialized world . . . A gem of curiosity."--"The Associated Press"
"Sullivan subtly extends the theme of bloodlines to make this book as much about family as it is about horses . . . Its appeal isn't limited to the equine crowd."--"0Outside"
JohnJeremiah Sullivan is a writer-at-large for "GQ" and a contributing editor at "Harper's Magazine."

John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on a funhouse hall-of-mirrors ride through the other side of America - to the Ozarks for a Christian rock festival; to Florida to meet the straggling refugees of MTV's Real World; to Indiana to investigate the formative years of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose and then to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina - and back again as its residents confront the BP oil spill. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan - with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own - shows us how America really (no, really) lives now.

A groundbreaking study of the extraordinary photographers, writers, printmakers, and publishers who formed a flourishing modernist community in Kentucky Dozens of American cities witnessed the founding of camera clubs in the first half of the 20th century, though few boasted as many accomplished artists as the one based in Lexington, Kentucky. This pioneering book provides the most absorbing account to date of the Lexington Camera Club, an under-studied group of artists whose ranks included Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Van Deren Coke, Robert C. May, James Baker Hall, and Cranston Ritchie. These and other members of the Lexington Camera Club explored the craft and expressive potential of photography. They captured Kentucky's dramatic natural landscape and experimented widely with different techniques, including creating double and multiple exposures or shooting deliberately out-of-focus images. In addition to compiling images by these photographers, this book examines their relationships with writers, publishers, and printmakers based in Kentucky at the time, such as Wendell Berry, Guy Davenport, Jonathan Greene, and Thomas Merton. Moreover, the publication seeks to highlight the unique contributions that the Lexington Camera Club made to 20th-century photography, thus broadening a narrative of modern art that has long focused on New York and Chicago. Featuring a wealth of new scholarship, this fascinating catalogue asserts the importance and artistic achievement of these often overlooked photographers and their circle. Published in association with the Cincinnati Art Museum Exhibition Schedule: Cincinnati Art Museum (10/08/16-01/01/17)