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Words & Reflectionsace—it might be suggested that ideologicalzeal required it. In the circlesBernhard describes, anticommunismwas insistent and intolerant. Those whomight have initially wavered becametrue believers because ambivalence orlurking doubts were not acceptable.This is a provocative book. It’s temptingto ask whether it offers any lastinglessons. In retrospect, the Cold Warseems to have required the coincidingof so many elements that nothing duplicatingit can be imagined. But ifSoviet anticommunism required systematicpropaganda at home andabroad, and if that propaganda waswildly successful, as it was, then it’s fairto assume that controversial globalpolitical strategies might require moreof the same. ■Michael J. Kirkhorn, a 1971 NiemanFellow, is Director of the JournalismProgram at Gonzaga University inSpokane, Washington. He is presentlywriting a book about pressindependence in which a chapter,“News as Illusion,” examines theuses of propaganda.A Journalist Reveals Himself in LettersIrreverent, churlish, boastful and, sometimes, larger than life.Larry L. King: A Writer’s Life in Letters, Or, Reflections in a Bloodshot EyeEdited by Richard A. HollandTexas Christian University Press. 404 Pages. $27.50.By Elizabeth LelandIt’s 1969; Larry L. King is starting hisNieman year, paying an exorbitant$390 a month for a one-bedroomapartment, and bored with most of thespeakers.“Dear Lanvil,” he writes his cousinback in Texas, “…I find myself oftendespondent, really dragging my chin,feeling that I am not getting all out ofthis that I should, asking myself what a41-year-old fool is doing interruptinghis budding career for a year. The answer,on my good days, comes back:‘Cause you ain’t had no schoolin’ Fool,and ‘cause you so fucking iggernent.’On bad days, I have no answer. I feel abit insecure, a bit out of the mainstream, and I’m not as well-recognizedhere as in New York precincts in thematter of Personal Fame, and all thischomps on my Big E Ego.”King leads a revolt, taking away therole of selecting speakers from CuratorDwight Sargent. One of King’s firstinvitees is William Styron. In a letter toa friend in Texas, King recounts howStyron ends up in the emergency roomafter inhaling “a bit of Mexican boosmoke” in King’s apartment.“Shortly (maybe 3 in the a.m.) hedescribes himself as feeling peculiar.He flops on the couch and bespeaks ofdeath. He commences quoting poetry.He falls on the floor and his wife cradleshis head in her arms, and they speakpassages to one another of what I thinkwas Shakespeare.“Whereupon Styron bolts upright,proclaims with a wild gleam that he can‘see the other shore’ and rushes offtowards the outdoors, where the temperatureis then around zero degrees,without no coat on—possibly to shakethe hand of Jesus, who knows?”King’s letters home to Texas are partof an often hilarious, occasionally poignant,sometimes tedious 404-pagecollection, “Larry L. King: A Writer’sLife in Letters, Or, Reflections in aBloodshot Eye.”King (who wrote “The Best LittleWhorehouse in Texas,” not the LarryKing of television fame) has written 13books, eight plays and countless magazinearticles. But he says he enjoyedwriting nothing so much as letters.They are irreverent, churlish, boastful,sometimes larger than life, likeKing himself. They show the passions—fear, hope, anger, joy—of a man whocraved writing so much he left his wifeand young children, who rose from astruggling freelance writer to nationalprominence as a contributing editor atHarper’s Magazine working for anotherSouthern writer-turned-editor, WillieMorris.“A Writer’s Life in Letters” includeswonderful storytelling that hints atKing’s greatness, but it’s buried inminute details about what he’s writingor how much he’s drinking that only atrue fan would appreciate. After ploddingthrough his letters, I wish I’dspent the time instead reading some ofKing’s earlier works: “The Old Man,”his most famous piece in Harper’s,written after the death of his father;“Confessions of a Racist,” runner-upfor the National Book Award, and“Blowing My Mind at Harvard,” a piecehe wrote for Harper’s about his Niemanexperience. ■Elizabeth Leland, a 1992 NiemanFellow, works as a part-time reporterfor The Charlotte Observerand full-time mom to Jack, 5, andAbbie, 3.Nieman Reports / Fall 1999 73