I'm not sharing the publication's name, since I've written for them in the past and hope to continue our relationship, this miscue notwithstanding. And to thank them for paying me anyway, which came as a welcome surprise. They're good eggs, politics notwithstanding — and I understand that the bonds of friendship can blind. I feel blessed with a sense of candor that overpowers fraternal feelings. When I wrote a book about my father, he didn't talk to me for a year.
Never Say You've Had a Lucky Life,
Especially If You've Had a Lucky Life
by Joseph Epstein
(Free Press: $29.99)
It takes chutzpah to critique the curtain call of a show you missed.
So when an editor asked me to review Joseph Epstein's recent autobiography, I felt compelled to inform him that I had never heard of Epstein, 87, not even in the four years I went to Northwestern while he was teaching there. Nor have I read any of his 33 previous books, nor the intellectual journals he stewarded. This must be a lapse on my part.
Lack of familiarity, I suggested, either makes me totally unqualified to evaluate, "Never Say You've Had a Lucky Life, Especially If You've Had a Lucky Life," (Free Press: $29.99) or its ideal reader. Someone who brings fresh eyes to a book that should not be placed on the pedestal of his previous writings, but judged on its own merits as an independent work. 
Go for it, the magazine said. I'm glad they did. Handing the work to an Epstein novice turned out to be apt, because notoriety is a leitmotif running through it.
Epstein begins with laudable modesty. "Over what is now a long life, I did little, saw nothing notably historical, and endured not much out of the ordinary of anguish or trouble or exaltation," he writes. "What, then, is the justification of this book?"
His answer: chronicling the milieu he grew up in — "petit bourgeois, Jewish, Midwest America." And the formation of his right-of-center-views which, I'd describe as a soft revanchism — decrying the present, dreading the future, keening for the past. Plus frequent potshots at the left. The biggest ripple Epstein has sent out lately was in 2020, when he decried Jill Biden using her educational doctorate honorific as "fraudulent, not to say a touch comic." Prompting Northwestern to put out a statement observing that he hasn't taught there since 2003 and the university "strongly disagrees with Mr. Epstein's misogynistic views."
Epstein briefly limns Chicago of the 1940s and 1950s, the ugly corduroy knickers, and Chicago Cubs pitcher Johnny Klippstein working in a sporting goods store in the off-season.
Doing this affords him ample opportunity to pivot from his own life to the world at large. The child of inattentive parents — the style at the time — he turns neglect into a positive attribute. Epstein rejoices that he himself did not become "one of those fathers who these days show up for all their children's school activities, driving them to four or five different kinds of lessons, making a complete videotapes record of their first eighteen years, taking them to lots of ball games, art galleries, and (ultimately, no doubt) the therapist."
Setting aside the anachronism of videotape, the reader has to wonder whether the road to a shattered psyche is truly paved by dads showing up at their kids' events. In case the reader misses the point, Epstein decries "the almost crippling, excessive concern for the rearing of children." I wish he had shown his work here, perhaps revealing a few sources. I'm a fan of Lenore Skenazy and her Free-Range Kids. Yet I still went to my sons' games and concerts, and they seem to have emerged from childhood unscarred.
The trait that bothered me most is Epstein's tendency, as he marches methodically through his stints at various magazines, to tar his long ago coworkers in passing, by name, as drunks, incompetents, closeted gays (decrying, of course, the use of the word "gay" as it sullies a term for the kind of happiness he would enjoy if only nothing ever changed). He notes that a beloved Cub infielder married a prostitute, a needless jab that only confirms Epstein as reflexively vindictive, someone who can't pass a reputation without clawing at it. I'd credit him with candor, if I thought he were intentionally revealing himself as a score-settler abusing the corpses of his former colleagues as payback for their slights. But my hunch is this will come as unwelcome news to him.
Epstein mourns the loss of the word "Negro," as "once a term of great dignity." Yes, and "idiot" was once a neutral medical term. But times change. Epstein clutches at "Negro" twice — manfully restraining himself from daubing a tear for minstrel shows — never devoting a second's thought to the churning racial dynamics that drive such changes. I like nothing more than to hear a good argument, even for positions I don't hold. But Epstein views his opinion as so patently obvious, there's no need to make a case. He utters his opinion and QED.
Every book has a moment where its author either gains a reader's loyalty, or loses him entirely. Epstein lost me when, shortly after unspooling a dozen pages of detailed description of his pledging to Phi Ep at the University of Chicago, he delivers this sentence: "I went to poetry readers given by T.S. Eliot and Marianne Moore." That's it. A dozen words. If those two giants offered anything notable, he should have noted it. Otherwise Epstein is just dropping names, something he does a lot. I've met and interviewed my share of late 20th and early 21st century greats — including one that Epstein is quite proud to have regularly played racquetball with — but I'm going to withhold them all here, preferring to stand or fail on my own merits, without conjuring up a Justice League of the Famous to rub my elbows until I, too, ascend into their empyrean.
I blame his editor, for letting Epstein off-gas contempt for the current world leading to all sorts of wrong-footed moments. He meets his wife, they sleep together, then Epstein raises a finger and apologizes: "In our-hyper candid age, I suppose I ought here to describe in some detail our sex."
No, he ought not. No reader imaginable looks up from the book at this point, rattles its pages and cries, "Details! Tell us all about having sex with your wife!" Particularly a reader drawn to Epstein's work, who no doubt is nodding along in agreement at the deterioration all around, with Black culture being taught in once-noble universities as if it had merit and was not just victimhood rampant, to paraphrase his sentiments.
A meticulous editor would also have noticed that twice he shares his jokey fantasy headline about imagining Saul Bellow's death during their racquetball games. Once is plenty.
Here's a suggestion for Epstein's future books, sure to come so long as he draws breath: if you actually care about being embraced by readers in the future, perhaps you should avoid reflexive dismissal of every change that occurs on the way toward that future. Just a thought.
I've been panned by non-entities who rear out of the mist to plant a harpoon in my side, so do not relish filling that role for a far more accomplished writer. The best I can say about "Never Say You're Lucky" is it inspired me to want to seek out Epstein's other books and get a better sense of his work. His latest collection of essays, "Familiarity Breeds Content," begins with a rapturous introduction by Christopher Buckley, who compares Epstein to James Boswell, Christopher Hitchens and Philip Larkin. He also says Epstein's readers are no mere readers, but devotees, cult members. I apologize to them all. I must be slow on the uptake. Perhaps I will warm to him; though considering he calls society's triumph over tobacco "health fascism," maybe not.
Credit where due. At an age when many writers have furled their sails and found safe harbor, Joseph Epstein has bound himself to the helm, tacking against the future that will swamp all of us, like it or not. Joseph Epstein's long, well-lived life offers up yet another very readable and thought provoking book. I know I will think of it whenever I am tempted to drop a name or deliver an unmerited kick, and thank Joseph Epstein quite sincerely for that.
I would have been proud to publish this review, whether or not I agreed with its conclusions. (And I do. Joe Epstein is a splendid stylist but an intellectual Neanderthal.)
ReplyDeleteThank you Henry! That means a lot to me. I read your comment to my wife and said, "There's my $300!"
DeleteFor readers who might not be familiar, Henry is the former Sun-Times book editor and a fine writer himself, author of "What's that Pig Outdoors" and other noteworthy books. The sad thing is, I offered the review to our Sunday editor who said, in essence, "That isn't something we'd publish." Sigh. You ever notice that grandma seldom braces herself in the doorway of this life, crying, "I don't want to go!" The world changes so much, few of us aren't relieved, when the time comes, to put on our hats and be on our way. Maybe nature does that intentionally, as a kindness. No, that can't be. Nature is anything but kind.
DeleteGreat to see you name, Henry!
DeleteHe comes off as quite a pompous ass, which is why I guess you used the painting of Louis 14th shown in Réception du Grand Condé à Versailles, by Jean-Léon Gérôme, at the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris, as Louis was an enormous pompous ass as seen as the center subject of the painting done in 1878.
ReplyDeleteI can see why that editor wouldn't publish your review.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of the guy either and based on this, I'm glad that I haven't. The rejection of the review is interesting. Sounds like the editor may have let his friendship with the author cloud his judgement in that he wanted a positive review rather than honesty. That would bring any review published in the unnamed magazine into question.
ReplyDeleteHe thought that Epstein's writing about Chicago put him in my wheelhouse. Though in truth Epstein's descriptions about the city were quite meager compared to, oh, his revenge served cold to former colleagues long dead.
DeleteI'm surprised you were asked to write this review. Any editor with a passing knowledge of your work could have easily guessed the tone you would take in your review of his friend's book. I know just a little about Joe Epstein, remembering his 2020 Jill Biden-NU flap, and would certainly have known better than to ask you to review his book if I wanted a positive critique.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is that an unscrupulous book advertiser might take two sentences from your last paragraph as a positive recommendation. I am with Marty G— I am glad not to have encountered the author’s work.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I put them in. I was trying to give them a bone and make it into print.
DeleteMy daughter spent 7 years at Northwestern and hadn't heard of him either.
ReplyDeletejohn
He lost me when I looked up "revanchism".
ReplyDeleteBlowhards like this (and Chris Buckley's dad comes to mind as the archetype), using their self-exalted positions as ultimate cultural arbiters, sound like nothing more than fat suburban dads decrying the state of popular music; bitching about that shitty "rap" music and other equally unimportant topics.
I applaud you for publishing this here, and allowing this incisive critique to see the light of day. Of course, the magazine, and the books publisher, would hate this review, as it does nothing to pump up this declining author's sales.
The question I'd like to have Mr. Epstein answer is: how is it possible to live a forward-thinking, visionary life, when you cover your eyes every time you pull up your pants?
I know it's an obscure word, but it so aptly describes the Right at the moment: a policy of punishing people while clawing their way back toward an imagined past.
DeleteI don't think Mike jazz realized that revanchism was your word and not that of Mr. Epstein.
DeleteThat does sum up our current politco-cultural situation.
DeleteNo, Steve, I knew very well that that was Neil's word.
DeleteWhether Mr. Epstein would realize that it's a apt descriptor of his raison d'etre is another question...
as a silly aside, I thought George Santos's alter-ego, drag persona was named "Kitara Revanche" when i first heard it, and i thought that was hilarious. It wasn't until i saw the name in print that i realized my mistake (it is Kitara Ravache).
DeleteI've always found Revanchism to be somewhat sad. It describes a worldview where the fondest hope for the future is only the past.
DeleteMy reaction is just: "Wow!". Perhaps your review could not be published, but the book, itself, should not have been published. I'm grateful for your candor. Perhaps the editor even anticipated it.
ReplyDeleteI read many books and many book reviews, and cannot count the times I've been suckered into a bad book by undeserved glowing reviews. I wish more reviewers had the guts to tell us what they really think. Your review of this troglodyte is awesome.
ReplyDeleteMy sister got acquainted with Epstein when she was dating a fellow English professor at Northwestern. She says he was a pest, always trying to horn into events when distinguished authors came to visit, and was just generally pissed off at the world for never giving him the recognition he thinks is his due. Maybe this book will turn that around for him, but frankly, it doesn't sound like it.
ReplyDeleteThat isn't a surprise. As a person who essentially lives in isolation with his wife and rarely gets any kind of professional feedback from anybody, I sometimes wish to have the kind of network that Epstein has. Then when I see the reality, as laid out by Epstein, I'm grateful. The thing is, he doesn't realize how unattractive he makes it. The key fact about Saul Bellow is that he felt BAD after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature because he couldn't win it AGAIN. Fame is like any other addiction — you can either exist without it, or indulge, but for some there is never enough. That's why I say obscurity is my lance and shield. . .
DeleteFame and adulation are very addictive drugs, Mr. S. They're why there are so many who finally hang it up long after they should have done so, or contibue snort them until they pass away. First one who readily comes to mind is Sinatra in the Nineties. There are many more examples like Frank, and far too many of them to list here.
DeleteI was generally familiar with Epstein, and would not have been tempted to pick up this book, but your review is absolutely delectable. Kudos to the magazine for paying you for it anyway, and many thanks to you for sharing it here.
ReplyDeleteThanks also to Clark St for identifying the very apt painting for us.
I used Google's reverse image search for that!
DeleteI should have put a note on the blog. But then I have to remove it later. Still, I don't intend readers to have to sleuth, and the Orsey doesn't get the attention it deserves.
DeleteI'm not surprised this wasn't published, but I'm glad it was written! Thanks for sharing it with us!
ReplyDeleteFun Fact: Epstein was the mentor (during undergrad at NW) of the current University of Austin president. https://www.uaustin.org/people/pano-kanelos
ReplyDeleteAlas, the "University of Austin" is much the same kind of "university" as "Hamburger University" or "Trump University." It's not accredited and students are not able to receive financial aid. It's mostly yet another in the seemingly endless series of right-wing grifts, set up by people who think existing Texas universities are "too liberal." (More liberal than Louis XIV, I suppose.)
DeleteSome will write a book around a title; others will do the whole book first and name it later, but when the title is as clunky and too-long-to-be-clever as this one, it suggests that the author does not take guidance very well, and the examples in this review seem to bear that out. He does not sound like someone to whom you say, "No."
ReplyDeleteEvery successful author, actor, filmmaker or other creative artist has some ego project within them that's bursting to get out, and eventually their level of success gives them the authority, or the budget, or whatever, to finally enable its release, regardless of what others think. "Here's the movie I've been wanting to make since 1985." "Here's the book I've been wanting to write forever." Sometimes it is a great work. Sometimes it just goes splat.
Andy: That's a good observation, about the title. What he meant was, "Don't Give Yourself a Kinehora," the word for "evil eye" in Yiddish.
DeleteEpstein has too much education to be a schmuck, too much of a career to be a schlemiel, but just enough chutzpah to be a schlimazel.
ReplyDeleteI am much more liberal than Epstein and don't agree with his politics, but he was a great teacher and a supportive mentor at NU. I don't think I could have made it through the bachelor's degree without him. We haven't spoken in years but I read as much of his work as I can and appreciate the way his writing navigates a complicated world.
ReplyDeleteI implore you to take a really good look at what that means for your view of the world as a whole. From my position it seems like Epstein’s masturbatory style turns his knowledge and experiences into trophies. He talks about “language guardians” in his introduction to “The Complete Plain Words.” Similarly, you have William Safire who likes the term “The Great Permitters.” I read people like them and it just feels like I’m stuck in the sauna with two wrinkled up men stewing in their insecurities and forcing me to count every curly little hair on their chest. They write about language but they don’t know how to respect language by *trusting* language to do the job. They have to claim their authority, which only results in the nominal authority afforded by violent and pathetic ideology, and are more often than not incredibly hypocritical and bigoted with what they argue. They don’t seem to be thinking at all.
DeleteGlad you wrote it. Doubly glad I didn’t have to read it anywhere but here. Hope your kill fee was worth the constant cringe the book itself provided.
ReplyDeleteA little late to this party, but I'm throwing in my two cents, or more like a Jackson, because I've read quite a bit of Epstein's work for almost forty years. He has about three dozen titles listed at his Wikipedia page. Most of the books I've read were from the Nineties and later. Had never heard of him at all, until a few of his essays ran in the excellent but short-lived Chicago Times magazine, in the late Eighties and early 90s. But I liked his style, and his topics.
ReplyDeleteEpstein wrote about Chicago, and about MY Chicago...the miseries of being a Chicago sports fan (he's a die-hard Cub fan, as I am), and about neighborhoods I knew, and about growing up in Rogers Park, and about the middle class and working class Jews on the North Side. All subjects dear to my heart, because I could easily identify with them. If not for the war's delaying effect upon my arrival, his stories would have been even more so..
Maybe twenty years ago, my wife began giving me his books as Christmas and birthday gifts. I have about half-a-dozen. Mostly collections of his essays, some of which were purely autobiographical. And anthologies of his short stories about Chicago Jews...the Normans and the Harveys and the Irvings and the Leonards that preceded me by five or ten years.
They lived in Rogers Park and Albany Park and the North Side and the northern suburbs. In subsequent years, my enjoyment of his talents has sharply diminished, as old Joe became more conservative and geezerly. Sadly, I learned he was quite homophobic, and he became more of a crotchety and curmudgeonly dinosaur with age. .Hence the hoo-ha about Jill Biden a few years back. He has long been a jerk, but now he's an out-of-touch old jerk, dropping names and ranting about cultural changes and dead colleagues. Sad.. If I make it to 2035,, that will be me. Maybe it already is. If my VCR was operational, I'd still be making and watching videotapes.
The thing was, in the Eighties and afterward, I felt a kinship with him. He's now 87, and he's old enough to be the father of Mr. S. In my case, he came off as more of an older cousin...he's just ten years my senior, which isn't all that much after you reach your forties and fifties and sixties. In fact, I had a few cousins close to his age, who went to the same "Jewish" high schools in the Fifties. The ones he wrote about...Sullivan and Senn and Von Steuben and Mather. My best friend's father taught at a couple of them.
So I guess what I'm saying, Mr. S, is that for a long time, Epstein has felt like mishpoche (kin, family) to me, so I've long ignored his politics and his unfortunate cultural stances, much as I have had to do with Real Life relatives. It's sad to see what he's become. But I'll be reading the book anyway. Thanks for the heads-up.
I also remember enjoying his books years back. I'm not Jewish but I am a lifelong Chicagoan. I haven't read anything of his recently.
ReplyDeleteI worked at NU Press years ago, where he was on the board, and I remember he threatened to blackball a younger editor in the publishing industry for some minor issue. Nice guy.
ReplyDeleteI’m not surprised the editor asked you to write this review, Neil. You’re not only a deeply rooted Chicago guy, like Joe, and a superb stylist, like Joe, but also inclined to good things of the past, like Joe. You like wearing well-made Oxford shoes that last a lifetime, for example, and fine dining and quoting classic literature. I admire you for that. Where the editor got it wrong, I think, was in failing to appreciate how fundamentally differently you and Joe approach our ever-changing world. You march forth, usually at least trying to understand the validity of the new, while Joe hunkers down with his books and grumpy old notions, pining for a more noble world that really never was. In some ways, it’s the difference between being a Chicago columnist, forced by his gig to reconsider his world view daily, and being a self-satisfied academic with too big an armchair. That said, Neil, I’ve liked reading Joe Epstein over the years. I even hired him once to write a piece – a good piece -- for a magazine I edited. Joe once wrote, somewhere, that he sometimes regrets he has spent so much of his life reading rather than actually living, that he thinks maybe he should have lived a more varied, adventurous life. Sounds like he was on to something.
ReplyDeleteDid the musee d’orsay used to be called the Jeu de Paume?
ReplyDeleteNot entirely sure this is correct, but I think the Jeu de Paume is a separate museum that used to hold the collection now at the Musee D'Orsay (impressionists and that ilk).
DeleteIt sounds like another coffee table book. Oh, not to lay on it To use under one of the legs to keep it level.
ReplyDeleteHello Mr. Steinberg, I am a long time loyal reader of your column. While trying to write a favorable response to this review, my copy was lost. Something about longtime authors getting published based on their history of previous work rather than the merits of current work.
ReplyDeleteI have had the privilege of helping a first time author write her memoir. She needed a typist because Multiple Sclerosis has gradually paralyzed her from her neck down. If you would please read her book and spare a (hopefully) kind word, it may produce some interest for others to read as well. Thank you for any consideration you may give to this request.
From the Facebook page "Finding the Joy in Life":
Hey Everybody, the book is out after 4 Years, get your early copy now on Amazon or Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJHFKBNQ
This will be available on Amazon Search in 2 Days as well!
I googled the book title after reading Neil's review, expecting to find that it was perhaps a self-published book. Nope, Simon & Schuster! Google also pointed me to an overlong and effusive review on Forbes.com (which, of course, is not at all the same as appearing in Forbes magazine). I haven't the slightest interest in reading anything by Epstein, but I appreciate your review, Neil.
ReplyDelete