Julia M. Klein

The introduction of Zachary Leader’s definitive, two-volume Saul Bellow biography poses a fundamental question, which he attributes to the novelist on his deathbed: “Was I a man or was I...

Jonathan Franzen — the literary provocateur, Oprah Winfrey antagonist and author of well-reviewed novels of Midwestern life (“The Corrections,” “Freedom”) — has another, more rarefied passion: birding. His sometimes overbearing...

In his extraordinary 1984 memoir, "Brothers and Keepers," John Edgar Wideman ruminated on how two brothers, raised in the same Pittsburgh household, could follow such different paths. Embracing academic excellence,...

In "Post Grad," five Princeton students, including author Caroline Kitchener, all decline to heed the notorious advice of "Princeton Mom" Susan Patton, who suggested that they devote their undergraduate years...