Literary Figures

Robert Dallek has written a new biography of John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life. He looked into medical records to reveal new information about Kennedy's health problems, and he also discusses Kennedy's extramarital affairs and his life as a soldier. Dallek is a professor of history at Boston University. He previously wrote the biography Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times.

Edna Gurewitsch is the wife of the late Dr David Gurewitsch who was Eleanor Roosevelt personal physician from 1945 to her death in 1962. Gurewitsch has written a new book about the close personal relationship that developed between her husband and the former first lady, Kindred Souls: Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch, 1945-1962 (St. Martin press). Dr Gurewitsch was a handsome, compassionate man, 18 years younger than Mrs Roosevelt, and she feel in love with him. He didn share those feelings, but they maintained a friendship of devotion and respect.

Writer Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life. She's also the author of the book Take the Cannoli, and the new book of her pieces, The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Shawn Levy is the author of the new book Ready Steady, Go!: The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London. It's about London from 1961-1969. He writes, "for those few evanescent years it all came together: youth, pop music, fashion, celebrity, satire, crime, fine art, sexuality, scandal, theater, cinema, drugs, media: the whole mad modern stew." Levy is also the author of Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey & the Last Great Showbiz Party and the biography, King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis.

Writer Noelle Howey has written a new memoir about growing up in a household where as she was coming of age, her father was coming out as a trans-sexual and her mother was coming into her own as an independent woman. Her new book is Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods-My Mother's, My Father's and Mine (Picador). Howey is coeditor of Out of the Ordinary: Essays on Growing Up with Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Parents. She received a 2001 Nonfiction Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Writer Alec Wilkinson is the author of new memoir, My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell (Houghton Mifflin) about his relationship with writer and editor William Maxwell. Maxwell was fiction editor for the New Yorker from 1936-1976 and worked with such authors as J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, John Updike, Eudora Welty and scores of others. Maxwell was the author of a number of novels, including Time Will Darken It, and So Long, See You Tomorrow, as well as several short story collections. He died at the age of 91 in August 2000.

Writer Gerard Jones is the author of the new book, Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy Games, Superheroes, and Make Believe Violence (Basic Books). A former creator of comic books, he's written text for Batman, Superman, X-Men, and Pokemon. This is his fourth media studies book. He lives in San Francisco.

His book is called Them: Adventures with Extremists. (Simon and Schuster). He traveled around the world interviewing different types of extremistsfrom Islamic fundamentalists in a Jihad training camp, to Ku Klux Klansmen at rallies. Them was first published in the U.K. in the spring of 2001.

Milt Bearden spent 30 years in the CIA. He ran the CIA covert operations in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, and helped train the Afghan freedom fighters. Bearden also was station chief in Pakistan, Moscow, and Khartoum. He received the CIA highest honor, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. Since the Sept. 11th attacks, Bearden has been a frequent commentator on TV and in print. He is also the author of the novel, The Black Tulip: A Novel of War in Afghanistan (paperback, Random House).

LeRoy is the author of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, a collection of autobiographical stories, and Sarah, a novel about a 12-year-old hustler. LeRoy writes for NY Press, Shout and The Face.