Literary Figures

Leonard was considered one of the best literary critics in America; he was an early champion of future Nobel Prize winners Toni Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Leonard died Wednesday from complications with lung cancer.

Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel American Wife is about a kind, bookish, young woman who marries a wealthy charismatic young man who eventually becomes president. It's based on the life of Laura Bush. One reviewer calls it "a compassionate, illuminating, and beautifully rendered portrait."

The novelist and essayist was found dead in his home Sept. 12, reportedly a suicide. Fresh Air remembers him with an interview first aired in 1997, the year he won the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grant.

Theodore Solotaroff, founder of The New American Review, died Aug. 8 of complications from pneumonia. He was 79. An influential man in the publishing world, Solotaroff helped writers like Philip Roth achieve recognition.

On August 3, Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure at age 89. Solzhenitsyn exposed the atrocities committed by the Soviet Gulag in his work, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Fresh Air remembers the Nobel Prize winner.

When Bob Morris' widowed father decided to start dating again — at the age of 80 — guess who found himself sorting through the personals? In Assisted Loving, Morris chronicles the search for Dad's new Ms. Right — and his own misadventures in the romantic jungle that is Manhattan's gay ghetto.

In his new biography, Kirby: King of Comics, TV and comics writer Mark Evanier details the life and career of noted comic artist Jack Kirby, the co-creator of the Marvel Comics characters the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and X-Men.

Canadian author Jane Rule, best known for her novel Desert of the Heart, died Nov. 27 at the age of 76. She'd been battling liver cancer. Rule, whose other work included Memory Board, was one of the best-known and most widely read lesbian writers. Desert of the Heart was published in 1964 — five years before the lesbian and gay civil-rights movement burst into the public consciousness after New York's Stonewall riots. Set in 1950s Nevada, it was adapted for the big screen in 1985 as Desert Hearts.

Norman Mailer's work combined sweeping cultural criticism, erudition and obscenity.

Mailer's 60-year career was full of depth and controversy. The novelist, who died Nov. 10, was often deliberately provocative, says book critic Maureen Corrigan.

And though he made perhaps his strongest impact as an essayist and journalist, Mailer wanted to be remembered as a novelist.

Political columnist Katha Pollitt gets personal in a new collection of essays. Learning To Drive and Other Life Stories covers a range of topics, from Web-stalking a cheating boyfriend to what she learned about her parents using the Freedom of Information Act.