Thursday, May 24, 2007

Baffler and Burroughs

The late, great Baffler magazine -- one of the seminal zine/journals of the end-of-the-20th-century -- is late no longer. But for the past four years, it's been touch and go.

First, a fire completely destroyed Baffler's Chicago headquarters in 2001. Then, founding editor Tom Frank became a bestselling author, thanks to his 2004 book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" -- and that sort of thing is time-consuming. Also, Frank moved away from Chicago, to Washington, DC, that same year. To make matters worse, the Baffler's website was disabled this winter -- because of a feud between the editor and publisher, according to rumor. Those of us who used to write for the Baffler kept hearing rumors about a new issue, but no issue ever materialized.

But then, last weekend, when I was in San Francisco -- a city much friendlier to independent magazines than Boston is -- I saw a copy of the new Baffler (no. 17) on a newsstand. I snapped it up, and read it from cover to cover on the flight home. I'm relieved to report that the magazine is as gimlet-eyed as ever. Of particular note: Frank's merciless critique of that Beltway shibboleth, "centrism," and Jim Arndorfer's twisted history of the funding that has supported conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute.

This is top-notch political writing, but the Baffler is also a literary magazine. I was particularly fascinated by Steve Evans's cynical explanation of Ruth Lilly's $100 million bequest to Poetry magazine. (Spoiler alert: It has something to do with Big Pharma and a scandalous political payoff.) The best essay in the issue, however, is "William Burroughs: My Part in His Downfall," in which the Scottish novelist, critic, and political journalist Andrew O'Hagan (a) relates the story of how he happened to be visiting Burroughs on the very day that the Beat novelist died, in 1997, and (b) cops, in the most intellectually charming manner possible, to the innumerable flourishes he's added to the story since then.

I was introduced to O'Hagan -- by Tom Frank -- during the Democratic National Convention, here in Boston. I enjoyed his company so much -- particularly his story about Burroughs's death -- that I immediately read his two novels, "Our Fathers" (1999) and "Personality" (2003). O'Hagan is the real deal: a talented, entertaining, thoughtful writer. So I was excited to learn that he's published a third novel: "Be Near Me" (published in the US, this month, by Harcourt), about a parish priest, in Scotland, who is accused of being a sexual predator. O'Hagan will be in town for a reading on June 5. I'll remind you.

MORE FROM IDEAS: Wen Stephenson compared and contrasted Frank and David Brooks in a 2004 Ideas essay titled "Class Clowns."And I mentioned O'Hagan in a 2003 short item about the New York Review of Books. Another Ideas item (about O'Hagan's coverage of the DNC) has vanished from the Internet.

UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Underwire!

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 12:25 PM

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