Ex-Friends

Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer by Norman Podhoretz, 233 pages

This is political commentator and literary critic Norman Podhoretz's memoir of how political and aesthetic disagreements destroyed his friendships with some of the luminaries of the '50s New York literary and intellectual scene.  This sometimes amounts to a gossipy settling of scores - Podhoretz seems to have a perfect memory when it comes to put-downs, and clearly treasured many of the attacks against him as personal badges of honor - but more often is accompanied by what seems to be genuine affection and equally genuine pain and regret.  At a minimum, it is a lively account of what it was like to be an ambitious young New York intellectual at a time when it seemed as if New York was the capital of the cultural world.