RIP: Joseph Bruccoli

June 6, 2008

No one will ever talk me out of my love for the Big American triad of Faulkner, Fitzgerald and (yes) Hemingway. By now I’ve probably heard all the criticisms and they are irrelevant in the face of the work itself.

Anyway, anyone who has spent much time with either of the latter two will have come across the remarkable scholarship of Matthew Bruccoli, who died a few days ago.  When it came to Fitzgerald, Bruccoli had no equal… and his writing about Hemingway was very influential on my thinking as well. He was also– and I didn’t know this until today despite using it all my life– a founder of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

An amazing scholar and, by all accounts, a generous man. I wish I’d written him a note of thanks while he was still alive.

Tags: obit