He Saw Everything Twice! A Memoir of Then and Now

Double Vision: A Self-Portrait , by Walter Abish. Alfred A. Knopf, 220 pages, $24.

We’re all impatient for the memoir to evolve-who needs more cross-eyed mirror-gazing?-but don’t expect the first stabs at a less narrowly focused generation of autobiographical writing to be 20-20, or even particularly legible. Case in point is Walter Abish’s Double Read More

The Joke’s on Julia

Is Julia Roberts in trouble? For every Erin Brockovich , she turns out five banal turkeys that only her fan club can sit through. How long can this go on? You do the math.

Her latest fiasco, America’s Sweethearts , is a boring, brain-dead flop that takes a swing at temperamental movie stars and the Read More