Get the latest tech news

The Remarkable Legacy of Lewis Lapham

You only meet a few people in your life who, like stars, exert a pull so strong that they alter its trajectory completely. I was lucky enough to enter the orbit of the legendary editor and essayist…

There he resurrected the Notebook, which he wrote, redesigned the cover, devised the Index and Readings sections, and published the first works by, among many others, Annie Dillard, David Foster Wallace, Barry Lopez, and the aforementioned Sullivan. My first time seeing him, day one of the internship, Lewis was in his glass-walled office at a massive wooden desk, cigarette smoke twisting toward the ceiling as he wrote with a black Pilot pen on a yellow legal pad and sipped from coffee in a de-lidded Greek-style paper cup from “the man in the box” (what he called street vendors). Kiddo?” Once we had our drinks, we talked—about the current issue, his essay, the latest political scandal; the times he played piano for Thelonius Monk, dove for sunken treasure, or met the Maharishi; why he loved Patrick O’Brian and John le Carré, Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.

Get the Android app