Tracings - Tapa dura

In this fascinating book of portraits, Paul Horgan records his personal encounters with some of the outstanding artists of the century. For over fifty years - from the time when, as a teenage reporter in New Mexico, he met the doomed poet Vachel Lindsay, to the final illness of his friend Igor Stravinsky - Horgan not only crossed paths with the great and near-great, but his writer's eye enriched these moments with special grace and depth. Whether in comedy or the spirit of elegy, and with the lightest touch, Tracings brings together partial portraits of such legendary figures as opera stars Feodor Chaliapin, Mary Garden, and Marguerite D'Alvarez; actresses Minnie Maddern Fiske and Greta Garbo; painter Peter Hurd; writers Somerset Maugham, T. S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, and Edmund Wilson. While researching his Pulitzer Prize biography, Lamy of Santa Fe, Horgan is granted an unheard-of privilege when the "100-year" rule governing the Vatican's archives is mysteriously waived for him. In Rome during wartime, he is also permitted to spend several hours in the Sistine Chapel entirely alone. This rich collection confirms the verdict of James K. Morris: "Paul Horgan is one of a handful of writers in America today who deserve the title of literary master."

Paul Horgan is professor emeritus and author in residence at Wesleyan University.