[1.] The matter of fiction: The top ten best sellers -- The great world and Louis Auchincloss -- Calvino's novels -- Professor V. Nabokov -- French letters: theories of the new novel -- The hacks of academe -- American plastic: the matter of fiction -- [2.] The matter of fact: Some memories of the glorious bird and a earlier self -- Contagious self-love -- The four generations of the Adams family -- President and Mrs. U.S. Grant -- West Point -- The art and arts of E. Howard Hunt -- What Robert Moses did to New York City -- Conglomerates -- Political melodramas -- The state of the union.
Summary
A collection of seventeen essays written between 1973 and 1976, dealing with fiction, politics, and the world in general.