{"product_id":"what-is-what-was-richard-stern-9780226773261","title":"What Is What Was","description":"\u003ci\u003eWhat Is What Was\u003c\/i\u003e, Richard Stern's fifth \"orderly miscellany,\" is the first to meaningfully combine his fiction and nonfiction. Stories, such as the already well-known \"My Ex, the Moral Philosopher,\" appear among portraits (of the sort Hugh Kenner praised as \"almost the invention of a new genre\"): Auden, Pound, Ellison, Terkel, W. C. Fields, Bertrand Russell, Walter Benjamin (in both essay and story), Jung and Freud, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In the book's seven sections are analyses of the Wimbledon tennis tournament as an Anglification machine, of Silicon Valley at its shaky peak, of James and Dante as travel writers, a Lucretian look at today's cosmology, American fiction in detail and depth, a \"thought experiment\" for Clarence Thomas, a salvation scheme for Ross Perot, a semi-confession of the writer. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The book contains but isn't philosophy, criticism, opinion, reportage, or autobiography (although the author says it is as much of this as he plans to write). There is a recurrent theme, the ways in which actuality is made and remade in description, argument and narration, fictional and nonfictional, but above all, \u003ci\u003eWhat Is What Was\u003c\/i\u003e is a provocative entertainment by a writer who, as Philip Roth once said, \"knows as much as anyone writing American prose about family mischief, intellectual shenanigans, love blunders-and about writing American prose.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Richard Stern\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226773264\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226773261\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/15\/2002\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 328\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.86lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.44h x 5.82w x 0.81d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/01\/2002 pg. 177\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/16\/2002 pg. 63\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/01\/2002 pg. 24","brand":"Richard Stern","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44119459332351,"sku":"9780226773261","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_787aa38d-e863-4bef-ba1b-87fd99c624d5.jpg?v=1687409471","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/what-is-what-was-richard-stern-9780226773261","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}