Lowell Limpett and Two Stories [Hardcover]

Ward S. Just (Author), Ward Just (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2001

The acclaimed author of A Dangerous Friend explores his signture concerns-the moral dilemmas of journalism, law, and public life, and the limits of love-in a new play and previously uncollected fiction. Lowell Limpett is a journalist at the end of his career. He addresses the reader in a voice that is melancholy, honest, and wonderfully, comfortably compelling about the beauty of a clean lead, the death of old friends, and what we read when we read the news. Two stories, both previously uncollected, will follow Lowell Limpett. The issues of work, love, and duty to the self are addressed as only Ward Just could in the three pieces. In a new foreword, Just discusses the new-for him-experience of writing a play and the process of compiling this new collection.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a departure from his two previous novels A Dangerous Friend and Echo House, boasting complexities of plot and large casts Just turns out three concentrated character studies in this slim collection. The title piece, a one-act play, is the monologue of Lowell Limpett, a veteran reporter reflecting on his life and career. An old school type with a worn, noirish voice, the award-winning Limpett downs Scotch and talks about the "thrill of writing a clean lead." He has reason to reminisce: at 59, he is facing the prospect of being put out to pasture. While definitely a recognizable type, in Just's able hands Limpett manages to convey some of the buried heartache in a "life inside the news." The novella "Born in His Time" offers another interpretation of a man consumed by his profession. The inner workings of power are clearly delineated in this tale of a young lawyer who becomes disillusioned and then embittered in the heady political climate of 1960s Washington, D.C. Limpett and Born are flawed idealists well captured by Just's clean, ex-reporter's prose; the third piece in the volume, "Wasps," a short story concerning the unique balance of power in a Washington marriage, registers as flimsy and opaque in comparison and feels tacked on to bulk up the page count. The volume itself is a bit of a collector's item: those who prefer Just's more involved political novels will have met the character types before, and new readers may be puzzled by the lack of larger context. Dedicated fans, however, will be happy to snap up a quick and satisfying variation on the themes Just knows best. (Sept. 4)Forecast: Sales of this minor work won't match Just's usual numbers; completists will bite, but browsers may pass.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

"Old Great" is what the disrespectful managing editor at a Cincinnati newspaper calls the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Lowell Limpett, the hero and sole onstage performer in Just's riveting play. Unfashionably serious and uncompromising, Limpett, 59, who values clarity, effort, and honesty, and refuses to sacrifice the gunshot-sharp action of his manual typewriter for the ease of a word processor, is out of sync with management's efforts to charm readers with "bright" personality-oriented coverage rather than hard news. He has just returned from attending a colleague's funeral and wants only to get back to work, but the phone keeps ringing, shrill and threatening. As Limpett eloquently addresses the audience, Just cleverly uses the answering machine to bring other voices--Limpett's ally, Kate, and his increasingly provoked boss--into this lean and intense drama of moral conviction under siege. Just's resounding play, his first, is followed by two superb, Washington, D.C.-based, never-before-collected short stories, which bolster Just's standing as an extraordinarily polished and authoritative voice on the moral aspects of power, vocation, and integrity. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1st edition (September 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586480871
• ISBN-13: 978-1586480875
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,549,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

WARD JUST is the author of fifteen previous novels, including the National Book Award finalist Echo House, A Dangerous Friend, winner of the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for fiction from the Society of American Historians, and An Unfinished Season, winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award and a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Maybe 3.5..., November 13, 2001

By 

D. C. Carrad "augustabookman" (Augusta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lowell Limpett and Two Stories (Hardcover)

This is the first Ward Just book I have given less than 5 stars to, and I stand second to no one in my admiration for his skills as a writer. The first piece (a play) is an embarassment. We're all entitled to temper tantrums and to vent our spleen once in a while, but doing it in public and asking people to pay to watch is not right. Enough said. The two short stories are vintage Just and pretty good, but there are problems. He has a lawyer in the 1960's talking about "expanding the business" which no lawyer of that era would ever have said; "expanding the practice" is correct. And there is "moot court" and "mock trial" at law school, but never "mock court". The introduction in a vain effort at blue-collar solidarity talks about how difficult it is to drive a "sixteen-wheeler". This would be a lot more convincing if it were correctly identified as an "eighteen-wheeler". If you like Just, you won't be able to resist any of his books no matter what I say. If you don't know him, don't start here -- read his other books first and then come to this one last, if ever.