In Boston Boy (1986), Hentoff recalled his budding love of jazz, struggles against anti-Semites in Boston, and early success in expressing his deep emotions through writing. This work is full of stories about how a jazz critic became a social commentator and the people he palled around with, from I. F. "Izzy" Stone to William Shawn of the New Yorker (whom Hentoff claims to have inadvertently gotten fired, which he regrets but then notes that Shawn was wrong for not printing his essay on pacifist A. J. Muste); from Malcolm X (about whom he writes, "I miss the man--his wit, his swift intelligence, his warmth") to Joan Baez; from John Cardinal O'Connor to Meg Greenfield. The remarkable section is on lifelong liberal Hentoff's conversion to pro-life, which cannot easily be shrugged off, for he strongly argues (among other points) that Roe v. Wade opened a Pandora's box and that a slew of evils, including assisted suicide and state-approved murder, have tumbled out. Interesting stories of an opinionated man. Bonnie Smothers
From Kirkus Reviews
Memos packaged as a memoir from Village Voice and Washington Post columnist Hentoff (Listen to the Stories, 1995, etc.). Boston Boy (1986), his first memoir, told how Hentoff came to be the person he is. This volume tells how Hentoff came to the opinions he holds, which have made him one of American journalism's most passionate defenders of free speech and one of its most controversial opponents of abortion. Despite the book's billing, it's not much of a memoir. It comes off much better as a collection of essays that, for the most part, are as provocative and interesting as Hentoff's columns. He does not hold opinions lightly, nor does he shade his views to suit his audience or to curry favor. This assurance sometimes slips into self- righteousness--especially in the lengthy sections describing his views on abortion. Nor does Hentoff always come across, even in a book in which he gets to write what he wants about himself, as the nicest or most open-minded of men. But even at his hectoring, curmudgeonly worst, Hentoff tenders writing that is refreshing for its clarity of thought and voice. He credits his style to such journalist mentors as I.F. Stone and George Seldes, but even more to his first and abiding heroes, jazz musicians, ``those embodiments of free expression.'' There are some inside stories here about life at the Voice and the New Yorker, where he was a long-time reporter, but was ``retired'' by its current editor, Tina Brown. And there are a couple of chapters about his wives and children, wedged in among the opinions. But it's opinions that command center stage here, with life as little more than the stage set. Perhaps Hentoff understood that, as interesting as his life may have been, the world needs ideas expressed clearly more than it needs another memoir. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
A reader sees a trusting man, a gentle man, just and undeviatingly consistent. All of which may make for a fine human being but not necessarily for enthralling reading.... As his memoir and his public record show, Nat Hentoff has never played the propagandist. Whatever the issue, he puzzles it out for himself.... It reads like newspaper writing, good newspaper writing, but newspaper writing nevertheless. -- The Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Von Hoffman
Among the primal screams of neurotic confessions, Nat Hentoff's Speaking Freely is a refreshing voice of sanity. Hentoff comes across as not just healthy but happy, curious, deeply passionate about many subjects other than himself. -- The New York Times Book Review, Hanna Rosin
The strange thing is, Hentoff is not a great writer. His book is eminently clear and a wonderfully brisk read, but it is oddly devoid of any memorable phrases or moving passages. You trust him: his honesty, judgment, integrity.... But his prose rarely sings. Instead, what strikes you are the rarity of a writer who is clearly motivated by a passionate need to get things right and a sometimes reckless insouciance about where that leads him. -- Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Andrew Sullivan
This sequel to 1986's Boston Boy evokes Hentoff's arrival in 1950s New York as a jazz critic and offers reverent portraits of Dizzy Gillespie and Lester Young, along with an irreverent one of the young Bob Dylan. At times it's too obstinately contentious to work as a memoir, but it's full of good stories about offending almost everyone (the FBI, black separatists, Vietnam hawks, antiwar radicals, feminists, his fellow Jews, and even his own ACLU allies). -- Entertainment Weekly
From the Inside Flap
Speaking Freely are, as Nat Hentoff writes:
"My lives as a radical (according to the FBI); an 'enslaver of women' (according to pro-choicers); a suspiciously unpredictable civil-libertarian (according to the ACLU); a dangerous defender of alleged pornography (according to my friend Catherine MacKinnon); an irrelevant, anachronistic integrationist (according to assorted black nationalists); and, as an editor at the Washington Post once said, not unkindly--'a general pain in the ass.' "
Continuing the story that began in his widely praised Boston Boy, Nat Hentoff in Speaking Freely guides us through more than forty years of his life in journalism, a career as various as his passions, and follows our social history from the civil rights and antiwar movements to the most incendiary battles (such as abortion) of the present day.
Hentoff first evokes New York in the fifties, when he wrote for the
About the Author
The author or editor of more than twenty-five books--ranging from commentary on the Bill of Rights, to studies of jazz and jazzmen, to novels for adults and children--Nat Hentoff lives in New York City with his wife, Margot.
