Maureen Corrigan

Do we forget nightmares, or is history just the reliving of them over and over again? The director doesn't answer these questions, cannot answer them, but it leaves them rattling around in our minds like a roulette wheel that never stops spinning.

Do we forget nightmares, or is history just the reliving of them over and over again? The director doesn't answer these questions, cannot answer them, but it leaves them rattling around in our minds like a roulette wheel that never stops spinning.

As the saying goes, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And what better way to maintain stamina and mental equilibrium during tense times than a dose of wit? Two women writers, one a long-deceased legend, the other a debut novelist, give readers reason to keep calm and smile on.

As the saying goes, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And what better way to maintain stamina and mental equilibrium during tense times than a dose of wit? Two women writers, one a long-deceased legend, the other a debut novelist, give readers reason to keep calm and smile on.

As the saying goes, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And what better way to maintain stamina and mental equilibrium during tense times than a dose of wit? Two women writers, one a long-deceased legend, the other a debut novelist, give readers reason to keep calm and smile on.

In my house, every time the mail brings a dread notice from, say, the Department of Motor Vehicles, one of us humans is bound to mutter, what fresh hell is this? If for nothing else but that line, Dorothy Parker is a demigod. But of course, there's plenty else.

In my house, every time the mail brings a dread notice from, say, the Department of Motor Vehicles, one of us humans is bound to mutter, what fresh hell is this? If for nothing else but that line, Dorothy Parker is a demigod. But of course, there's plenty else.

In my house, every time the mail brings a dread notice from, say, the Department of Motor Vehicles, one of us humans is bound to mutter, what fresh hell is this? If for nothing else but that line, Dorothy Parker is a demigod. But of course, there's plenty else.

In her poems, short stories, and surgical knife-sharp reviews for magazines like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Parker brought into being one of the signature voices of the 1920s. Rye, risque, and hard-boiled, swaddled in a cocoon coat of humor. It's been said, rightly I think, that Parker's wit can't be fully appreciated by reading her.

In her poems, short stories, and surgical knife-sharp reviews for magazines like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Parker brought into being one of the signature voices of the 1920s. Rye, risque, and hard-boiled, swaddled in a cocoon coat of humor. It's been said, rightly I think, that Parker's wit can't be fully appreciated by reading her.

In her poems, short stories, and surgical knife-sharp reviews for magazines like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Parker brought into being one of the signature voices of the 1920s. Rye, risque, and hard-boiled, swaddled in a cocoon coat of humor. It's been said, rightly I think, that Parker's wit can't be fully appreciated by reading her.

You had to have been at one of those boozy Algonquin roundtable lunches to marvel at how quickly she whipped out one-liners. But perhaps the closest we can come is reading her poetry, which, like so many works of the 1920s, is short. The Everyman's Library has just brought out a pocket edition of her work, culled from Parker's best-selling collections, Enough Rope and Sunset Gun.

You had to have been at one of those boozy Algonquin roundtable lunches to marvel at how quickly she whipped out one-liners. But perhaps the closest we can come is reading her poetry, which, like so many works of the 1920s, is short. The Everyman's Library has just brought out a pocket edition of her work, culled from Parker's best-selling collections, Enough Rope and Sunset Gun.

You had to have been at one of those boozy Algonquin roundtable lunches to marvel at how quickly she whipped out one-liners. But perhaps the closest we can come is reading her poetry, which, like so many works of the 1920s, is short. The Everyman's Library has just brought out a pocket edition of her work, culled from Parker's best-selling collections, Enough Rope and Sunset Gun.

A lot of her poems are rueful odes to how tough it was for a smart, celebrated literary woman to find love. So how fun to discover other, lesser-known poems that are sassier. Here's one called Fighting Words that veers away from female martyrdom. Say my love is easy had. Say I'm bitten raw with pride. Say I am too often sad. Still behold me at your side. Say I'm neither brave nor young.

A lot of her poems are rueful odes to how tough it was for a smart, celebrated literary woman to find love. So how fun to discover other, lesser-known poems that are sassier. Here's one called Fighting Words that veers away from female martyrdom. Say my love is easy had. Say I'm bitten raw with pride. Say I am too often sad. Still behold me at your side. Say I'm neither brave nor young.

A lot of her poems are rueful odes to how tough it was for a smart, celebrated literary woman to find love. So how fun to discover other, lesser-known poems that are sassier. Here's one called Fighting Words that veers away from female martyrdom. Say my love is easy had. Say I'm bitten raw with pride. Say I am too often sad. Still behold me at your side. Say I'm neither brave nor young.

Say I woo and coddle care. Say the devil touched my tongue. Still you have my heart to wear. But say my verses do not scan, and I get me another man. If Parker's voice embodies the wisecracking ethos of the 1920s, the humor of British-born novelist Camilla Barnes is more in the droll, psychologically astute tradition of a Barbara Pym novel. Barnes' debut is called The Usual Desire to Kill.

Say I woo and coddle care. Say the devil touched my tongue. Still you have my heart to wear. But say my verses do not scan, and I get me another man. If Parker's voice embodies the wisecracking ethos of the 1920s, the humor of British-born novelist Camilla Barnes is more in the droll, psychologically astute tradition of a Barbara Pym novel. Barnes' debut is called The Usual Desire to Kill.

Say I woo and coddle care. Say the devil touched my tongue. Still you have my heart to wear. But say my verses do not scan, and I get me another man. If Parker's voice embodies the wisecracking ethos of the 1920s, the humor of British-born novelist Camilla Barnes is more in the droll, psychologically astute tradition of a Barbara Pym novel. Barnes' debut is called The Usual Desire to Kill.