Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties

New York: Modern Library, 1998. Cloth, xiv, 425 pages; 20 cm. Tight, clean copy. Dust jacket protected in a mylar cover. A fine copy of the first printing. "First published in 1955, Part of Our Time consists of ten incomparable 'novellas' that profile individuals whose lives were transformed by the radical movements of the thirties. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Murray Kempton writes of people who 'shared at one time or another the conviction that the most important thing in life was a remorseless effort to throw down the society which had raised and alienated most of them.' Included are portraits of Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers, Walter Reu-ther, Lee Pressman, Paul Robeson, Edmund Wilson, and James T. Farrell; the writers of the Hollywood left; as well as many now-forgotten labor leaders, politicians, and mobsters--all of whom were caught up in what the author calls 'the myth of the thirties.' 'Part of Our Time is a striking piece of work,' said The New Yorker. 'Kempton is a journalist of formidable talent and versatility. He can be serious, he can be funny, he can be evocative. Every phase of life interests him, and he has a novelist's sense of character and change. . . . He is a remarkably rewarding writer, and journalism and political criticism are lucky to have him.'" - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.