read dozens of critical essays on John Rothstein. Many of them judged Rothstein to be one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, right up there with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Roth. There were others—a minority, but a vocal one—who asserted that his work was second-rate and hollow. Pete had read a piece in Salon where the writer had called Rothstein “king of the wisecrack and the patron saint of fools.” King talking about himself.
