Disappointment.

Watching Moments of Luxury right now I find myself a little disenchanted at what a rich, privileged family Edith Wharton was born into; I guess like everybody else I like to think of my favorite writers as dirt poor, starving artists writing their masterpieces on the back of coal shovels a la Faulkner (in other words, whether or not these stories are actually true is not really important either.)

Mostly I'm reminded of a college professor who introduced me to my super-slice Peter Leroy, and his telling of the first time he met the author Eric Kraft - he had been expecting to meet a small-time, scrambling to have his little stories published in whatever periodical would have them writer. Turns out Kraft had put together a series of children's textbooks that were accepted as the standard curricula for Texas and California. My professor was still chuckling almost two decades later at his slight disappointment upon seeing Kraft come rolling up the street in his brand new Porsche.

More Peter Leroy love HERE.