Thomas Berger, the "reclusive and bitingly satirical novelist who explored the myths of the American West in Little Big Man and the mores of 20th-century middle-class society in a shelf of other well-received books," died July 13, the New York Times reported. He was 89.
In a 1980 Times interview with critic Richard Schickel, Berger said, "Why does one write? Because it isn't there! Unlike Everest and other celebrated eminences. Beginners sometime ask me how a novel is written, the answer to which is: Any way at all. One knows only when it is finished, and then if one is at all serious, he will never do it the same way again....
"I should like the reader to be aware that a book of mine is written in the English language, which I love with all my heart and write to the best of my ability and with the most honorable of intentions--which is to say, I am peddling no quackery, masking no intent to tyrannize, and asking nobody's pity. (I suspect that I am trying to save my own soul, but that's nobody else's business.)"
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Author Curt Gentry, a "well-regarded biographer of J. Edgar Hoover who had his biggest commercial success when he teamed up with Vincent Bugliosi to write the 1974 blockbuster Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders," died July 10, the New York Times reported. He was 83.
