"Joan Acocella was "one of our finest cultural critics"(Edward Hirsch), and she had the rare ability to examine literature and unearth the lives contained within it&-its authors, its subjects, and the communities from which it springs. In her hands, arts criticism was a celebration and an investigation, and her essays pulse with unadulterated enthusiasm. As Kathryn Harrison wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "Hers is a vision that allows art...