Pieces of Hate; And Other Enthusiasms

Heywood Broun was the kind of writer who made enemies on purpose and readers for life. This collection, published in the vibrant ferment of 1920s America, gathers his sharpest essays and critical pieces into a portrait of a man who loved literature and hated pretense in equal measure. The title itself is a provocation: "Pieces of Hate" followed by "And Other Enthusiasms" suggests a writer unafraid to wear his passions on his sleeve, whether dismantling the literary establishment or championing the writers others dismissed. Broun's voice here is distinctive, sardonic, and oddly intimate he writes as if sitting across from you at a dinner table, coffee glass in hand, ready to argue about what makes a story work or why the theater has lost its nerve. The essays range across literature, theater, and the peculiar customs of American cultural life, but they share a refusal to be boring. Whether dissecting the psychology of romance in popular novels or defending the art of the after-dinner speaker who dares to say something real, Broun brings a columnist's instinct for the telling detail and a critic's genuine passion for the written word. For readers who miss the era when critics wrote with personality, this collection is a time machine to an age when books and culture mattered enough to argue about.