![]() ![]() And ultimately, Scharnhorst demonstrates how to write biography-not just to inform readers, but to pique their interest in its subject, or, title character. That profile inevitably compels us to think about the peculiar, often precarious, social positions in which the children of cultural icons are put and/or put themselves. It has the potential to achieve this with its sharp profile of a once-prominent figure in American letters. (In this respect, Julian had sooner thought himself to be like Joshua at the walls of Jericho than the Prodigal Son.) But as the Prodigal Son's return meant a kind of resurrection, so this biography, in taking up Julian Hawthorne anew, aims to "resurrect him from the footnote" (xii). Though overlooking the anti-black racism in Hawthorne's prison memoir, Scharnhorst makes a clear case for why Hawthorne was "justifiably proud" of The Subterranean Brotherhood (1914) (5). Scharnhorst places Julian Hawthorne's incarceration in the Atlanta federal penitentiary as the prologue to foreground that the author's redeeming qualities lied in his advocacy for prison reform. Julian indicates, among other things, that he had at least two main literary fathers. Bridges of Paris by Michael Saint James (review) Bridges of Paris by Michael Saint James (review) ![]()
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