Poison pen review

Richard Schickel does not review CHAPLIN AND AGEE, he uses it as an opportunity to viciously attack the personal life and creative ability of James Agee. His unleashment of jealous vitriol has almost nothing to do with the book under consideration. It is the sick ranting of a failed old man lashing out in his death throes at the recognition time has awarded a better man, writer and critic than himself.

Schickel writes that Agee was "lucky" in his early death. How sick is that? It prompts me to suggest that Schickel is unlucky in having a long life consumed by jealousy of his betters and self-loathing at his own insignificant literary maunderings.