This second volume of Douglas Messerli’s ongoing "cultural memoirs" features twenty-two essays, reviews, and other pieces on figures such as Leonard Bernstein, Holden Caulfield, Lolita, Cole Porter, Alfred Kinsey, Carl Rakosi, Marjorie Perloff, Inger Christensen, and Charles Bernstein, as well as a work on "The Death of the Mother" in popular culture.