Modern Writers, Modern Lives (on Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley; Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet by Elaine Feinstein; Iris Murdoch: A Life by Peter J. Conradi; Flannery O’Connor: A Life by Jean W. Cash; Peter Taylor: A Writer’s Life by Hubert H. McAlexander; and Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd)

Greg Johnson, whose reviews have appeared regularly in our pages across many years, has published two novels, five collections of short stories, and several volumes of nonfiction. He lives in Atlanta and teaches in the graduate writing program at Kennesaw State University.