| Beware
of Limbo Dancers
A Correspondent’s Adventures with the New York
Times
Roy Reed
A
noted reporter’s recollections
Read
an exerpt at the Arkansas Times
Interview
with Roy Reed on AETN
"A
compelling tour of a journalist’s life from an intelligent,
charming guide."
—Kirkus Reviews
“Roy
was one of our best writers at the Arkansas Gazette,
and with this book he once again gives us a fine piece of
writing.”
—Charles Portis, author of True
Grit
“Reporting
keeps lively for a long time when it’s this good, this
seasoned, this much from the thick of things, and this funny.”
—Roy Blount Jr., author of Alphabetter
Juice
“Roy
Reed is a dream reporter -- great eye, great ear, great sense
of humor and an innate love of the language that was matched
by his abiding appreciation of mankind’s shared foibles.
When he retired from The New York Times, he took
a large slice of its soul with him. Now he has written a dream
of a memoir, reminding us of how joyful it can be to ply the
journalist’s trade and why it matters to do it well.”
—Hodding Carter, former editor of the
Delta Democrat-Times
“Roy
Reed’s prose delivers our most turbulent years in the
civil rights movement with a ringing clarity. His memoir is
a tapestry of anecdote, personal observation, characterization,
major event, and constant insight as we ride along with this
New York Times reporter through some of our nation’s
darkest history.”
—William Harrison, author of Rollerball
"Roy Reed's
latest book is a gem and cements his position as one of the
South's most important writers of nonfiction. It meanders
gracefully and brilliantly through some of twentieth-century
America's most significant events."
—Gene Roberts, Pulitzer Prize–winning
coauthor of The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights
Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
This witty,
wide-ranging memoir from Roy Reed—a native Arkansan
who became a reporter for the New York Times—begins
with tales of the writer’s formative years growing up
in Arkansas and the start of his career at the legendary Arkansas
Gazette. Reed joined the New York Times in 1965 and was
quickly thrust into the chaos of Alabama, witnessing first
hand the Selma protest movement and the historical interracial
march to Montgomery. His story moves from days of racial violence
to the political combat of Washington. Reed covered the Johnson
White House and the early days of the Nixon administration
as it wrestled with the competing demands of black voters
and southern resistance to a new world. The memoir concludes
with engaging postings from New Orleans and London and other
travels of a correspondent always on the lookout for new people,
old ways, good company, and fresh outrages.
Roy
Reed was a reporter from 1956 to 1978, after
which he taught
journalism at the University of Arkansas for sixteen years.
He is the author of two books: Looking for Hogeye
and Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal,
and he is the editor of Looking Back at the Arkansas Gazette:
An Oral History.
October
6 x 9• 257 pages • 15 images • index
$34.95 cloth • 978-1-55728-988-9
e-book available • 978-1-61075-502-3
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