Headshots

Thirty never-before-collected essays—many of them profiles—by the Pulitzer Prize–winning and bestselling author of The Looming Tower, Going Clear, and The Plague Year. These brilliant pieces reveal the broad spectrum of Wright’s cultural and political observations over the past thirty-five years.

Spanning more than thirty-five years of Lawrence Wright’s reporting for The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Rolling Stone, and other magazines, these pieces remind us what a brilliant observer Wright has been of institutions, of political maneuverings, and of people—dangerous, eccentric, or beloved.

Some of the essays included:

ORPHANS OF JONESTOWN (1993): A profile of Jim Jones’s three sons who, following the Jonestown massacre, were left alone in a society uncomprehending of their experience.

A RAPIST’S HOMECOMING (1995): The ethical dilemma of a prison therapist, concerned that her patient—about to be released—could attack again.

A LIVING DOLL (1988): A very personal column on how the author relates to his 5-year-old daughter through her toys.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD BRAUTIGAN (1985): An incisive look at the 1960s and 1970s literary icon.

SPACE CADET (1981): How a sanitary engineer combined her expertise and career with her love of space exploration and NASA.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE COURTOOM (2022): Should animals have legal rights?

And many others: A profile of the great spitball pitcher, Gaylord Perry; a look at how a Pentecostal Texas cattle farmer and an orthodox rabbi from Jerusalem came together over the End of Days; a 2006 essay detailing an attack in Gaza that mirrors the tragedies occurring today; a profile of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi; one of Jimmy Carter; and a group of essays that deal with Wright’s life as a father.

This is an important collection that will demand attention, and a stirring overview of an extraordinary career.