Mark Athitakis in The Washington Post:
It was a strange way to promote a writer who was also the funniest American quipster this side of Mark Twain: “Scratch a lover, and find a foe.” “I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it.” “What fresh hell is this?” As a critic for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, Parker developed a knack for terse, damning assessments of the most insipid products of Broadway and publishing. A.A. Milne, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, was among her most frequent targets; in her New Yorker book review column, Constant Reader, she famously demolished “The House on Pooh Corner” by declaring that while reading it, “Tonstant Weader fwowed up.” Ever since, we’ve struggled to make sense of Parker’s character. The cover of the current edition of the “Portable” captures her acerbic charm: It’s an illustration of her in a flapper-era coat and hat, smirking and side-eyeing something in the near distance.
More here.
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