“... Side ‘transformed’ him ‘overnight into a minor literary celebrity’, able to get the best booth at any luncheonette. Podhoretz’s irresistible climb to the top is rudely interrupted by a letter from Uncle Sam, a dreaded draft notice – the Korean War casts its cold shadow – that yanks him out of civilian life and shoves him into the factory farm ...”

“... to live in the Chelsea home of her guardian, the former high commissioner to Delhi, Paul Gore-Booth. The next twenty years were marked by frustration and underachievement. She was burdened by a sense of mission, without any clear idea of what form it might take. Pasternak Slater remembers her as ‘serious, sad, uncertain where to go, all determination ...”