Gregory MacAllister, the discursive critic of the Academy novels, was inspired by Henry Mencken. That doesn’t mean he writes anywhere close to Mencken’s level, though I tried to bring off an impersonation. But the bar is simply too high. In 1956, I read about Mencken for the first time in Life Magazine. He was then in his final days. The article included some quotations that apparently affected me so much that I told my mom and dad about him. I didn’t mention the contents in