Just Good Friends

Melville and Hawthorne. Fitzgerald and Hemingway. James and Wharton. Richard Lingeman's Double Lives resurrects these and other American literary friendships, and gets a thumbs-up from The San Francisco Chronicle:

"Lingeman's highly accessible book is equal parts pure, gossipy fun and exhaustively researched biography. The author seems to know these writers and their work as intimately as he knows his own close friends, and his warmth and understanding suffuse every page."