Interesting, overlooked, and significant obituaries from around the world, as they happen, emphasizing the positive achievements of those who have died. Member, Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Nat Hentoff
Journalist, writer, jazz maven, and free-speech activist -- via the New York Times. One of the first things I ever read was Hentoff's liner notes to the 1963 album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." I thought they were great, and I wanted to do that, too. So it's all Hentoff's fault. He was gloriously inconsistent -- he fought abortion, and he fought against liberal groups that he felt suppressed speech. But the fact that he was confidently complex was a huge burst of help to me as a writer. I didn't agree with more than 60 - 70 percent of what he wrote, but I loved that he wasn't afraid, like Whitman, to contradict himself.
