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Christmas Critics

Suzanne Keen | Paul O’Donnell | Mollie Wilson O'Reilly | Karen Sue Smith | Casey Nelson Blake

Mollie Wilson O’Reilly “Christmas, how I hate it,” Desmond Bates grumbles. His complaints are typical: the commercial push starts too early; the forced gaiety drags on too long; and then—as the Grinch would say—there’s the noise, noise, noise, noise! For Desmond, the hero of David Lodge’s Deaf Sentence (Viking, $22.95, 291 pp.), “Sounds are meaningful,” but (...)


 

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about the writer

Suzanne Keen is the Thomas H. Broadus Professor of English at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

about the writer

Paul O’Donnell is a freelance reporter who often writes about religion and pop culture.

about the writer

Mollie Wilson O'Reilly is an associate editor of Commonweal.

about the writer

Karen Sue Smith, formerly editor of Church magazine and an associate editor at Commonweal, is now editorial director of America.

about the writer

Casey Nelson Blake is a professor of history and American studies at Columbia University. Blake and Christopher Phelps conducted interviews with Christopher Lasch for the March 1994 issue of the Journal of American History.

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