BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — If not in memory of the awful Korean War (1950-1953), then in memory of the brilliant author James Brady (1928-2009) — you might want to read, or perhaps re-read, his novel about that war.
That's what I did the other day after hearing of his death, in his sleep in his Manhattan home, at the age of 80. I dropped everything and re-read "The Marines of Autumn" — every carefully selected word and well-balanced sentence.
"Diamond Jim," as we sometimes called him, was easily handsome enough to be a television journalist, but he never much wanted to escape from the brawling arena of print, to become a patty-cake journalist in the powder-puff medium of video.