Thomas Mallon

"Up with the Sun is a fictional look back at the life of a little-known, C-list celebrity striver who met a bad end in New York City in the 1980s. Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor-until he wasn't. From co-starring in Broadway shows, to becoming part of Lucille Ball's historic Desilu workshop, and then finally landing his own short-lived primetime TV series, Dick's star was clearly on the rise. But his roles began to dry up and he faded from...

A retelling of the Watergate scandal, as seen through a kaleidoscope of its colorful perpetrators and investigators.

A central figure in American popular culture, Tarzan first came swinging through the jungle in the pages of a pulp-fiction magazine in 1912, and subsequently appeared in the novel that went on to spawn numerous film, full-length cartoon, and theatrical adaptations. The infant Tarzan, lost on the coast of West Africa, is adopted by an ape-mother and grows up to become a model of physical strength and natural prowess, and eventually leader of his tribe....

Here are three indispensable works from the Pulitzer Prize-winning laureate of the American heartland, including the novels that inspired a classic film by Orson Welles and an Oscar-nominated performance by Katharine Hepburn. The Magnificent Ambersons depicts the fall from grace of George Minafer, scion of the once-unassailable Amberson family whose wealth and grandeur are in precipitous decline. Alice Adams, perhaps Booth Tarkington's greatest work,...