A definitive collection of the writings of legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and reporter Murray Kempton (1917-1997), Going Around gathers dozens of columns, articles and essays, from The New York Post, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and Newsday, among others, most never before collected in book form.
“The man is a marvel. It’s like listening to Louis Armstrong, or Roy Eldridge: you don’t know where the hell he is going, but somehow he gets there and it knocks your socks off.” —Frank Sinatra
Known for riding his bicycle around New York City in three-piece suits and polished oxfords while listening to his CD Walkman and smoking a pipe, Kempton possessed a roving and unconventional mind, which often led him to the toughest issues of the day—especially the Civil Rights Movement—which he covered with wit and a breathtaking sense of moral urgency. Whether he was describing a hardscrabble coal town in Western Maryland, a bus carrying Freedom Riders through Mississippi, or an encampment of guerrillas in El Salvador, Kempton had a knack for saying the things that no other reporter could or would, writing unequivocally in a way that made him a hero to other writers and editors.
Here is a legendary figure of journalism, whom David Remnick once described as “the greatest newspaperman in town."
