Hardworking and an excellent writer, he at 73 still pours forth a stream of scholarly works, including a number of now-standard textbooks on psychiatry and the law. One recent book, Psychiatry and Criminal Culpability, tackles brilliantly the issue of why the law considers Jeffrey Dahmer, say, sane and John Hinckley, insane. No mere bookworm, he also was, a half-century ago, a varsity letterman in track, and has since done an interesting book on what motivates man to play sports. But there is also the Slovenko who writes an amazing volume of witty popular essays for newspapers all across the nation. I first heard of him in connection with some gutsy writing in the mid-1980s challenging our worship of the automobile.
Cars take up our space, and foul our air.
Naturally, he has a car himself. They are no longer an optional convenience, but a practical necessity. He writes about the nature of names, whether we should go in for hereditary titles, and about talking to our pets. Of course, when the plants talk back it s time to worry. But though he does this all supremely well, he doesn t have a swelled head.