My Ears Are Bent
"I don't think anything could be as much fun as to get a good  hold on a pompous person and shake him or her until you can hear  the false teeth rattling," says New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno  to journalist Mitchell in a World-Telegram profile from the  1930s, but the sentiment could be applied to Mitchell himself.  With the ability to turn bluntness to beauty, sarcasm to  sincerity and plain speech to poetry, Mitchell who worked at the  World-Telegram from 1930 to 1938 and spent the rest of his  career at the New Yorker was a reporter and literary artist par  excellence, interested in nearly everyone and everything. His  profile of a stripper who begins naked and puts on her clothes  is as fascinating as his sketch of George Bernard Shaw.  Similarly, he is as empathetic toward Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan  (the speakeasy queen usually called "Texas") as he is to the  plight of Anne Morrow Lindbergh testifying at the kidnapping  trial of her infant son. These 37 pieces and profiles most from  the 1938 edition of this book, but with some new material  added are breathtaking in their simplicity and honesty. Written  at a time when newspapers tried to be as sensational as possible  without appearing vulgar "belly" would be changed to "tummy" and  "raped" became "criminally attacked" Mitchell made New York City  shockingly vibrant and colorful without cheapening his subjects.  He also evinced an empathy for African-Americans that's  startling for the period (and the genre). In all, his liberating  and refreshing honesty makes these pieces as vivacious, original  and important as they were 65 years ago. (June) Forecast: The Stanley Tucci movie Joe Gould's Secret (1999),  based on Mitchell's New Yorker piece and book by that title, has  helped revive Mitchell's reputation and may be a useful  hand-selling tool for this collection, which should sell in  respectable numbers in the northeast and in literary outposts.  Also in June, Pantheon will bring out the Mitchell collection  McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, with a foreword by Calvin Trillin.  ($25 384p ISBN 0-375-42102-5.)Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.