Ring

by Jonathan Yardley

He was an American original—a great journalist who made us laugh at ourselves. This affectionate, entertaining and authoritative biography offers a wholly new look at Ring Lardner’s too-short life and career. Lardner may have been an aloof and distant man in some respects, but the story of his life is intensely human and intensely moving. For a while in the twenties he was the most famous writer in the country, with an annual income equivalent to a half million in today’s dollars. Then alcoh