About the Author

Frederic Raphael has written twenty-two novels, including The Glittering Prizes, made into a BBC television series, and several works of nonfiction. He is also an Oscar-winning screenwriter. He divides his time between London and the Perigord. Joseph Epstein is the author of more than twenty books, including Fred Astaire, published by Yale University Press, and most recently Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit. He lives in Chicago.

Reviews

"A 'friendship electronique' at its best in delving into matters closest to heart: anti-Semitism in literature, the decline of good critics and the novel, wise commiserations on the state of the publishing industry, and reflections on long, successful careers.”  – Publishers Weekly
*Publishers Weekly*

"Raphael and Epstein may not prove that the art of correspondence as we know it will survive into the digital age, but they do prove that two writers who are insightful and witty in print can be equally insightful and witty online. A cause for hope, then." Matthew Walther, The Daily Beast
*The Daily Beast *

"Distant Intimacy 'crackles like a forest fire . . . . There is a terrific and welcome sense of clever men writing against the grain of their time. 'Boats against the current are the only kind I should choose to embark on,' Raphael advises his accomplice; 'the going's tough, but your fellow passengers are better company than you will ever find going with the flow.'"—D. J. Taylor, Wall Street Journal
*Wall Street Journal *

“Joseph Epstein is America’s finest essayist and amongst America’s finest short story writers. Frederic Raphael is English, a prodigiously gifted man of letters in the fullest sense. . . . Both write like angels with boundless wit, exquisitely honed intelligence, and stiletto cattiness about their fellow writers, living and dead.”—Barbara Kay, National Post
*National Post*

“Distant Intimacy is often wickedly entertaining, presenting as it does the rare spectacle of two clever and learned veterans of the literary wars letting it all hang out."—Ben Downing, New Criterion
*New Criterion*