All references to page numbers in Sontag’s texts are from Kindle e-book editions. In one case, I, etcetera, location numbers are given in the absence of page numbers.
Chapter 1—Understanding Susan Sontag
1. For the details of Sontag’s biography, see Rollyson and Paddock, Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon; Schreiber, Susan Sontag: A Biography; and Maunsell, Susan Sontag.
2. See Sontag, “Homage to Halliburton,” Where the Stress Falls, 253–56.
Chapter 2—Early Novels and Essays
1. Michel Mohrt, “Rêve et réalité chez Susan Sontag,” in L’Air du large: Essais sur le roman étranger, 284–88 (Paris: Gallimard, 1970). Quoted in Poague and Parsons, Susan Sontag: An Annotated Bibliography, 346.
2. Sontag, Where the Stress Falls, 34.
3. Granville Hicks, “To Act, Perforce to Dream,” Saturday Review, September 7, 1963, 17–18. See also John Wain, “Song of Myself,” New Republic, September 21, 1963, 26–27, 30.
4. James R. Frakes, “Where Dreaming Is Believing,” New York Herald Tribune Book Week, September 22, 1963, 10.
5. Robert M. Adams, “Nacht und Tag,” New York Review of Books, October 17, 1963, 19.
6. Stephen Koch, “Imagination in the Abstract,” Antioch Review 24 (Summer 1964): 253–63.
7. Kazin, “Cassandras: Porter to Oates,” in Bright Book of Life: American Novelists and Storytellers from Hemingway to Mailer, 163–205. Robert W. Flint’s review in Commentary, (December 1963, 489–90), refers to Sontag’s “feminine” assessment, which differs markedly from those of her male contemporaries such as Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, and Joseph Heller.
8. Bruce Bassoff, “Private Revolution: Sontag’s The Benefactor,” Enclitic 3, no. 2 (Fall 1979): 59–73.
9. Ching and Wagner-Lawlor, The Scandal of Susan Sontag, 9.
10. I’m grateful to Bernard F. Rodgers Jr. for sharing his unpublished manuscript with me. Theodore Solotaroff, “Death in Life,” Commentary, November 1967, 87–89; Burton Feldman, “Evangelist of the New,” Denver Quarterly 1 (Spring 1966): 152–56.
11. See Sontag, preface to Reborn.
12. Solotaroff, “Death in Life,” 87–89.
13. Reviews of Death Kit: Eliot Fremont-Smith, New York Times, 31; Doris Grumbach, America, August 26, 1967, 207; Richard Lehan, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1968, 538–53.
14. Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh, 234–35.
15. Ibid.
16. John Leonard, “Susan Sings in a Lonely Thicket,” Life, March 28, 1969, 12.
17. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Susan Sontag and the Life of the Mind,” New York Times, May 2, 1969, 41.
18. John Weightman, “High Modernist Critic,” Observer (London), November 30, 1969, 34; Jonathan Raban, “The Uncourtly Muse,” New Statesman, December 12, 1969, 866–67.
19. Sontag, “Speaking Freely,” in Poague, Conversations with Susan Sontag, 7.
Chapter 3—Photography and Film
1. Howard Kissel, “Susan Sontag—She’s Not Choosing Sides,” Women’s Wear Daily, July 8, 1974, 24.
2. Stanley Kauffmann, New Republic, June 29, 1974, 18, 33–34.
3. Reviews of Promised Lands: Nora Sayre, New York Times, July 12, 1974, 44; David Moran, Boston Phoenix, August 6, 1974, sections 2 and 8; Byron Stuart, “Jews Understand Drama, Not Tragedy,” Real Paper (Cambridge, Mass.), August 7, 1974; John Simon, Esquire, October 1974, 14, 16, 20, 24.
4. See also On Photography, 7, 81.
5. Reviews of On Photography: Ben Lifson, “An Eloquent Distortion,” Village Voice, November 28, 1977, 44–45; Edward Grossman, “False Images,” Saturday Review, December 10, 1977, 46–48; Candace Leonard, “The Soft Addiction,” Et Cetera, Winter 1978, 442–45: Alfred Kazin, “Sontag Is Not a Camera,” Esquire, February 1978, 50–51; Harvey Green, Winterthur Portfolio, Summer 1979, 209–11; Laurie Stone, “On Sontag,” Viva, November 1978, 39–40; Paul Lewis, “On Sontag,” Ten.8, Summer 1979, 3.
6. Reviews of On Photography: William Gass, “A Different Kind of Art,” New York Times Book Review, December 18, 1977, 7, 30, 33; Michael Starenko, “On On Photography,” New Art Examiner, April 1978, 12, 23; Rudolf Arnheim, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Summer 1978, 514–15; John Simon, “Looking Into The Camera,” New Leader, February 13, 1978, 17–18; Robert Melville, “Images of the Instant Past: Sontag on Photography, Encounter, November 1978, 69–73.
7. Poague, Conversations with Susan Sontag, 132.
8. Fourteen highlighters as of October 2014 when I downloaded the book to my Kindle.
9. Twenty-nine highlighters as of October 2014 when I downloaded the book to my Kindle.
10. Reviews of Regarding the Pain of Others: Peter Conrad, “What the Eye Can’t See,” Observer (London), August 2, 2003, http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2003/aug/03/society; John Leonard, “Regarding the Pain of Others,” New York Times, March 23, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/books/review/023LEONAT.html. See also Lopate, Notes on Sontag, 212.
11. Peter M. Stevenson, “Leibovitz Sees Glitz and Grit, Sontag Broods on the Big Idea,” New York Observer, November 8, 1999, http://observer.com/1999/11/leibovitz-sees-glitz-and-grit-sontag-broods-on-the-big-idea/.
Chapter 4—Illness and its Metaphors
1. Reviews of Illness as Metaphor: William Logan, “Exploring the Fantasies and Ritual Fears of Disease,” Chicago Tribune Book World, June 11, 1978, 1; Maggie Scarf, “A Message from the Kingdom of the Sick,” Psychology Today, July 1978, 111–12, 114, 116; Dennis Donoghue, “Disease Should Be Itself,” New York Times Book Review, July 16, 1978, 9, 27; A. Alvarez, “Diseased Imaginations,” Observer (London), February 18, 1979, 37.
2. Reviews of Illness as Metaphor: John Leonard, New York Times, June 1, 1978, C19; Walter Clemons, “Mythology of Illness,” Newsweek, June 12, 1978, 96D; Geoffrey Wolff, “Diffusing the Rhetoric of a Dread Disease,” New Times, July 10, 1978, 74–75.
3. Reviews of AIDS and its Metaphors: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Shaping the Reality of AIDS through Language,” New York Times, January 16, 1989, C18; Charles Perrow, “Healing Words,” Chicago Tribune Books, January 22, 1989, 6; Randy Shilts, “Insights into an Epidemic of Fear,” Sunday San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle Review, January 29, 1989, 1, 11; Jan Zita Grover, “AIDS Culture,” Women’s Review of Books, April 1989, 5–6.
4. Maunsell, Susan Sontag, e-book edition, location 2097.
5. Reviews of “The Way We Live Now”: Gardner McFall, New York Times Book Review, March 1, 1992, 20; Barbara MacAdam, “Speaking of the Unspeakable,” Artnews, March 1992, 20; Rosemary Dinnage, “Learning How to Die,” TLS, March 22, 1991, 19.
Chapter 5—The Voices of Fiction: Stories and Later Novels
1. Poague and Parsons, Susan Sontag: An Annotated Bibliography, 1948–1992, 94.
2. Reviews of I, etcetera: Anatole Broyard, “Styles of Radical Sensibility,” New York Times, November 11, 1978, 21; Daphne Merkin, “Getting Smart,” New Leader, December 18, 1978, 12–13; Todd Gitlin, “Sontag’s Stories,” Progressive, March 1979, 58–59; Anne Tyler, New Republic, November 25, 1978, 29–30.
3. Reviews of The Volcano Lover: Daniel Max, “Tricky Nelson and the Lady,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 1992, A11; A. S. Byatt, “Love and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius,” Washington Post Book World, August 16, 1992, 1–2; Michiko Kakutani, “History Mixed with Passion and Ideas,” New York Times, August 4, 1992, C16; Maria Warner, “On Naples, Love, and Lava,” Vogue, August 1992, 148; John Banville, “By Lava Possessed,” New York Times Book Review, August 9, 1992, 26–27; David Slavitt, “Susan Sontag Creates a Bold Historical Romance That Finally Mocks Itself,” Chicago Tribune Books, August 9, 1992, 4, 6; Richard Eder, “That Hamilton Woman,” Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 16, 1992, 3, 7.
4. Reviews of The Volcano Lover: Rhoda Koenig, “Past Imperfect, Future Wacked-Out,” New York, August 17, 1992, 50–52; Jonathan Keates, “The Antique Collector’s Guide,” TLS, September 25, 1992, 24; Evelyn Toynton, “The Critic as Novelist,” Commentary, November 1992, 62–64; R. Z. Sheppard, “Lava Soap,” Time, August 17, 1992, 66–67; L. S. Klepp, “Kingdom of Excess,” Entertainment Weekly, August 21, 1992, 52; David Gates, “There is No Crater Love,” Newsweek, August 24, 1992, 63; John Simon, “The Valkyrie of Lava,” National Review, August 31, 1992, 63–65; Francis L. Bardacke, “The Hero and the Beauty,” San Diego Magazine, November 1992, 62, 64; Bernard F. Rodgers, Magill’s Literary Annual 1993, 856–59.
5. Doreen Carvajal, “So Whose Words Are They? Susan Sontag Creates a Stir,” New York Times, May 27, 2000, http://partners.nytimes.com/library/books/052700sontag-america.html. See also Worry Later blog, http://worrylater.blogspot.com/2011/08/susan-sontags-plagiarism-few.html.
6. The letters from Sontag’s lovers and admirers will be discussed in the forthcoming revised and updated edition of Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock’s Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon. For Joseph Cornell’s interest in Sontag, see Rollyson and Paddock, 94–96.
7. Reviews of In America: Sarah Kerr, “Diva,” New York Times Book Review, March 2, 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/03/12/reviews/000312.12kerrlt.html;Michiko Kakutani, “‘In America’: Love as a Distraction That Gets In the Way of Art,” New York Times, February 29, 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/library/books/022900sontag-book-review.html; John Sutherland, “Excess Baggage,” Guardian, June 9, 2000, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/jun/10/fiction.reviews3; James Woods, “The Palpable Past-Intimate,” New Republic, March 7, 2000, http://www.powells.com/review/2001_07_26; Elaine Showalter, New Statesman, June 5, 2000, http://www.newstatesman.com/node/137834; Michael Silverblatt, “For You O Democracy,” Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 27, 2000, 1–2.
8. Adam Begley, “Sontag’s High-Tone Tale: Her Brains Center Stage,” New York Observer, February 28, 2000, http://observer.com/2000/02/sontags-hightoned-tale-her-brains-center-stage/.
Chapter 6—Experiments in Theater
1. See Julia A. Walker, “Sontag and Theater,” in Ching and Wagner-Lawler, The Scandal of Susan Sontag, 128–54.
2. The text for A Parsifal can be found online at Scribd., http://www.scribd.com/doc/216872405/Susan-Sontag-A-Parsifal#scribd.
3. Yuval Sharon, review for the Wagner Society of New York, http://www.yuvalsharon.com/Sontag%20A%20Parsifal.pdf.
4. Charles Isherwood, “Wagner Didn’t Write an Opera for a Talking Ostrich, Did He?,” New York Times, March 1, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/theater/reviews/01pars.html.
5. Walker, “Sontag and Theater,” 140.
6. Marie Olesen Urbanski, “A Festering Rage,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1993, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/theater/reviews/01pars.html; David Finkle, “Alice in Bed,” Theater Mania, December 4, 2000, http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/reviews/12–2000/alice-in-bed_1144.html.
7. Rollyson and Paddock, Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, 295.
8. Quoted in Walker, “Sontag and Theater,” 149.
Chapter 7—Impresario of Modern Literature
1. I saw such a Goodman performance at Michigan State University when, as an undergraduate, I attended his public lecture.
2. Reviews of Under the Sign of Saturn: John Leonard, New York Times, October 13, 1980, C22; Seymour Krim, “Susan Sontag: Shifting from High to Low Gear,” Chicago Tribune Book World, October 19, 1980, 3; John Lahr, “Box Seat at the Theater of Ideas,” Washington Post Book World, October 26, 1980, 3, 14; Frank Kermode, “Alien Sages,” New York Review of Books, November 6, 1980, 42–43; Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Under the Sign of Sontag,” Soho News, November 12–18, 1980, 16; David Bromwich, “Large and Dangerous Subjects,” New York Times Book Review, November 23, 1980, 38–39; Jon Cook, “Six to One,” New Statesman, September 2, 1983, 22–23; Adrienne Rich and Susan Sontag, “Feminism and Fascism: An Exchange,” New York Review of Books, March 20, 1975, 31.
3. Frances Spalding (New Statesman, January 21, 2002, 48–49) wrote an admiring review of Where the Stress Falls, while noting that Sontag’s politics and her emphasis on great writers, which showed little interest in literary theory, had turned the academic establishment against her. In the Women’s Review of Books, October 2001, 4–5, Deborah L. Nelson noted that, with the exception of the essay on Lucinda Childs, Sontag spent little time on female artists, and that this “idiosyncratic” writer seemed disaffected and no longer centrally located in the culture as she was in her earlier work. In the New York Times Book Review (November 4, 2001, 7), William Deresiewicz regarded Sontag’s book as a “major cultural event,” and yet the tone of his review suggests that she had lost a good deal of her audience and her ability to make an impact on contemporary culture.
4. Robert Boyers, “The Devoted,” Harper’s, February 2007, 87–92.
Chapter 8—The Diaries
1. E-mail from Jillian Cuellar, UCLA Special Collections, to Carl Rollyson, January 12, 2014.
2. Sontag dated this entry January 3, 1951, but as David Rieff notes, she was married in January 1950.
3. I heard Sontag extol An American Tragedy in a talk given at a literary conference in Poland in 1980.
Chapter 9—The Legacy
1. “One Hundred Years One Hundred Thinkers: Philosophy,” New Republic, http://www.newrepublic.com/feature/thinkers/literary-criticism/.