ESSAYS

Leonard Michaels was a writer of unfailing emotional honesty. His memoirs, originally scattered through his story collections, are a mong the most thrilling evocations of growing up in the New York of the 1950s and '60s--and of continuing to grow up, in the cultura l turmoil of the '70s and '80s, as a writer, teacher, lover, and reader. The same honesty and excitement shine in Michaels's highly personal commentaries on culture and art. Whether he's asking what makes a story, reviewing the history of the word relationship, .. .