Tony Horwitz

May 28, 2019 at 10:51 pm (books, In memoriam)

 

Tony Horwitz, a gifted and witty prose stylist, wrote two of my favorite nonfiction titles: Baghdad Without a Map and Confederates in the Attic. I read the former when it came out in 1991. It might come across as somewhat dated now, but Confederates, with its wonderful stories of Civil War re-enactors and the lengths they go to to achieve authenticity, is probably just as entertaining today as it was when it came out in 1998.

Earlier this afternoon, I was checking my library reserves and was delighted to find that my reserve on Horwitz’s latest book, Spying on the South, had just come in. About an hour later, I read the news of his sudden death. He was here in the Washington area to promote the new book when he collapsed.

Tony Horwitz’s death was sudden, probably due to cardiac arrest. Married to novelist Geraldine Brooks, he was sixty years old.

This is very sad news.

Tony Horwitz June 8 1958-May 27, 2019