Andre Malraux (1901-1976) was a novelist and politician. In the middle and late thirties Malraux became one of France's leading anti-Fascists and after a distinguished career in the Second World War he became involved in the Gaullist movement. After de Gaulle's withdrawal from politics in 1969, Malraux continued to be active both on the intellectual and the international front, until his death in 1976. Philip Gourevitch is the editor of The Paris Review, and a long-time staff writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of The Ballad of Abu Ghraib, which originally appeared as Standard Operating Procedure (2008), A Cold Case (2001) and We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: stories from Rwanda (1998), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Guardian First Book Award.
Even fried with ketchup, mustard and horseradish sauce or baked as Alsatian Smothered Worm with onions and sour cream by Billy's supportive Mother, fifteen nightcrawlers are still a lot of worms to eat. Having made a fifty dollar bet, Billy persists in his one-a-day regimen much to the disgust of his friend Alan, who knows his father won't let him use his money this way in any case and tries all sorts of schemes to sabotage and psych Billy into quitting. The person who comes off best here is Billy's mother, who after a quick call to the doctor accepts the plan with perfect equanimity, but Rockwell's sensibilities (if that's the word) are so uncannily close to those of the average ten year-old boy that one begins to admire Billy as a really sharp operator. (Kirkus Reviews)