SOURCE: “Fast and Furious,” in The Washington Post, March 3, 1987, pp. D1, D4.

In the following essay, Trescott provides an overview of Fast's life, literary career, and critical reception, including Fast's own comments on these subjects.

Howard Fast, one of the world's most prolific writers and four decades ago one of the country's best-known Communists, is cordially mad. His anger over politicians and other people who he feels have little respect for history keeps his flame of intolerance going.

“The actual fact of the matter is that the United States is like no other country,” he says. He sits in a leather armchair, this man of memory, his thin body seeming about to propel itself forward but held back by the dignity of his 72 years. From the president to the expression “page-turner,” Fast can move from impatience to indignation.

“When you get a group of thugs like you have...