SOURCE: "Writers as Tricksters," in The New York Times Book Review, April 22, 1984, p. 13.

In the following positive review of What I Know So Far, Friedman focuses on the plot and style of "For Jeromé—with Love and Kisses. "

When you read a writer as terribly clever as Gordon Lish, an inescapable question comes up—is he only clever? I doubt it. I think he's earnest and reckless besides. Mr. Lish, who made his mark first as the fiction editor of Esquire and then as a publisher's editor, has lately chosen to join the madding crowd of authors he has edited. I say this because, to judge from the two books he has written recently, he seems obsessed with writers—with their magical power as tricksters and big shots, with their vanities and inanities, with their techniques of deception, including self-deception.

Dear Mr. Capote was an eccentric first novel...