Exley bemoans the lack of coherence, purpose, commitment — in short meaning — in his own life and in the lives of others who share his postmodern plight. Of this novel, Jack Kroll says: "Exley evokes the world as a pop shambles, a mad morass of media monsters with no moral center. His symbol for this is the death of Edmund Wilson in 1972, which sends him off on a year of spasmodic encounters and confrontations . . . He interviews Gloria Steinem, trying unsuccessfully to divine how she had "come out of the putrid years so splendidly." Jonathan Yardly adds: "the subject of Pages from a Cold Island is the 'literary life,' as exemplified by Wilson, occasionally practiced by Exley himself, and as mocked by the literary personalities (Mailer, Steinem) of media fame." Pages from a Cold Island venerates Wilson, and, for Exley, his death is emblematic. Coupled...