I have long believed that the very unpopularity of professional cycling in this country is a point in its favor—that my enthusiasm for this sport renders me more worldly, more sophisticated, more European than the average American sports fan. What, after all, could be more European than a cloyingly superior attitude toward Americans?

I am well aware that in the U.S., professional cycling is viewed as a pursuit reserved largely for gay men and communists. I take this as a badge of honor. With cycling coverage so often focused on “designer” drugs, the sport’s luminaries bearing phallus-friendly names like “Lance”, and the athletes themselves clad in tush-tight Spandex, who can begrudge the boors their opinions?

But the last three weeks have cut the legs out from under me. You can learn a lot about a sport’s fan base by paying attention to commercials advertisers run during competitions. And, sadly, you can learn a lot about yourself. Cycling fans: the news is grim. …more

Gomorrah is a self-conscious repudiation of gangster movies like Scarface; a reminder that the classy foot soldiers of The Godfather and the bumbling mafiosi of The Sopranos have very little to do with the real world. …more

A.J. Liebling once remarked that the authors of newspaper obituaries are “a frustrated and usually anonymous tribe.” That’s certainly true of Gabriel Collins, narrator of Stacey D’Erasmo’s unusual new novel, The Sky Below.

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