Short Work: Words & Pictures

This collection of brief essays is best read while reclining on a comfortable sofa with a sleepy dog resting its head on your stomach. Jack Heinz was a professor of law, but we see very little of that here. He gives us a picture of small town life in the Midwest in the middle of the last century, but the picture is a collage, a mosaic. The stories extend well beyond that town, however, and include walking in London, practicing law in the Pentagon, canoeing in the Adirondacks, chasing wandering cows, teaching from the back of the classroom, and listening to Duke Ellington at the White House.

Heinz has written for Harpers, Sports Illustrated, and The Hudson Review. His scholarly books were published by the university presses of Harvard, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and the University of Illinois. But he wears his learning lightly here. This is off-hours writing, comfortable writing. The observations are mostly casual, inconsequential, often wry. They entertain.

The photos were composed with the same eye. They are in sharp focus and their view of the world is often unexpected. But they won't upset your dog.