Lionel Rolfe

Rolfe has worked full-time since age 19 at some of California's most prestigious newspapers (the Los Angeles Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle), was ten-year editor of the B'nai Brith Messenger (the second oldest newspaper in Los Angeles) and an editor for Psychology Today, when the magazine was edited from the beach in a secluded community near San Diego. This year he published "The Fat Man Returns: The Elusive Hunt For California Bohemia & Other Matters." It's the sequel to his 1998 book, "Fat Man on the Left." He is also the author of nine books, including the classic LITERARY L.A. His first book was a family biography, THE MENUHINS: A Family Odyssey, which featured Lionel's uncle, violinist Lord Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin was regarded as the greatest musical prodigy since Mozart. Rolfe then went on to write THE UNCOMMON FRIENDSHIP OF YALTAH MENUHIN AND WILLA CATHER, as well as volumes on literature, politics and history. It is not unfair to say that ROLFE's works explore the misadventurous merits of our own lives. At 70, he published THE MISADVENTURES OF ARI MENDELSOHN: A Mostly True Memoir of California Journalism. It is an effort to sum up the meaning of half a century of "professional" observation. Whatever answers he has, they are here. He was also anthologized in two major collection: Unknown California, Classics and Contemporary Writing on California Culture, Society and Politics (Macmillan, 1985) On Bohemia: The Code of the Self Exile (Transaction/Rutgers, 1990)