I'm very pleased to be able to report that my friend and colleague Roger Ebert is back on the job as the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. For those who don't know, Roger suffered severe complications following cancer surgery last summer and was very ill for a while.
Now, he reports, he's in rehabilitation for physical infirmaries, but his mental faculties are intact and he's raring to go. He'll only be reviewing on a limited basis until probably the first of the year, but it's great to have him back, even in a reduced capacity.
Roger was a key figure in my development as a critic, both through his superb body of work and through his generous personal advice. I probably wouldn't be a critic at all if it weren't for Roger, and I certainly wouldn't be writing for the Sun-Times. Sharing space with him at the paper has been one of my greatest honors as a writer.
A speedy recovery to you, my friend.
That's great! I've been thinking about him (hard not to, since he watches us from the spines of his books in the TV room), and I've been wondering what's up.
It's heartening to hear he'll be with us for awhile longer.
Posted by: Bill Peschel | October 14, 2006 at 05:15 PM
I used to have a decade's worth of Roger's annual guides staring at me from a shelf as well. Unfortunately, they were a casualty of the cross-continental move.
The good news is that the University of Chicago Press recently published a collection of some of Roger's best work in one volume called Awake in the Dark. I highly recommend it.
Posted by: David Montgomery | October 14, 2006 at 05:23 PM
I think you mean "infirmities".
Posted by: Hans | February 28, 2007 at 11:20 AM