‘NYT’ comes up with the stalker-eulogy

We can credit The New York Times with inventing a new literary genre: the stalker-eulogy. A couple days after the April 5 death of novelist Saul Bellow, the paper’s editorial page offered an item (under the label “Appreciations,” complete with laurel wreath) in which editorial-board member Brent Staples memorialized Bellow and his work. It was a pleasant and lively piece, well-suited to the occasion. One wouldn’t guess while reading it that Staples had written years earlier of stalking Bellow around Chicago.