Thomas Anthony DiMaggio

Thomas Anthony DiMaggio was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1954. After an early life that included stretches in locales as diverse as Bethune, France and Decatur, Illinois, he attended the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania; Duke University (B.A., 1977); and the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania (J.D., 1981). The years since then have seen him as an attorney, an actor (Macbeth and Oscar Madison being his two favorite roles; both of those celebrated masks deserve their due), a director and producer (most notably of Mr. Shaw’s You Never Can Tell, which your host believes to be both the wisest and the most perfect of all comedies), and a college and adult-education instructor. (Great Trials of History, a course he designed, asserts that modern international law began with the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mr. DiMaggio concurs emphatically with the authors of that most authoritative of history texts, 1066 And All That, that, tragic as it was, “Mary was much too romantic not to have executed.”)

In politics, Mr. DiMaggio adheres to the (slightly revised) Shaw quote referred to by Walter Patterson in the tome just concluded: “I am in favor of anything that makes life more like a festival and less like a prison,” after which his affection for the worlds of Krypton and Smallville (not to mention Middle Earth, Narnia and the USS Enterprise – NCC-1701-D, of course) should come as no surprise.

He is a devout Christian who believes that “God is Love” is the most terrifyingly demanding trio of words ever conceived of by man, and that the orphaned quotation, “Preach the Gospel. Use words if necessary” (not St. Francis’; it was left in a basket on the Church’s front steps, with no note) is the advice of which the godly are the most sorely in need.

In sports, Mr. DiMaggio is an avid New England Patriots fan (his friends are by now wearily resigned to his referring to his annual trip to Foxborough as “my pilgrimage to the Holy Land”). His rationalist skepticism on the subject of witchcraft did not survive Super Bowls XLII and XLVI; he is unshakably convinced that only the dark arts can account for both the Tyree catch and the Welker drop. (Funny; Olivia Manning has always seemed like such a nice lady in interviews...).

His nominees for the Most Enjoyable Music Ever – not the same thing as the Greatest – is anything by Mozart (especially the overture to The Magic Flute), Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin, or Duke Ellington; for the greatest painting, Botticelli’s Primavera (even Lex Luthor gets one right occasionally); and for the most sublime example of architecture, the Loire chateau of Chenonceaux. Immerse yourself in the chiseled grace and elegance of that most exquisite edifice; recall that the queen most responsible for its many charms oversaw the abomination of St. Bartholomew’s Day; and then reflect on the tortured complexity of just what it means to be human. It may even make a novelist out of you.

Superboy: Slave of the Magic Mirror is Mr. DiMaggio’s first novel, at the ripe age of 61. Better late than never.