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San Francisco, Ca—Lewis Lapham, writer, died two nights ago in Rome, age 89.

A kind of constant hero to many of his readers, Mr. Lapham was born in San Francisco in 1935. That he died in Rome, the eternal City, is the way some of his readers would actually like to die, when the time comes that is, and others among his readers are no doubt glad to see him dead.

His subject as a writer was the American empire, a complicated country as it turns out, bubbling up and spilling all over the place, and not necessarily redeemable. From his keen observational perch Mr. Lapham saw just how far folly, delusion, and outright lying could take a man in life, sometimes all the way to The White House. Mr. Lapham is said to have had quite a collection of fools, as he enjoyed pillorying so many of them, as fools were often fit subjects for a writer with as clear an eye and as sharp a pen as he.

Mr. Lapham was about as plainspoken as a patrician can be. His prose was elegant, a joy to read, clearly expressing his belief in democratic institutions and his horror—often with strong tinges of amusement—that they were so constantly abused. Epistemologically, Mr. Lapham was a purist in the tradition of Voltaire, Marx, Twain. 

Rome, of course, is in Italy, as it has been for centuries. Mr. Lapham no longer lives in Rome. It might be imagined that he’d be happy in old age in Europe, looking back from some distance at a country he most certainly loved, but somehow glad the love affair was over.