The death of Joe Sobran on September 30, after several years of failing health, could not have come as a total surprise to any of his friends. News about his deteriorating condition and the need for divine intervention was steadily provided by Fran Griffin, his alter ego of many years, his longtime publisher, and, not least of all, his tireless fundraiser. From Fran’s reports throughout September, it was clear that Joe would not survive much longer. The news that he expired painlessly may have been the least disturbing communication from her during this period.
Joe’s death deprives those of us on the independent right and in Anglophone society of a brilliant literary presence. Although widely known as a political controversialist, Joe was also, not incidentally, one of the most impressive English stylists of his and my generation. Most of his columns, like his works on Shakespeare’s real identity and on complicated constitutional questions, were literary gems. And though he would not have presumed to compare his talent to that of his hero G.K. Chesterton, Joe was probably Chesterton’s equal as a master of expository prose. The reason this graduate of Eastern Michigan (and scion of a working-class Ukrainian family) rose rapidly at National Review to become a senior editor within three years, after being hired in 1972, is that William F. Buckley recognized his considerable talent.
But Joe fell more catastrophically than the other neocon victims, from celebrity to almost total marginalization. In spite of all, he did continue to put out newsletters and even occasionally got invited to give talks, in return for modest compensation. Among those who helped Joe through these difficult times were Fran Griffin, Lew Rockwell, the traditionalist Catholic magazine The Wanderer, and a few other publications that paid him for his writing. It was often distressing to read Joe’s essays online or in his printed newsletter, knowing that this magnificent writer was going largely unread in his lifetime, while imbeciles and intellectual pygmies were being featured in prestigious and heavily funded neoconservative and liberal publications. Such disproportion between earthly accomplishments and earthly reward is enough to make one believe that all justice lies in the afterlife.
It is also telling that for the younger generation on the independent Right, Joe is a hero, in a way that most paleoconservatives are not. The young admire him for having fought back, not only against the American global democratic empire but against the neoconservative commissars of the present conservative movement. Joe didn’t change the subject when he smelled danger and he didn’t care how many members of the New York nomenklatura he offended by speaking his mind. He suffered grievously for his honesty, while others were making careers by truckling. Whatever his faults, they pale beside his luminous virtues. Requiescat in pace Dei!
