A deft and memorable collection with both focus and elbow room from a class act in the world of magazine journalism.
Twenty-one stylish, purposeful, wide-ranging, and carefully wrought essays, most previously published in the New Yorker.
Wilkinson begins with a sampling of short pieces, no more than a few of pages each, that take fun in tweaking celebrities and often display a certain impish charm (“My new best friend is Cash Money,” he declares in one). A few of the other, longer pieces step off the beaten path to introduce a friend of Larry King’s, profile Elmore Leonard’s researcher, or offer a glimpse into the strange world of funny cars (“a peevish and irascible species of hot rod”) and a practitioner of the sport, John Force (“Fundamental American archetypes intersected to produce the solitary, romantic, migratory, and daredevil elements of Force’s nature”). Most of the essays are serious, at times fighting for control over an unruly emotion or subject as in the two sympathetic and melancholy essays on New Yorker editor William Maxwell that were later expanded into My Mentor (2002). A crushingly poignant portrait of a boy/man with Asperger’s Syndrome stands in striking contrast to a hair-raising one of mass-murderer John Wayne Gacy (“he has said that the only crime he is guilty of was operating a cemetery without a license”) based on interviews with him in prison. As creepy in its own way, though far sadder, is an essay on suicides and suicide notes: “Life isn’t worth the bother. . . . I know I didn’t say much, but I am in a hurry,” wrote one man. In an especially puissant piece, Wilkinson explores his sense of fatherhood and the eccentricities of his child. “Throughout my son’s life,” he muses, “I have now and then thought of him as a household divinity—that is, as an uncorrupted presence of joy.”
A deft and memorable collection with both focus and elbow room from a class act in the world of magazine journalism.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2003
ISBN: 0-618-12311-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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