From Pulitzer Prize—winning essayist and novelist McPherson (Crabcakes, 1998, etc.), fresh perspectives on such topics as the role of athletes, father-daughter relationships, and the writer Ralph Ellison. As he seamlessly mixes classical tags, literary analysis, and down-home stories about his family in these essays, some of which first appeared in The Atlantic and Esquire, McPherson is also writing about his life as a writer, a father, and an African-American. He explains his decision to move to Iowa City, where he now lives and teaches, by noting its distance from the racist South of his childhood and the Charlottesville setting of his bitter divorce, a place that still retains “a sense of obligation to something . . . not . . . required by the rule of law.— In —Disneyland,— the most personal essay, he explains why he and his young daughter paid so many visits to the Magic Kingdom. He hoped that in a place where “the established order of dependability soars up into fields of magic,” she would learn about those unexpected, magical interventions that transform the darkest moments in life. In other notable essays, he describes Ellison’s love for American democracy, a love he compares to Virgil’s piety; he contrasts the athletes in his small black college, race-bound Spartan hedgehogs knowing only one way to fight, with his own ambition to be an Athenian fox working against “the fate of a fixed purpose”; and he notes the growing clash between different ethical systems as immigrants and natives become neighbors. Only in —Junior and John Doe— does he falter because the arguments he marshals to support the proposition that blacks should reclaim the uniqueness they have lost in recent years are needlessly convoluted—a reminder how easy it is to take his polished prose for granted. A rich feast for the hungry mind.
Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-83464-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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