Persistent and persuasive, like listening to that friend with the smartest take on just about any subject under the sun.
The true confessions of a cultural obsessive turned author.
After turning his love of SF and detective fiction into an early career as a promising but little-known novelist, Lethem (Amnesia Moon, 1995) burst into the mainstream with Motherless Brooklyn (1999), a tale that married Brooklyn childhood with detective story. Lethem has since repeatedly mined the place of his upbringing in fiction (The Fortress of Solitude) and essays (the New Yorker, Granta), like those collected here. The best thing about Lethem’s nonfiction is his willingness, in the midst of all his writing on culture (since most of these pieces are about books, films, and comics that he loves, and why) to cop to his sometimes elitist and obsessive-compulsive behavior while at the same time giving ample evidence of his knowledge. “Defending The Searchers” is a case in point, a hilarious account of Lethem’s years of relentlessly defending the film to those who thought it outdated and racist, even when he wasn’t sure he liked it himself, being so convinced of its importance in the canon. The title essay, about the roundly despised and now mostly forgotten proto-Beat author Edward Dahlberg, is less successful, perhaps because it’s less personal. This is definitely not the case for “You Don’t Know Dick” and “13, 1977, 21,” which are, respectively, a persuasively honest argument for the greatness of Philip K. Dick and an accounting of the 21 times Lethem saw Star Wars, during the summer when his family fell apart. The masterpiece here, however, is “Speak, Hoyt-Schermerhorn,” a warm and richly researched history of the Brooklyn subway stop that’s a perfectly realized slice of urban mythology, with everything in it from a thumbnail history of the subway system to the cult film The Warriors.
Persistent and persuasive, like listening to that friend with the smartest take on just about any subject under the sun.Pub Date: March 15, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-51217-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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