Fascinating essays (most original) by 15 African-American women of the civil-rights generation on their experiences of love, lust, and a powerful desire for freedom. In the mode of Terry McMillan's female characters speaking candidly to one another, these writers (edited here by novelist Golden: And Do Remember Me, 1992, etc.) share intimate details of- -and frank reflections on—their lives. In the opening piece, ``Tough Boyz and Trouble,'' Washington Post reporter Patricia Gaines interviews teenage girls waiting outside the D.C. city jail to visit their boyfriends; Gaines remembers how, before the days of guns and crack, she, too, briefly found tough boys erotically ``addicting''—until, one summer, her respectable parents had to bail her out of jail. In ``Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,'' the late poet Audre Lorde urges black women to recognize ``the kernel of the erotic'' within themselves and to expand it regardless of myths and images imposed upon them. In a striking pair of essays on interracial love, Essence magazine editor Audrey Edwards remembers fear, mutual misunderstanding, shared affection, and quite a bit of ``raw, unrelenting sexual pleasure'' in her affairs and relationships with different kinds of white men, and novelist Bebe Moore Campbell reexamines her pain and fury over black men who date and mate with white women. In ``Letting Go With Love,'' teacher Miriam DeCosta-Willis writes about the loss of long-term love and sex with her black husband, while in ``Black Men Do Feel about Love,'' psychotherapist Audrey B. Chapman analyzes the failure of communication between black men and black women as a failure to understand black men's isolation and fear of dependency. Other contributors include Tina McElroy Ansa, Marcia Ann Gillespie, Jewelle Gomez, Sonia Sanchez, and Ntozake Shange. Women on the cutting edge of sexuality, sexual ethics, and the exhilarating art of the personal essay.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-42400-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
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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