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
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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