MINE ENEMY GROWS OLDER

by Alexander King ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A completely unorthodox- and uninhibited- autobiography. Alexander King is, preeminently, an artist and illustrator of the modern school, but his reputation is not so broadly gauged as to guarantee an audience for his somewhat scatological memoirs. To be sure, the thread of his art runs through the checkered pattern of his life. His marriages- four of them- his amours- what he calls ""the rich distillation of his hates and prejudices""- his enemies- and his friends (and despite his eccentricities and his biases he has managed to find them at psychological moments) add up to a life that has run the gamut of experience. He has worked on all sorts of sheets, some of them of lofty eminence, some unknown; he has written -- and illustrated books and pieces of other's writings; he has done plays, and collaborated without a by-line with such successful purveyors to Broadway's marts of trade as Clare Luce; he has done murals of Chinese scenes for a kosher restaurant, and backstrips for department store windows; he has done news stories with photo appurtenances. Again and again, he bites the hand that feeds him- and then, when you can't stand him another minute, he comes up with a bit of human and imperishable fancy that keeps you going on to the next revulsion- and the next reprieve. Here is the ""peevish balderdash""- ""the facts and fancies"" of his life and a good deal of ame dropping, in the fields of publishing and the arts. Confessedly, he ""never settled for just a full crib of corn in a warm and rain proof stable"". Nor did he ever pull his punches; he was as hard on himself as a recurrent dope addict (four commitments to Lexington's Federal institution -- and various other ""cures"" before he considered himself well) -- as he was on the rest of the world he encountered.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1958

Categories: NONFICTION