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DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA

Name: DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA
Author: Carrie Fisher
ISBN: 0-671-73227-7

by Carrie Fisher ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 1994

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Again mining Hollywood humor, actress/novelist/screenwriter Fisher's third novel—following Postcards from the Edge (plus screenplay) and Surrender the Pink—finds her still relying on smart talk over plot. Any reader who has read all three installments of Princess Leia's wars against addiction, tinsel values, and bossy mothers will beg her to focus hereafter less on emotional hairsplitting and more on story. The first two-thirds of Delusions of Grandma are not about Grandma, but about screenwriter Cora Sharpe's affair with Ray Beaudrilleaux, a somewhat younger Hollywood lawyer. She feels ``ill-suited to the mystery of being in a relationship'' and silly when they go out together; she'd rather not go out, but young Ray, so softspoken and compassionate, is a social hippety-hop. Most of the text covers their early romance and then eases into their breaking off—although Cora is pregnant. It's all talk, with enough wacky brilliance thrown in so that a screenplay is salvageable, perhaps with cameos for famous folk and Fisher friends like, say, Meryl Streep. When not doctoring, writing, or rewriting scripts with gay fellow scriptwriter Bud (whose flippance steals his every scene), Cora lives on the phone with her committee of close friends who tolerate her continuous self-analysis. Near the book's end, her mom Viv, a kooky retired costume designer, decides to abduct her aged father from a nursing home—he's suffering from Alzheimer's disease—and take him to his childhood home in Whitewright, Texas. And so pregnant Cora, Bud, and Viv entrain with Grandpa, who's out of it but comes up with some moving moments. The climax fades from the page, and the not very funny letters Cora writes to her unborn child move the story nowhere. Even admirers of Fisher's many skills will find this as vaporous as an HBO movie you wish you'd never watched.

Pub Date: April 4, 1994

ISBN: 0-671-73227-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PRINCESS DIARIST
by Carrie Fisher

- BOOK REVIEW
SHOCKAHOLIC
by Carrie Fisher

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEST AWFUL
by Carrie Fisher

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.