For Palahniuk, the more acute the angle the better, but his is another solid entry in the Crown Journey series, with its...
Novelist Palahniuk (Lullaby, 2002, etc.) squires readers through Portland at its outlandish best.
The author moved to the city fresh out of high school, like others who went west and fetched up in the cheapest city they could find. “This gives us the most cracked of the crackpots,” says Palahniuk, citing a theory suggested by a friend, “the misfits among misfits.” In a city of the strange and fugitive, it stands to reason that there’d be many odd entertainments, and Palahniuk reports upon a mighty selection. In cool stride, he marvels at the oral storytelling talents of those before the eviction court, gazes at the world’s largest hairball (2½ pounds of solid calcium and hair), stands in awe before the holdings of the vacuum-cleaner museum, encounters the “spirit orbs” (“glowing balls of light that hover and veer”) of 58 messengers from the beyond, and recommends places to get lucky on the sex front, including the Dirty Duck Pub (“for you fans of big men with hairy backs”). Not all is peculiar: Palahniuk reminds us that Portland is a city of gardens, has a crack toy museum, and claims shops where you can get used clothes, used magazines, and chunks of recycled architectural details. But he’s far happier taking a ghoulish tour of the city’s fabled tunnel system: “Down tunnel after tunnel the rope pulls you past scenes of incest and torture. . . . [In] the pitch dark, a crowd of strangers rush the tour group, groping their breasts and genitals. . . . Did I mention the big legal waiver everybody signed?” Tucked into the proceedings are “postcards” from Palahniuk’s own experiences with the city: getting beaten as the victim of a wilding, for instance, or attending the Apocalypse Café, where “the idea is, we’re going to the first potluck after a nuclear holocaust.”
For Palahniuk, the more acute the angle the better, but his is another solid entry in the Crown Journey series, with its premium on deep-dish subjectivity.Pub Date: July 8, 2003
ISBN: 1-4000-4783-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
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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