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SORROW’S COMPANY

Name: SORROW’S COMPANY
Author: DeWitt Henry
ISBN: 0-8070-6236-7

WRITERS ON LOSS AND GRIEF

edited by DeWitt Henry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 20, 2001

Powerful, wrenching, illuminating, and lovely.

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More than a dozen essayists struggle with illness, death, loss, love, and survival.

Henry (Writing/Emerson Coll.) believes these writers can “speak for us all, expressing thoughts that lie too deep for tears.” Not many readers, however, will complete this collection dry-eyed, for it moves from descriptions of the deaths of loved ones to expressions of loss to considerations of what remains. Debra Spark chronicles her sister’s fierce battles with cancer, and playwright William Gibson—in one of the volume’s most powerful pieces—describes the death of his mother: “Before our eyes the miracle went out of my mother.” Tess Gallagher writes about the death of her husband, Raymond Carver, who “used his poetry to flush the tiger from hiding.” Rebecca McClanahan concludes: “Emptiness does not contain the power to fill us.” In her essay on miracles, Ann Hood (see below) tells about a desperate trip to New Mexico to find some sacred “healing dirt” that might save her father. Jamaica Kincaid, who lost her brother to AIDS, calls the disease “death with a small patch of life attached to it.” Employing a journal format, Gordon Livingston anguishes over the loss of his six-year-old son (“My own good health rebukes me,” he cries), and Jane Brox describes the moment of her father’s death (“His fire drowned in its own ash”). A grieving Cheryl Strayed turns temporarily to heroin, just as her mother had craved morphine near the end. Andre Dubus reminds us that “it is limiting to believe sacraments occur only in churches,” and Scott Russell Sanders finds solace in his father’s carpentry tools. James Alan McPherson’s near-death prompts him to begin a reconciliation with his estranged brother; Margot Livesey searches for her mother’s grave in Scotland; and the late Anatole Broyard recognizes that “in emergencies, we invent narratives.”

Powerful, wrenching, illuminating, and lovely.

Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2001

ISBN: 0-8070-6236-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Beacon Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
FATHERING DAUGHTERS
edited by DeWitt Henry & James Alan McPherson

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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.