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BAD GIRLS

Name: BAD GIRLS
Author: Ellen Sussman
ISBN: 978-0-393-06463-6

26 WRITERS MISBEHAVE

edited by Ellen Sussman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2007

First-rate execution by top-notch talent saves a shaky premise.

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Grasping-at-straws anthology compiled by California novelist Sussman (On a Night Like This, 2004).

The problem with asking your contributors to turn “bad” behavior into a good story is that everybody has a different idea of what constitutes bad. Fortunately for Sussman, she managed to recruit 26 fine contemporary writers, from Ann Hood and Susan Straight to Daphne Merkin and Roxana Robinson. Most of them come through with substantive thoughts on the angel/whore dichotomy, though their first-person essays range wildly in tone, from poet Kim Addonizio’s sexual confessionals about a stoned one-night-stand at a writer’s conference (“Plan D”) to Elizabeth Benedict’s prissy contrast between her expressive self and her rigidly buttoned-up stepdaughter (“The Thrill of a Well-Placed ‘Fuck’ ”). Laura Lipmann takes the middle road in “Laura the Pest,” which chronicles a difficult time in her life when coworkers and friends kept their distance because “you could smell failure on me.” Several stories of the author’s fall from grace involve a grade-school crisis, as in Elizabeth Rosner’s account of her early determination never to stop asking questions (“Everything I Know about Being Bad I Learned in Hebrew School”) to Susan Cheever’s girlish 1959 misdemeanors at Masters School (“Alma Mater”) and Madeleine Blais’s discovery of “occasions of sin” at the Ursuline Academy (“The Beard”). In the hilarious “Author Questionnaire,” Kaui Hart Hemmings fantasizes about defending her imaginary book How to Party with an Infant to academic colleagues. M.J. Rose’s idea of being bad simply constitutes overhearing a salacious confession (“The Thrill of the Spill”). Two veteran authors do best of all here: Joyce Maynard rehashes her painful teenage affair with J.D. Salinger in “A Good Girl Goes Bad,” and Erica Jong argues that badness is still defined by men in “My Dirty Secret.”

First-rate execution by top-notch talent saves a shaky premise.

Pub Date: July 1, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-393-06463-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PARADISE GUEST HOUSE
by Ellen Sussman

- BOOK REVIEW
FRENCH LESSONS
by Ellen Sussman

- BOOK REVIEW
ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS
by Ellen Sussman

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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.