First-rate execution by top-notch talent saves a shaky premise.
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
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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