Scholarship and memoir meld in a stimulating collection.
A Black feminist perspective on the arts, politics, and race.
Griffin, a 2021 Guggenheim fellow and professor of African American literature at Columbia, gathers essays, written over the past 30 years, that cohere to reveal her evolution as an insightful cultural critic and historian. The book’s title alludes to Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose, published in 1983, which Griffin read as a college student and which, she writes, “helped me to identify my intellectual calling” and inspired her appreciation of the essay as a literary form. Also deeply influential was Toni Morrison, whose works shaped her understanding “of history, narrative, power, domination, and language.” From Morrison’s work, Griffin came to understand that “mobility and migration were the dominant tropes of Black life in the modern world.” Among many essays on music, Griffin considers Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and three performers of the 1970s—Minnie Riperton, Syreeta Wright, and Deniece Williams—whose “ethereal, introspective, angelic voices” pointed to “a sense of healing and possibility.” Griffin also examines the cultural significance of Black women singers, such as Marian Anderson and Aretha Franklin, who have performed before audiences on momentous occasions—presidential inaugurations, the aftermath of disasters—“when the nation is trying to present an image of itself to itself and to the world.” Beyoncé falls into that category, singing the Etta James classic “At Last” at a ball celebrating the election of Barack Obama. That performance, and the election itself, inspires Griffin’s perceptive analysis of the relationship of Michelle Obama and Beyoncé to America’s racial history. Other essays include reflections on teaching online during the pandemic; the consequences of book banning; Hurricane Katrina, which exacerbated the “instability, insecurity, and disruption” that have blighted Black history; and the way difference has been “inscribed on the bodies of Black women.”
Scholarship and memoir meld in a stimulating collection.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780393355772
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.
The comedian argues that the arts of moderation and common sense must be reinvigorated.
Some people are born snarky, some become snarky, and some have snarkiness thrust upon them. Judging from this book, Maher—host of HBO’s Real Time program and author of The New New Rules and When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden—is all three. As a comedian, he has a great deal of leeway to make fun of people in politics, and he often delivers hilarious swipes with a deadpan face. The author describes himself as a traditional liberal, with a disdain for Republicans (especially the MAGA variety) and a belief in free speech and personal freedom. He claims that he has stayed much the same for more than 20 years, while the left, he argues, has marched toward intolerance. He sees an addiction to extremism on both sides of the aisle, which fosters the belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be an enemy to be destroyed. However, Maher has always displayed his own streaks of extremism, and his scorched-earth takedowns eventually become problematic. The author has something nasty to say about everyone, it seems, and the sarcastic tone starts after more than 300 pages. As has been the case throughout his career, Maher is best taken in small doses. The book is worth reading for the author’s often spot-on skewering of inept politicians and celebrities, but it might be advisable to occasionally dip into it rather than read the whole thing in one sitting. Some parts of the text are hilarious, but others are merely insulting. Maher is undeniably talented, but some restraint would have produced a better book.
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668051351
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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