Saucy, sexy stories of a young writer's life.
A slim yet raucous romp through a novelist’s life.
Spanning several decades, with sex as the undercurrent that ties these essays together, Wood (Going Public, 1991, etc.) amusingly exposes his adolescent, marital and extramarital exploits. "I laughed at guys who drove hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar Mercedes,” he writes. “I viewed fitness fetishists as lumpy bags of rock. Mansions, advanced degrees, academic prizes, were as foolish a way to prove oneself as a trophy room full of rhinoceros heads…It was obvious to me that the one who dies with the most sex wins." Determined to prove this point to readers, Wood wittily interweaves his sex life with his work as a writer, art teacher, book publisher, small-town government official and husband to writer Marge Piercy, with whom he has authored two books (So You Want to Write, 2001, etc.). Wood also self-deprecatingly divulges his youthful indiscretions, including the blatant lie to his first lover that his parents were dead, his dalliances with cocaine and his contraction of chlamydia. He reveals his testy confrontations with his parents and the ill feelings caused by his representation of his mother in a novel, which remained a sore spot for years. Fortunately, maturity and a long-term relationship stabilized his life. Although Wood writes that "sex is more interesting than writing,” he has successfully combined both in this bawdy bit of self-scrutiny.
Saucy, sexy stories of a young writer's life.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-935248-25-5
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Leapfrog
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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