Don’t read this unless you’re prepared to be saddened, encouraged, and changed.
A lyrical trip from the glitz of theater to the darkest corners of the American justice system.
When Erik and Jessica met, they didn’t know that they’d date, marry, and write an acclaimed play together. But they did, and now they’re here to tell us the story behind the story. Social-activist Jessica dragged Erik to a conference on the death penalty, and both were riveted and horrified by learning about people put on death row for crimes they didn’t commit. They left the conference determined to write a play about the wrongly convicted, and so they traveled the country, interviewing dozens of former death row inmates. The play they ultimately produced about six of those people, The Exonerated, ran on Broadway to much acclaim (Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were in the cast). It toured the country and was seen by Supreme Court justices and by Illinois Governor George Ryan, who subsequently commuted the sentences of all 167 prisoners on Illinois’s death row. Central to the present book are the authors’ descriptions of their travels, including their interviews with Dale Johnston, who’d been wrongly convicted of killing his stepdaughter and her boyfriend, and Clarence Brandley, an exonerated man in that belly of the beast, Texas. Blank and Jensen weave the story of their own relationship, up to and including their honeymoon, into the account, but romance is decidedly a subplot; there’s just enough information so you don’t feel cheated by a coy, withholding memoirist, yet the love story never detracts from the real one, while the behind-the-scenes look at getting a play produced is a delightful bonus. To boot, the two are wonderful writers, able to avoid the tics that can mar duo-first-person accounts—there’s no “I (Jessica) did such-and-such”—and the prose is funny and crisp. Indeed, the recounting of the play is every bit as affecting as the play itself.
Don’t read this unless you’re prepared to be saddened, encouraged, and changed.Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7434-8345-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2005
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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