Philosophical, sophisticated literary forays that are a pleasure to dwell in.
A gathering of honest, luminous essays on home and travel.
“Place is identity, style, faith, cosmology,” writes Frank (All the News I Need, 2017, etc.) in her latest book, the winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. From this assured, thoughtful view, the author reveals how traveling as an older adult has brought shifting perspectives. In a piquant opening essay, Frank considers First-World complaints on the inconvenience of going anywhere paired with the still-held romantic belief in travel's worth. A humorous piece on shopping for the right bag morphs into memories of childhood, linking present and past through ideas of containment, organization, and portability. The sights of Firenze, Italy, inspire separate impressions that show the city as a place both marred and upheld by tourism. Frank skillfully uses the ordinary aspects of traveling to segue into wide-ranging insights on belonging, longing, and home, with occasional familiar laments. These include the embarrassing behavior of Americans and timely comments on the current Trumpian moment (“when surroundings dazzle, Blue-leaning humans romanticize. We assume that a landscape’s loveliness seeps into its inhabitants”). It's the autobiographical essays, though, that linger the most. The aching standout, “Cave of the Iron Door,” features a return to the author’s hometown, Phoenix. Frank overlays a familiar yet alien, desert landscape with memories of her parents' strained marriage. The nostalgic, elegiac movement from childhood magic to hindsight about her mother's isolation in the 1950s is heartbreaking, and the essay culminates in her mother's death from a barbiturate overdose. For all its attentiveness to beauty and loss, this wise and humorous collection is also a moving record of anticipation and expectation. Each place, taken on its own terms, yields up its own flavors and character, but everyone is bound by one eloquent fact: "time is the vastest real estate we know."
Philosophical, sophisticated literary forays that are a pleasure to dwell in.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8263-6137-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Univ. of New Mexico
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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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