A real pleasure for fans of Nichols’s work.
Politically charged essays by the noted novelist and screenwriter.
One of the last of the '60s-era true believers, Nichols (Conjugal Bliss, 1993, etc.) has earned a strong reputation not only for this Southwestern-set novels (the best known of them The Milagro Beanfield War), but also for his nature essays and environmental polemics. This gathering of essays from the past three decades gives a glimpse of all of Nichols’s interests. Alternately humorous and heavy-handed—and sometimes, as with an opening meditation on clouds, just silly—Nichols offers a portrait of his development as a writer and regional activist. The strongest pieces in the book are those in which Nichols addresses his sense of commitment to place—namely, to the high desert plateau of northern New Mexico, where Anglo transplants such as himself live uneasily beside Hispanics who can chart their roots in the region back half a millennium and more. In one particularly resounding essay, Nichols writes of the trouble he found himself in when the actor-director Robert Redford decided to film The Milagro Beanfield War on location in the little New Mexico town of Truchas, whereupon "a few dozen tanned, muscle-bound cocaine freaks wearing Acapulco sunglasses arrived in Santa Fe" and Hispanic activists protested—as, to no avail, did Nichols—against a production whose lead actors were Panamanian, Brazilian, Italian-American, and Anglo, with only a few extras drawn from the local populace. Not that he’s necessarily a regional chauvinist: Nichols writes of being, like everyone else, a hybrid of many cultures, bloods, and influences: " a westerner, a southerner, an easterner, a New Englander, a Yankee, a rebel, a gringo, a frog, an honorary Gallego." Elsewhere Nichols writes of the intellectual rewards of being a naturalist in a region rich in natural beauty, of the pains of that avocation in a place constantly under threat of development, and of his growing awareness of his own mortality, among many other subjects.
A real pleasure for fans of Nichols’s work.Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8263-2182-8
Page Count: 259
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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