An ambling and chatty road trip journal that becomes a surprisingly meaningful rumination on getting old without fading away.
Vancouver novelist Chong (Baroque-A-Nova, 2002) hits the road with a few buddies to retrace Neil Young’s steps to rock stardom.
In 2004, Chong was nearing 30 and having a hard time with his second novel. He decided to stave off maturity a little longer by following the trail of fellow Canadian Young from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay and Toronto, then down to California. This “Wild Neil Chase,” Chong explains, “was cooked up on the fly, and with little premeditation.” Chong brought along a few buddies, including the gregarious welder Dave, “the one I could count on to shuck everything to eat Taco Bell and share a double bed with another dude.” After failing to secure a hearse for the trip (Young had a thing for hearses and made many fabled road trips in them), the friends, having renamed themselves “Team Crazy Horse,” amble across Canada, searching for the places Young lived and hung out (Chong occasionally interviews people with vague connections to the rocker). There is never any pretense that this trip is much more than a half-baked escape from responsibility, which actually allows the voyagers (and readers) to enjoy themselves. Chong has a self-deprecating wit that never gets too showy and a knack for the perfectly placed grace note.
An ambling and chatty road trip journal that becomes a surprisingly meaningful rumination on getting old without fading away.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2005
ISBN: 1-55365-116-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Greystone Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005
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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