Some pieces focus on the trials and tribulations of being the author. These include falling tragically in love with a shirt...
Former humor columnist Notaro (Spooky Little Girl, 2010, etc.) gathers observations on the odds and ends of her transplanted life in a series of quirky domestic vignettes.
Some pieces focus on the trials and tribulations of being the author. These include falling tragically in love with a shirt for which she was “the wrong size, wrong age, and had the wrong wallet”; living with a pill-popping alter ego named “Ambien Laurie” who would ritually—and, unbeknownst to the waking Laurie—gorge on snack foods and go on midnight online shoe-shopping binges; and dealing with a frank dislike of being hugged or touched. Other stories focus on the foibles of her equally neurotic family. In one, Notaro pokes fun at her mother’s e-mail forwards that “in e-mail code mean[t] ‘Forecasting World Destruction’.” In another essay, the author describes how in her mother and father’s cheerfully dysfunctional home, parents are parents, children are children and no one is safe from character assault. A few pieces more directly deal with Notaro’s attempts at coming to terms with Eugene, Ore., her new home, a city she sees as overrun by hippies, swingers, vegans and justice-seeking plant fairies who, “in the dead of night…delicately placed to deep green shrubs with brilliant red berries on either side of [her] door” to make up for the loss of two azaleas stolen by unrepentant tree thieves. Though clearly intended as funny, the book elicits only occasional laughter for the odd twists and turns the stories tend to take rather than for the actual subject matter.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-345-51099-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
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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