A compilation that delights on many levels and will appeal to anyone who has struggled or embraced the idea of home sweet...
A diverse collection of essays that delve into the fraught concept of home as both a physical and emotional space.
Editors Kahn (Horses that Buck: The Story of Champion Bronc Rider Bill Smith, 2008) and McMasters (Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, 2008) both contribute essays, and the other contributors vary widely in their viewpoints and characteristics, including geographic location, ethnicity, culture, religion, age, and sexuality. Yet common themes and motifs weave throughout the book—e.g., mothers and maternal figures and the significance of landscape, which assumes the starring role in the pieces by Terry Tempest Williams and Pam Houston. For other writers, home failed to offer refuge and became a place of danger or emotional strain, such as Amanda Petrusich’s home near the Indian Point nuclear plant. Elsewhere, something as mundane as a garage door opener triggers emotional turmoil for the once-homeless Maya Jewell Zeller. Tara Conklin explores the issues involved in leaving your hometown and never really finding home, while Claudia Castro Luna chronicles her struggle to feel at home in America after leaving El Salvador. McMasters’ essay on leaving the city and beginning a new life in a country farmhouse is intense and raw. When a vacation home becomes a permanent residence, she discovered, dreams often shatter: “I thought we would bloom in the country; M. took root, but I withered. I tried growing things, to offset the blood and brutality that seemed to accompany the country life, but I couldn’t—I am no farmer.” One of the joys of any collection of essays is discovering new writers, and the editors’ inclusion of a concise overview of each woman’s work should help readers explore further. Other contributors include Leigh Newman, Jennifer Finney Boylan, and Dani Shapiro.
A compilation that delights on many levels and will appeal to anyone who has struggled or embraced the idea of home sweet home.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58005-668-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
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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