A retelling of the lives of two sisters, separated as young teenagers when each was caught in an undertow of drugs, prostitution, and mental institutions. But award-winning novelist Flook (You Have the Wrong Man, 1996, etc.), the younger of the sisters, seems to miss the point: This is a fairy tale, the story of Snow White and Rose Red, of a narcissistic (wicked queen) mother and a helpless (king) father. Rose Red (sister Karen) flees into the forest when she is only 14 with her almost-50-year-old lover. Karen begins her new life by pasting thousands of stolen Green Stamps into books to trade for merchandise she can sell. Pretty soon, she's trading her own body for cash that she hides in a hollowed-out Bible. Her Snow White sister, 12-year-old Maria, left behind, is obsessed with her loss of Karen—and also with her mother's various cruelties. Mother Veronica, a Vivian Leigh look-alike but ``more sultry,'' made her husband her priority, flirted often and obviously with other men, and faithfully tuned out her children. Father Ray, who might have reversed the family's downward spiral, foolishly stayed true to his wife even when his daughters began disappearing into psychiatric wards. As a writer, Flook shadows her sister's life, recording poignant and (literally) pregnant moments. Their babies are born at close to the same time; their mates stalk them similarly. Karen escapes from her man by jumping down two stories from a fire escape with her baby in her arms; Maria escapes from hers when Karen bashes him with a can of drain cleaner. Twenty years later, they both have new husbands, new children, and a fresh perspective on their mother, now a widow in an upscale retirement castle. Flook's book should sing with pain, but it's strangely flat, if skillfully written—the reflections of her reflections, minus the power of myth.
Pub Date: Jan. 14, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-44208-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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