Vivid and informative—a must for anyone interested in 20th-century American publishing and culture.
A posthumous memoir nicely captures the Grove Press publisher’s free-wheeling ways and rebel heart.
Presented by the Rosset estate with a memoir that had been “pruned to death,” OR Books founder John Oakes, who worked at Grove in the 1980s, went back to the archives and added material that better represented the boss he describes as “either brooding, laughing, or raging.” That charismatic man practically leaps off the pages of these salty reminiscences, which begin with a tribute by Rosset to his gamekeeper-assassinating Irish great-grandfather and the assertion, “Rebellion runs in my family’s blood.” Young Barney’s radical tendencies were evident even before he wrote a paper on Henry Miller’s then-banned novel, Tropic of Cancer, at Swarthmore College in 1940. (He got a B-minus.) Tropic of Capricorn was one of several books, most famously Lady Chatterley’s Lover, that the maverick Rosset published and defended in court to challenge outmoded obscenity statutes still on the books in the 1950s. The resulting Supreme Court decisions opened the door to a more adult American culture, and Grove Press was at the forefront of putting it into print—and on film, with I Am Curious (Yellow), a 1967 Swedish movie that in Rosset’s assessment hardly deserved its scandalous reputation but certainly provided an income that supported Grove’s more literary and less lucrative offerings. Rosset’s commitment to keep his authors’ complete works in print meant that the profits from steady sellers like Waiting for Godot often got swallowed up by the costs of publishing Samuel Beckett’s fiction, for example. The court costs of the censorship cases kept Grove’s finances shaky and ultimately led to Rosset’s ill-advised sale of the company to British magnate George Weidenfeld and American heiress Ann Getty in 1985. Characteristically, Rosset follows up an acid depiction of his subsequent ouster with a tribute to Grove’s “Other Nobelist” (after Beckett), Kenzaburo Oe; for this fiery idealist, it was always about the writers.
Vivid and informative—a must for anyone interested in 20th-century American publishing and culture.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68219-044-9
Page Count: 370
Publisher: OR Books
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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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