A no-nonsense midlife rites-of-passage chronicle by an acclaimed poet who finds love and long-lost kin as she seeks to understand her own past. Jiles, an American who went to Canada with her draft-avoiding lover in the 60's and stayed on to teach in the Arctic and write poetry, returns to Missouri in the late 1980's to bury her mother. There, at a horse-trading jamboree in the Ozark hills, she meets Jim Johnson, a Texan and retired colonel, a man ``full of experiences I've never had as well as information and data and books on military history I've never read.'' Attracted to each other, the two are nevertheless wary of commitment: Johnson, unhappy in a second marriage, still mourns his beloved first wife; Jiles, who has lived the life of a freedom-loving literary bohemian, is reluctant to settle down. They have serious political differences as well—Jim fought in Vietnam, Jiles was against the war. Curious about her Missouri cousins and the role of her father and grandfather in their lives, Jiles uses her questions about her family as a way for the two to get better acquainted. With an advance from her publisher, she and Johnson travel in a trailer around the South, catching up with family and history and finding true love as well. And love, Jiles learns, turns out to be just as good for older and perhaps wiser lovers. The family stories, however revealing of clan legends and loyalties, are secondary to the evolving love story, told with disarming candor and good humor. A heartwarming but refreshingly unsentimental account.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-394-58014-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1992
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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