Skip the diary. Read the author’s short stories.
A collection of diary entries culled from summers over a six-year period.
A noted avant garde short-story writer whose work has been praised for quirky characters and off-beat scenarios, Grayson (Highly Irregular Stories, 2006, etc.) provides little here in the way of either personality or plot. Not that a person’s life story needs to follow the artificial contours of a work of fiction to hold attention, but readers will at least hope for observations that reveal the unique workings of a man’s mind and a chronological framework within which those observations can be understood. Neither can be found here. There is a bizarre order to the diary entries. The days of the month proceed from the first to the end of the month as one might expect in a conventional journal; the twist, however, is that each day’s entry is taken from a random year. The entry from June 5, 1975, for example, is followed by an entry for June 6, 1972, which is followed by an entry from 1973, and so on. This skipping around from one year to the next deprives the reader of any sense of character development. Readers will begin to recognize the recurring names of Grayson’s family and friends, and even detect emerging patterns of behavior among various characters. There are the on-again/off-again relationships with girlfriends Ronna and Shelli; the clinging co-dependency between Grayson and his parents; the two therapists Grayson visits; the gay male friends he is attracted to. But readers will search to no avail for anything resembling coherence in this diary. It will leave them wondering why a talented fiction author would offer such a bewildering, unsatisfying work of nonfiction.
Skip the diary. Read the author’s short stories.Pub Date: July 17, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-6152-3794-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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