No mystery and no surprises here, but touching affirmation of the anchoring value of family and home.
A gentle autobiography in which the author's search for self often takes the form of a spiritual quest for goodness.
Fans of Merullo’s novel, Revere Beach Boulevard (1998), should be aware that this is not a continuation of that Italian underworld saga. Instead, it’s a memoir featuring a realistic and affectionate portrait of Revere Beach, a working-class town located five miles outside of Boston with a reputation for toughness and family loyalty similar to that of Brooklyn. The town figures prominently in the chapters of heartfelt, sentimental musings about Merullo’s second-generation Italian-American father, whose life was dictated by pride and discipline and whose gruff exterior masked the grief still felt for a first wife who died in childbirth. And Revere Beach remains an influence throughout the author's life, whether he’s undergoing humbling experiences at the elite Exeter Academy, driving a cab in Boston, studying in the former Soviet Union, serving as an idealistic Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia, or vacationing with his family in Italy. At times, Merullo's ruminations seem a little too self-absorbed, but he comes across as a likable person whose struggles and identity crises are more accessible to the reader than those of most celebrities or historical figures. He goes full circle by visiting his grandmother's girlhood village in Italy, but his desire to travel, perhaps to escape for a little while, remains. “You follow the line of your particular fate,” he ultimately concludes, “a fate built partly on your soul's unique essence, and partly of your class and place and time.” Through precise dialogue and musical narration, Merullo creates a vivid word picture of sights, sounds, and emotions.
No mystery and no surprises here, but touching affirmation of the anchoring value of family and home.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2002
ISBN: 0-8070-7244-3
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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