Gray (It’s a Slippery Slope, 1997, etc.) is an indefatigable talker. That’s how he makes his living. Here he talks some more, a lot more, as he muses his way through one recent day. It’s no Bloomsday, this day in the life of Spalding Gray. It starts slowly and works its way up to pedestrian speed. Eventually, though, he gets moving with deep thoughts about love, death, and related matters. The flowing discourse concerns home life in Sag Harbor, New York, with patient Kathie; Marissa, her daughter by an earlier liaison; their young son, Forrest; and baby Theo. There are, naturally, diverse thoughts about family life, its joys and terrors. This domestic field has been plowed before and Gray does as well with it as the next self-absorbed 56-year-old with a fear of sons. There is, to be sure, some humor. He attempts to teach his boy the semiotics of the word “shit,” follows with a riff on ATMs and thence to thoughts of bank tellers’ underwear. On and on he goes, offering vagrant comments on hand-propelled lawn mowers, his late mother’s flatulence, churches, and, perforce, sex. Like a latter-day George M. Cohan, he’s not above waving Old Glory, “the most beautiful of all the flags in the world.” Sometimes he’s an artful old philosopher and sometimes he’s Al Bundy. (Kathie calls contractors; her family name is Russo “and I figure that’s good, because so many of the contractors are of Italian-American descent.”) Gray’s shtick is to seem to let it all hang out in an excess of introspection. Sporadically, there is a universal quality. At other times, it’s a lot, a surfeit, a plenitude of unilateral conversation. While others may be ready to cry “uncle,” his many fans will consider the talk just fine. As a performed monologue, the words are probably charming and strong in the sentiment department. On paper, it’s light, light entertainment as Gray disrobes again.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-29985-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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