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IN ANOTHER PLACE

Name: IN ANOTHER PLACE
Author: Susan Mailer
ISBN: 978-1-937997-99-1

WITH AND WITHOUT MY FATHER

by Susan Mailer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019

An affable memoir of superficial interest to those grappling with the Mailer mystique.

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Norman Mailer’s daughter writes about her relationship with him.

“I had been born [in 1949] to a man who became a celebrity at the age of twenty-five,” writes the author, a psychoanalyst based in Santiago, Chile. In this subdued, reflective memoir about her famous author father, Norman (1923-2007), she psychoanalyzes herself as she offers up a conflicted portrait of their relationship. Her father married six times and had numerous affairs and nine children. It was all part of the “Mailer routine. One in, the other out.” He was always busy writing or enjoying his boisterous public image and didn’t have much time for his children. Her story, told in dry, lackluster prose, is about trying to find herself while under the large and imposing shadow of her father. When she was 8, he told her he “hadn’t really loved me when I was born.” Susan was hurt and developed a “tough-kid persona.” Her early years were spent in New York, with her father, and in Mexico, with her mother, Bea, whom Norman divorced in 1952. The author loved her life with her mother and new father, and she enjoyed school and learning Spanish. Eventually, she would marry happily and have children. She writes about her father’s drinking and pot smoking in the 1960s, his mood swings, and the “The Trouble”—when he stabbed his second wife, Adele, twice with a penknife. The author also discusses her father’s work. An American Dream both “repelled” and “fascinated” her. The Armies of the Night was “a brilliant piece of journalism and an innovative experiment.” The Executioner’s Song, her favorite, “blew me away.” While watching him edit his film Maidstone, she felt like an “unwilling witness” to his “sexual fantasies.” The author fondly recalls her annual visits to the Big House in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where the large Mailer family gathered and where her dying father sought forgiveness.

An affable memoir of superficial interest to those grappling with the Mailer mystique.

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-937997-99-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Northampton House

Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.