A mixed bag but with some exceptional, Pushcart-worthy pieces of observation and reportage.
Following his memoir of life in the African nation of Lesotho, Everything Lost Is Found Again, McGrath delivers this set of essays, several of which return there and to neighboring African countries.
Among the most compelling, if infuriating, is a sketch of imperious White mine operators who, years after the nation’s independence, continue to scorn the intelligence and work ethic of Africans. “Let’s see what happens when we go,” said one contractor. “This country would fall apart without us.” Another essay that exposes White privilege finds McGrath in a scarcely populated part of Namibia, where he ponders an iconic noose, with all its hints of racism and violence. The author enjoys a good mystery, and one beguiling piece is just that, involving the misadventures of an iPhone, lost in the Hamptons, that improbably landed in Yemen, a journey tracked by software. Not all of the pieces quite work—e.g., an essay that intercuts the murder of a homeless woman in Phoenix with a portrait of the Renaissance painter and general ne’er-do-well Caravaggio. The occasional misfire notwithstanding, McGrath frames most of his stories so invitingly that one can’t help but read on, as when he asks, “Why does one go to an Elvis Presley impersonator festival in the county of Simcoe, in the province of Ontario, in the country of Canada, on the planet of Earth?” Less lighthearted but beautifully written is a tour de force exploring a tangled friendship with a homeless Black man, dying of cancer, who ran afoul of the medical orthodoxy, in part by admitting that he would try to find crack upon being released from the hospital. McGrath asked a ward nurse, “So why should Willie have to die on your drugs instead of his drugs?” It’s another good question, one of many.
A mixed bag but with some exceptional, Pushcart-worthy pieces of observation and reportage.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-950-53950-5
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Dzanc
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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