notanotherbookreview

THE MAGIC STRINGS OF FRANKIE PRESTO by Mitch Albom and GINNY GALL by Charlie Smith seem worlds apart. Albom's novels have sold more than 35 million copies in 42 languages. Charlie Smith, author of eight novels, three New York Times "Notable Books" won the Agha Kahn Prize and has written for the Paris Review and The New Yorker. Albom, who started as a sportswriter, is a screen writer and syndicated columnist. His prose style is simple, at times even flat. Smith is a literary stylist whose "writing can  make the mountains ring." (NYTBR). Albom is a big commercial success without being a literary writer. Smith is a literary success from Iowa's prestigious writing program, whose books have been well received by critics but are not bestsellers. Commercial and literary are marketed in different categories--one makes money, the other gets respect. Why is there a split?  One reason is publishers' infatuation with the products of MFA writing programs, e...

The mothers of famous artists  are often ignored in a myth-making process that assumes artists are completely self-invented creatures. Probably Freud's theories contributed to the infamy of mothers, yet there's evidence women transmit the gene for intelligence to their sons (for daughters it's a split gene). In THE MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES, Alice Hoffman shows how a son's genius arose from his mother's transformative journey. It is late in this mythic story, when you realize Camille Pissarro is the son most like Rachel, his mother. She's an old lady in 1807 in Paris, when she begins her narrative about her life on the island of St. Thomas. Her family came to the island, as did their small Jewish community, because the King of Denmark proclaimed freedom of religion for all on St, Thomas and gave Jews civil rights. After 300 years of his family's expulsions from countries, her father finally found a haven. The story Rachel learned, was that he owed his lif...