notanotherbookreview

Prologue to THE PRIZE, Jill Bialosky's incredibly moving novel of the art world Edward Darby knew that an artist's work had the power to change the way in which art was perceived, for every successful artist must recreate the medium, but he did not know, each time he went to a new artist's studio, if he'd ever find it.  When you see a work of art, it will be as if everything else in relationship to it has faded. Art should transport the seer from the ordinary to the sublime.  His father, a scholar of romantic poetry, told him this when he was a boy. But it was more than that. It was the myths artists created about their art that gave the work authority, and as an art dealer, he was part of that creation. He thought about all this as he looked for Agnes Murray's name on the directory in the vestibile of a crumbling old warehouse in Bushwick. It was a cold and gray morning in April. He hoped he wasn't wasting his time. THE PRIZE (COUNTERPOINT, Berkeley)...

There was a mistake the day Amory Clay was born. Times (of London) announced the birth of  "a son." So begins William Boyd's novel SWEET CARESS: The Many Lives of Amory Clay (Sept.Bloomsbury). Interestingly, this novel is not about a transgender person and, despite the title, it's not a romance. It's a fictional autobiography of an iconic female war photographer, not unlike the real-life Lee Miller, who went from the muse of Man Ray and fashion icon to the front lines of WWII and published her coverage in Vogue. Boyd's skill is such that I came to accept Amory Clay, as a British member of the small club of freewheeling women journalists, who went where the action was. Like Clay, Miller evolved as a visual artist. Martha Gellhorn, another member of this group, is also known for her relationship with Earnest Hemingway.And this book provides a good many romantic/sexual interludes that range from "chemistry" to career moves. But there is a certain per...

WRITING ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE travel journals 1960-2010 by LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI, edited by Giada Diano and Matthew Gleeson, is published by Liveright Publishing as a Memoir (September). Ferlinghetti is a Beat icon, poet and author of the legendary Coney Island of the Mind and a founder of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers in San Francisco. In these journals through the decades, places (Latin America, Seattle, Tijuana, Cuba, Paris, Rome, Greece, Berlin, Belize, Russia, Australia) and people (Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda), he captures the truth of a moment, how it feels and what it says politically about a society--often within a Zen context of eternity. There are also drawings, such as "her tragic side" 8/01, that are revelations. In addition, this book provides entertaining literary experience. Who but Ferlinghetti would consider reversing Conrad's Heart of Darkness to begin in New York City (as the heart of the beast) and discover the great ...

                   " I got a revolver to protect us," said Miss Constance, "and I soon had use for it."                                                                                                  --New York Times, June 3, 1915 Amy Stewart's novel, GIRL WAITS WITH GUN, rings true. She includes real newspaper articles that give the Kopp sisters' story the authenticity of an era fairly forgotten in 2015. In 1914  Constance Kopp turned thirty-five on an isolated farm with her sister Norma, also a spinster, and 16-year old Fleurette.  It was eccentric that the three sisters and their mother chose to live on this farm, rather than town, where a school and other cultural advantag...

An autobiography is different from a memoir, though the forms seem to have merged lately.  I think of a memoir as a public diary edited yet intimate. The thoughts of the writer about their experience are primary, while an autobiography seeks to know the person through their deeds. Reading about them, you learn how a life was lived, consciously and unconsciously. You gain insight into the roles of background and opportunity in shaping character and destiny.    There are not many large full autobiographies and this one supplies the pleasure of the unexpected. It breaks the stereotypes about Black potential and advancement.    Privilege and Prejudice: The Life of a Black Pionee, the autobiography of Clifton R. Wharton Jr.,is about a Black man whose good fortune helped him to forge breakthroughs in four separate careers. It's an exceptional story, the release below explains more. Media interviews with Dr. Wharton: Some new ones. Here's SUNY's Rockefeller...

“On Being One” by Susan I. Weinstein Are you a parent going through the Terrible Twos? Did you live through them and survive? Terrible Twosdays is a place to commiserate over the unending shenanigans of your Darling Children (as the online parenting communities say). Nonfiction stories will be considered, so long as names have been changed to protect the guilty. Inspired by our best-selling gift book for parents,  Go the Fuck to Sleep , Terrible Twosdays joins the roster of our other online short fiction series. Unlike  Mondays Are Murder  and  Thursdaze , we’re looking for stories with a light and mischievous feel, all about the day-to-day challenges of parenting. As with our other flash fiction series, stories must not exceed 750 words. This week,  Susan I. Weinstein describes life with a baby boy. One Being One by  Susan I. Weinstein One He looks at me with woebegone betrayal in his large baby eyes. My tyrannical one-year-old son i...

KIM GORDON'S GIRL IN A BAND AND PAULA HAWKINS' GIRL ON THE TRAIN ROCK MEMOIR AND THRILLER --EXCEPTIONAL WOMEN IN POST FEMINIST WASTELAND plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . The more things change, the more they are the same.   This proverb is an ironic subtext for the two exceptional women in these otherwise dissimilar books. Rock memoir and thriller both have soulful narrators, searching for truth buried in the wreckage of their marriages. Blindsided at huge emotional cost, they need to figure out what really happened to become whole again. The answers have much to do with the status of women and the status quo of male expectations. GIRL IN THE BAND, Kim Gordon's memoir is a history of punk, post punk, wave, no wave 1970-80's rock music and her roles as iconic rocker, visual artist, wife and mother. She adds writer, after this entertaining and philosophically rich look at the life of an original, who says she became so almost by default. Gordon w...