A pleasing combination of personal essays and reflections, a love story and a naturalist's view of one of the last unspoiled...
Prolific essayist Hoagland (Sex and the River Styx, 2011, etc.) vividly reflects on a time, 30 years ago, when he repeatedly fled his failing second marriage to follow a younger nurse through Alaska.
The nurse was testing the locals for tuberculosis and treating a wide variety of ailments, from injuries resulting from a jet-ski accident to wounds from a bar fight. “At Seattle the business suits scuttled off officiously, to be supplanted by jitterily jean-clad, provisional souls, Alaska-bound roughnecks who looked like hijackers," Hoagland writes of the flights before his adventures. His trips, paid for by assignments from magazine editors, led him to interview the new millionaires making their claim on the state to natives such as Hubert Koonuk, who single-handedly killed 36 polar bears. Like an anthropological study, Hoagland records the details of Koonuk’s traditional life, such as the craftsmanship of his skin boat, which he used for hunting seals and bowhead whales. With the same verve, the author profiles Bob Uchitel, who brought cable TV to the far reaches of the Alaskan wilds following a successful construction company, sponsorship of a prizefighter in the lower 48 and several other profitable businesses, before dying a recluse with a Maserati and Corvette in his garage. Hoagland inserts historical facts about the towns and cities he visited, and he provides plenty of appealing natural descriptions of a wondrous landscape.
A pleasing combination of personal essays and reflections, a love story and a naturalist's view of one of the last unspoiled lands.Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61145-503-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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