Not a book to read in one sitting, but one to love: a sumptuous buffet for fans who wish the Queen of Crime had lived...
Following Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks (2009), which scrutinized the early stages of some two-dozen novels by the legendary mystery novelist, Christie expert Curran returns to exhume and analyze selected entries from her 73 notebooks dealing with dozens of other novels and stories.
“Selected” is the key word, since the material presented is by no means exhaustive, and often thematically rearranged into categories like “Unused Ideas, 1-4” and “Agatha Christie and Poison.” Curran’s shaping editorial hand is inevitable because the notebooks are so chaotic. Christie, whose meticulously plotted detective stories present her as a master of logic and detail, could scatter undated entries on a given novel across several different notebooks, and her handwriting presented distinct challenges to her editor. Her preference for tight plotting, a deceptive but generous use of clues, a limited array of stock characters and a neutral, highly serviceable dialogue and descriptive prose are too well-known to be further illuminated here, but Curran produces some welcome surprises. His selection reprints a hitherto unpublished courtroom climax to The Mysterious Affair at Styles, an earlier version of “The Red Signal” and an alternate version of “The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife.” He describes a never-staged dramatization of The Secret of Chimneys, reveals the two quite different motives for murder in the British and American editions of Three Act Tragedy and notes that Christie intended to publish Sleeping Murder under the title Cover Her Face until P.D. James anticipated her in the long interval between Sleeping Murder’s composition and its publication. Curran’s single most important general revelation is Christie’s fondness for playing with unpromisingly skeletal ideas until they turned into the high concepts for which she is best remembered.
Not a book to read in one sitting, but one to love: a sumptuous buffet for fans who wish the Queen of Crime had lived forever.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-206542-1
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
Puccini wins the prize for most-maligned great composer. In a fit of depressive self-deprecation, Puccini himself called his own music ``sugary,'' and the persistent popularity of his mature operas at box-offices around the world for nearly a century has too often provoked critical condescension, as if art so well-loved could not possibly be worth much. But that situation, thankfully, is changing, and this much-needed essay collection on Puccini by leading scholars of 19th- and 20th-century Italian opera is worth a good deal more than several new biographies. The volume ranges from a lengthy piece on Puccini's family by his granddaughter (one of the editors) to chapters devoted to Puccini's ``musical world'' and each of his operas by luminaries such as William Weaver, Harvey Sachs, Fedele D'Amico, Verdi heavyweights Mary Jane Phillips-Matz and Julian Budden, and William Ashbrook. A favorite: David Hamilton's expert investigation of the early Tosca recordings, especially the legendary ``Mapelson cylinders'' of live Metropolitan Opera performances from 1902-03, to see what light they shed on Puccini's original interpreters. The editors, perhaps hoping to attract non-musicologist admirers of the Luccan master, issue the disclaimer that ``this is not a work of scholarship'' (even though two of the chapters make a start on an accessible Puccini bibliography). They needn't have worried. Lovers of Puccini and Italian opera at every level of interest and knowledge will want this book. (Photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-02930-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
One of the great pitchers in baseball history (and one of the most outspoken and disagreeable), Gibson recalls his storied career with the capable help of Wheeler (I Had a Hammer, not reviewed) and shows he's not done being ``difficult.'' A ferocious competitor who made his living pitching high and tight, Gibson had a reputation throughout his 17 years with the St. Louis Cardinals for being just as uncompromising and angry off the field, especially concerning racial matters. Gibson was raised in an Omaha, Nebr., housing project, where his older brother was hero, mentor, and coach. After college, Gibson, who claims that he was better at basketball than baseball, signed a contract with both the Cardinals and the Harlem Globetrotters, playing one year for the latter. He calls his first professional baseball manager, Johnny Keane, ``the closest thing to a saint that I came across in baseball.'' When Keane replaced Solly Hemus (whom Gibson despised) in 1961, it turned the Cardinals', and Gibson's, fortunes around. Known for his extraordinary performances in the postseason, Gibson had a World Series record of 7-2, with a 1.89 ERA and an incredible 92 strikeouts over 81 innings. He won 20 games in five different seasons and in 1968 posted a 1.12 ERA in 305 innings. Gibson offers some fun and insightful recollections of big games, friends, and teammates such as Tim McCarver, Joe Torre, and Bob Uecker, and legendary matchups with Juan Marichal (``the best pitcher of my generation''), Sandy Koufax, and Don Drysdale. Despite his Hall of Fame credentials, Gibson claims he's been ostracized from the game and hasn't held a baseball job since 1984. Though he grouses a lot about being slighted by major league baseball and rehashes all-too-familiar racial difficulties, it is refreshing to get the fiery Gibson's take on the grand old game. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (First printing of 75,000; $75,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-670-84794-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
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