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THE BLUE SUIT

A MEMOIR OF CRIME

True confessions by a Cambridge alum whose success in literature and love belies a youth of forged checks and stolen first editions. Burdened from the start with a complicated family life, novelist Rayner (The Elephant, 1991, etc.) stopped telling the truth about himself back in boarding school. His fathera con artist who faked his own death and then surfaced years later in jailbecame a victim of cancer in one version, a hospitalized invalid in another. Matriculation at Cambridge, with its secure and ancient cloisters, felt like coming home for Raynerat last an identity to throw around his shoulders. At Emmanuel College, fascinated by new friends, Rayner continued to let his own story fall away and, having not paid his university fees, found himself hundreds of pounds in debt and in danger of losing his degree. His habit of pinching books escalated into systematic check-kiting, with the occasional burglary. Graduated and trying to be a writer in London, the pattern of fast friends and ballooning debt continued. Then, suddenly, ``for no reason life conspired to be nice,'' and Rayner went straight overnight, striking a balance in work and love, even finding a publisher. But in writing a novel based on his own relationship with his now-ailing father, he found himself systematically and coldly stealing the details of his father's life. His father's death precipitated a reckoning with all the buried deceit of the past, a confessional narrative that reads a lot like a novel, with a seductively rakish and endearingly naive hero. But this is not a cautionary tale: Our hero sees his private demons. Rayner teeters on the edge of disaster for so long, the tension begins to ebb, and then there is no comeuppance at alljust an increasingly self-indulgent spectacle. Fictional characters can be indulged, but real penance should be private.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-395-75288-4

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995

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NUTCRACKER

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

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

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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