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MERDE HAPPENS

Name: MERDE HAPPENS
Author: Stephen Clarke
ISBN: 978-1-59691-527-5

by Stephen Clarke ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2008

Amusing travelogue from an engaging narrator who never lets a little bad news mess with his joie de vivre.

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Snafus abound as Clarke’s doppelganger Paul West (In the Merde For Love, 2006, etc.) leaves France under a cloud and attempts to recoup his fortunes with a U.S. road trip.

“I’d set off on a simple PR consultant’s job and was going to end up as a seminaked footwear model,” moans Paul. The taxman has him by the short hairs, so he takes a job with Visitor Resources: Britain (“the good old Tourist Authority until some trendy twit in the government decreed that it sounded too ‘yesterday’s generation’ or whatever”) to promote that country’s tourism via a number of events in select American cities. Unsurprisingly, but gratifyingly, each of the stops becomes the opportunity for a complete fiasco. While in Boston, he gets involved in a fistfight at an Indian restaurant; in Miami the mayor’s appearance is immaterial because “everything here organized by the Cubans and the realtors,” Paul’s contact tells him. As his business trip goes south, so too does his relationship with Alexa, the firebrand socialist bombshell filmmaker who has already alienated America’s working folk (“waddat fuggen bitch jess sayda me?” a woman trucker inquires) and then makes herself scarce for a dangerous extrarelational liaison. No matter, for while West’s inamorata has disappeared, that can’t be said of his anatomical fixations, his desperate jokes or the absurdist moments that find his hotel room in flames, his car under hijack or an alligator taxidermist making a midnight visit. Clarke works his humor in a frantic, colorful choreography of mayhem, like Busby Berkeley conducting Harold Lloyd. Running gags concerning a kilt and a group of French engineers are weak vehicles for dramatic unity, but the comedic, frequently alcohol-fueled vignettes have the verve to stand on their own. “You’re drunk,” is Alexa’s frequent complaint. In West’s business-ambassador shoes, you would be too.

Amusing travelogue from an engaging narrator who never lets a little bad news mess with his joie de vivre.

Pub Date: May 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-1-59691-527-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2008

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
IN THE MERDE FOR LOVE
by Stephen Clarke

- BOOK REVIEW
A YEAR IN THE MERDE
by Stephen Clarke

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

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

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.