Memories as elemental as stones, for sure—of food, love, places, children, childhood, longing.
A floodtide of microstories that aim to catch—as turning points, emotive instances or sheer imagery—moments in Grigsby's life.
In over 80 short pieces of prose and poetry—most just a page or two long, written over a 30-year span—Grigsby takes measure of the "stones" (people, places, events) she has bumped into on life's waterway. These are personal conjurings, and what makes them glow is their provocation of the reader's fast-held memories—the author's voice reflects universal qualities, and acts as a flint ready to spark a personal fire. She might display the fun loopiness of A.A. Milne's "Disobedience": "Off we went, big sis, baby brother / on or way to the corner store. / Lots of trouble we got in then– / he was only two, and I, only four." She will also reveal the pain of a friend moving away, the disappointment of a trusty canoe getting splintered, or the ground floor fear of dying alone. Hope is a vulnerability, if indispensable: "Hold fast…/ it is now everything." A worldly pluck will give purpose: "To find a jot of humor / in the morass of absurdity / is the essence of / one woman’s existence." There are also some lazy observations: "But the eagle soars– / for he is free," which is not only hackneyed but also no truer than for any other living thing. She rebounds, however, with a sweet tribute to her son: "...Learning was freedom / and beauty in his hands." Here, the notion of freedom has some genuine reverb. Then there are the snippets, lines that can stand on their own, of the "creped wings" under the arms of an older woman; or the grade-school teacher's black dress with lacing "hinting a / shock of chartreuse underneath"; or the lovely line, "This year is old and / listing by now."
Memories as elemental as stones, for sure—of food, love, places, children, childhood, longing.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-9744064-0-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Essential for fans and the definitive celebration of a show that made history by knowing the rules and breaking every one of...
Everything you ever wanted to know about America’s favorite Mafia serial—and then some.
New York magazine TV critic Seitz (Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion, 2015, etc.) and Rolling Stone TV critic Sepinwall (Breaking Bad 101: The Complete Critical Companion, 2017, etc.) gather a decade’s worth of their smart, lively writing about New Jersey’s most infamous crime family. As they note, The Sopranos was first shot in 1997, helmed by master storyteller David Chase, of Northern Exposure and Rockford Files renown, who unveiled his creation at an odd time in which Robert De Niro had just appeared in a film about a Mafioso in therapy. The pilot was “a hybrid slapstick comedy, domestic sitcom, and crime thriller, with dabs of ’70s American New Wave grit. It is high and low art, vulgar and sophisticated.” It barely hinted at what was to come, a classic of darkness and cynicism starring James Gandolfini, an actor “obscure enough that, coupled with the titanic force of his performance, it was easy to view him as always having been Tony Soprano.” Put Gandolfini together with one of the best ensembles and writing crews ever assembled, and it’s small wonder that the show is still remembered, discussed, and considered a classic. Seitz and Sepinwall occasionally go too Freudian (“Tony is a human turd, shat out by a mother who treats her son like shit”), though sometimes to apposite effect: Readers aren’t likely to look at an egg the same way ever again. The authors’ interviews with Chase are endlessly illuminating, though we still won’t ever know what really happened to the Soprano family on that fateful evening in 2007. “It’s not something you just watch,” they write. “It’s something you grapple with, accept, resist, accept again, resist again, then resolve to live with”—which, they add, is “absolutely in character for this show.”
Essential for fans and the definitive celebration of a show that made history by knowing the rules and breaking every one of them.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3494-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
