An amiable meditation to warm even the iciest hearts.
Charns straps on a pair of beaten-up ice skates to take on the NHL–and the American Way.
The author is many things to many people: a left-wing lawyer working for the good of the people of North Carolina; husband to his saintly wife Tucker; father to a gaggle of small children; and a vehement critic of the current White House. Most of all, he’s a dedicated hockey fan, a condition that he readily admits makes him half-crazy. His well-meaning but meandering book is either a string of very short essays or one very long one. It ties together all of the author’s myriad passions by relating them back to his first love, hockey. In 2004, the quirky, irrational Charns was finally pushed over the edge by the double whammy of Dubya’s re-election and the NHL lockout that canceled the season. To find peace, he looks for solace in unusual places. He mulls over a half-serious, conspiracy-minded lawsuit that accuses the White House of ordering the lockout to punish Canada for refusing to fight in the Iraq War. He also investigates the process of becoming a Canadian citizen, defends clients under serious threat and forms an amateur hockey league with his kids. While conservative readers surely won’t appreciate the political slant, the author’s commitment to his beloved sport is endearing. The best bits occur when this overweight, middle-aged, distinctly American guy decides to get on the ice and finally learn to play for himself. His confessions are disarmingly candid, revealing the effect that hockey has on everything from his sex life to his grief over his father’s death. They’re also quite amusing, especially the author’s discovery that he might legally be able to nominate the Charns Puck Chuckers (his wife, children, dog and fish) to compete in the cancelled Stanley Cup Final. While it’s certainly self-absorbed, the author’s subversive wit and genuine belief in the game’s magic are oddly persuasive.
An amiable meditation to warm even the iciest hearts.Pub Date: May 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-595-39579-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.
An Ohio-based poet, columnist, and music critic takes the pulse of the nation while absorbing some of today’s most eclectic beats.
At first glance, discovering deep meaning in the performance of top-40 songstress Carly Rae Jepsen might seem like a tough assignment. However, Abdurraqib (The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, 2016) does more than just manage it; he dives in fully, uncovering aspects of love and adoration that are as illuminating and earnest as they are powerful and profound. If he can do that with Jepsen's pop, imagine what the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Prince, or Nina Simone might stir in him. But as iconic as those artists may be, the subjects found in these essays often serve to invoke deeper forays into the worlds surrounding the artists as much as the artists themselves. Although the author is interested in the success and appeal of The Weeknd or Chance the Rapper, he is also equally—if not more—intrigued with the sociopolitical and existential issues that they each managed to evoke in present-day America. In witnessing Zoe Saldana’s 2016 portrayal of Simone, for instance, Abdurraqib thinks back to his own childhood playing on the floor of his family home absorbing the powerful emotions caused by his mother’s 1964 recording of “Nina Simone in Concert”—and remembering the relentlessly stigmatized soul who, unlike Saldana, could not wash off her blackness at the end of the day. In listening to Springsteen, the author is reminded of the death of Michael Brown and how “the idea of hard, beautiful, romantic work is a dream sold a lot easier by someone who currently knows where their next meal is coming from.” In all of Abdurraqib’s poetic essays, there is the artist, the work, the nation, and himself. The author effortlessly navigates among these many points before ultimately arriving at conclusions that are sometimes hopeful, often sorrowful, and always visceral.
Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-937512-65-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts.
A brisk study of 20 of the Bard’s plays, focused on stripping off four centuries of overcooked analysis and tangled reinterpretations.
“I don’t really care what he might have meant, nor should you,” writes Smith (Shakespeare Studies/Oxford Univ.; Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book, 2016, etc.) in the introduction to this collection. Noting the “gappy” quality of many of his plays—i.e., the dearth of stage directions, the odd tonal and plot twists—the author strives to fill those gaps not with psychological analyses but rather historical context for the ambiguities. She’s less concerned, for instance, with whether Hamlet represents the first flower of the modern mind and instead keys into how the melancholy Dane and his father share a name, making it a study of “cumulative nostalgia” and our difficulty in escaping our pasts. Falstaff’s repeated appearances in multiple plays speak to Shakespeare’s crowd-pleasing tendencies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a bawdier and darker exploration of marriage than its teen-friendly interpretations suggest. Smith’s strict-constructionist analyses of the plays can be illuminating: Her understanding of British mores and theater culture in the Elizabethan era explains why Richard III only half-heartedly abandons its charismatic title character, and she is insightful in her discussion of how Twelfth Night labors to return to heterosexual convention after introducing a host of queer tropes. Smith's Shakespeare is eminently fallible, collaborative, and innovative, deliberately warping play structures and then sorting out how much he needs to un-warp them. Yet the book is neither scholarly nor as patiently introductory as works by experts like Stephen Greenblatt. Attempts to goose the language with hipper references—Much Ado About Nothing highlights the “ ‘bros before hoes’ ethic of the military,” and Falstaff is likened to Homer Simpson—mostly fall flat.
A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4854-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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