You won’t find “the next American music” here.
A solipsistic quest for authenticity, conducted with road map and library card—and without a clue.
Music journalist Petrusich (Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, 2007) purportedly set out to define “Americana,” an umbrella term for tradition-oriented strains of country, blues and folk music. Neglecting to clearly delineate the boundaries of this non-genre for either herself or the reader, she hit the road through the South and Appalachia. The book’s subtitle is an infuriating con. Far from being “lost,” the highways through Memphis, Nashville and Clarksdale, Miss., to name a few of her destinations, have been driven so often that they require repaving—or at least more energetic and keen-eyed travelers than Petrusich. The music she writes about is neither obscure nor new; tiresomely familiar stories about Elvis Presley, Sun Records, Robert Johnson, the Carter Family and Woody Guthrie abound. Relying heavily on the work of earlier journalists and scholars, this maddeningly underreported volume often reads like a book report. Only two dozen new interviews are cited, most of those with performers who have been active for at least a decade; Petrusich is more comfortable talking with academics, other writers and the occasional publicist than with musicians. She devotes an irritating amount of space to descriptions of museums, archives, tourist traps, motel rooms and her roadside meals, as well as the scenery along the interstate. In the thousands of miles she covers, the author makes exactly one stop to check out the local music action, and that’s at an upscale Clarksdale juke joint. In this navel-gazing context, it makes perfect sense that Petrusich would lamely dub the members of indie rock’s neo-hippy-dippy “freak-folk” scene (many of whom derive their sound as much from British sources as American ones) as the truest exponents of contemporary Americana.
You won’t find “the next American music” here.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-86547-950-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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