by Andrew O'Hagan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 6, 2010
An unusual, quirky and fun read.
Maf (short for Mafia Honey), a Maltese Bichon born in Scotland, gives us insights into his privileged life—and discourses on everything from politics to psychiatry to contemporary art—as he passes as a gift from Frank Sinatra to Marilyn Monroe.
Maf is brought over to Los Angeles by a Mrs. Gurdin, who turns out to be the mother of Natalie Wood (née Natasha Gurdin). While Maf starts his new life in the plush surroundings of Sherman Oaks, he quickly moves on to Sinatra and then to Marilyn Monroe. Maf’s cuteness, affability and portability make him an ideal companion for Marilyn but also provide the means for him to overhear intimate conversations that she has with a number of her famous friends. O’Hagan gives us a sharp picture of American cultural life in the early 1960s, where celebrities parade through parties, get-togethers and soirées that Marilyn attends. Making appearances in this novel—and sometimes participating in rather bitchy (no pun intended) conversations—are Alfred Kazin, Lillian Hellman, Carson McCullers, Angie Dickinson, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Edmund Wilson, Dwight MacDonald, Noel Annan, Frank O’Hara, Irving Howe, Lee Strasberg and a host of others. Maf absorbs (and retells) it all with canine verve and abandon, offering his own considerable insights into the mix as well. For example, he compares Marilyn’s admiration of her own reflection to “the central panel of Hans Memling’s remarkable triptych, Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation, in which Vanity is pictured with her little white lapdog, a model of companionship.” Maf is not only an intellectual, but he persuades us that his owner Marilyn is as well, for she spends much of her time reading books like The Brothers Karamazov and is eager to find academics with whom to discuss this classic. We also get glimpses into Marilyn’s insecurity and dejection about not having a father, for Maf recounts some of her psychiatric sessions with Marianne Kris, wife of psychoanalyst/art historian Ernst Kris.
An unusual, quirky and fun read.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-15-101372-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
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by Susan Crandall ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2013
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.
Crandall (Sleep No More, 2010, etc.) delivers big with a coming-of-age story set in Mississippi in 1963 and narrated by a precocious 9-year-old.
Due in part to tradition, intimidation and Jim Crow laws, segregation is very much ingrained into the Southern lifestyle in 1963. Few white children question these rules, least of all Starla Caudelle, a spunky young girl who lives with her stern, unbending grandmother in Cayuga Springs, Miss., and spends an inordinate amount of time on restriction for her impulsive actions and sassy mouth. Starla’s dad works on an oil rig in the Gulf; her mother abandoned the family to seek fame and fortune in Nashville when Starla was 3. In her youthful innocence, Starla’s convinced that her mother’s now a big singing star, and she dreams of living with her again one day, a day that seems to be coming more quickly than Starla’s anticipated. Convinced that her latest infraction is about to land her in reform school, Starla decides she has no recourse but to run away from home and head to Nashville to find her mom. Ill prepared for the long, hot walk and with little concept of time and distance, Starla becomes weak and dehydrated as she trudges along the hot, dusty road. She gladly accepts water and a ride from Eula, a black woman driving an old truck, and finds, to her surprise, that she’s not Eula’s only passenger. Inside a basket is a young white baby, an infant supposedly abandoned outside a church, whom Eula calls James. Although Eula doesn’t intend to drive all the way to Nashville, when she shows up at her home with the two white children, a confrontation with her husband forces her into becoming a part of Starla’s journey, and it’s this journey that creates strong bonds between the two: They help each other face fears as they each become stronger individuals. Starla learns firsthand about the abuse and scare tactics used to intimidate blacks and the skewed assumption of many whites that blacks are inferior beings. Assisted by a black schoolteacher who shows Eula and Starla unconditional acceptance and kindness, both ultimately learn that love and kinship transcend blood ties and skin color.
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0772-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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by Lisa Wingate ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2017
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her...
Avery Stafford, a lawyer, descendant of two prominent Southern families and daughter of a distinguished senator, discovers a family secret that alters her perspective on heritage.
Wingate (Sisters, 2016, etc.) shifts the story in her latest novel between present and past as Avery uncovers evidence that her Grandma Judy was a victim of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and is related to a woman Avery and her father meet when he visits a nursing home. Although Avery is living at home to help her parents through her father’s cancer treatment, she is also being groomed for her own political career. Readers learn that investigating her family’s past is not part of Avery's scripted existence, but Wingate's attempts to make her seem torn about this are never fully developed, and descriptions of her chemistry with a man she meets as she's searching are also unconvincing. Sections describing the real-life orphanage director Georgia Tann, who stole poor children, mistreated them, and placed them for adoption with wealthy clients—including Joan Crawford and June Allyson—are more vivid, as are passages about Grandma Judy and her siblings. Wingate’s fans and readers who enjoy family dramas will find enough to entertain them, and book clubs may enjoy dissecting the relationship and historical issues in the book.
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her fictional characters' lives.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-425-28468-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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by Lisa Wingate
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