A lawyerly avalanche befalls a well-intentioned small press, Academy Chicago Publishers, for its attempt to issue The Uncollected Stories of John Cheever. Academy Chicago’s cofounder Miller tells her side of a precipitous story in clean, minimalist prose. According to her, what began in 1987 as a modest effort to gather all of Cheever’s 68 uncollected stories gradually snowballed into an expensive and humiliating compromise. The result, after 10 years of legal drama: a compilation of merely 13 stories; wretched relations with the Cheever family; and noses in the air from many New York City literary arbiters. Dutifully documented in conversations and letters exchanged among Miller, her husband, Jordan, and the Cheevers, their agents, reporters, and attorneys is the heartbreak that comes of putting an idea out there, fighting to pursue it, and then losing—basically—for lack of funds. Another source of despair: the insults and professional slander accumulated along the way. Miller reports that the Cheevers” lawyer, Martin Garbus, cheerfully “warned writers to beware of small publishers: they might not have much money, and even if they are solvent, he said, there have been “troubling cases” in which they did not “follow standard industry practice in editing, publishing or marketing.” ” As for the Cheevers themselves, their motive in attacking Academy Chicago legally seemed to be acquisitiveness. Confided one of Cheever’s offspring, “I—m a greedy pig. All my life I—ve wanted to be rich. Haven—t you?” But formally and publicly, their legal action instead argued that “publication of the projected book of short stories would hurt John Cheever’s reputation because these stories were poor” and alleged, in Miller’s words, “the “total” incapability of our small press to perform contractual obligations already entered into.” An almost unbelievable—though not unfamiliar’story of a literary enterprise quashed by money and “the law.”
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8476-9076-8
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
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
© 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.
