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UNCOLLECTING CHEEVER

Name: UNCOLLECTING CHEEVER
Author: Anita Miller
ISBN: 0-8476-9076-8

THE FAMILY OF JOHN CHEEVER VS. ACADEMY CHICAGO PUBLISHERS

by Anita Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1998

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.