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AN ARRANGEMENT OF SKIN

Name: AN ARRANGEMENT OF SKIN
Author: Anna Journey
ISBN: 978-1-61902-847-0

ESSAYS

by Anna Journey ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2017

Even though they get a bit precious at times and sometimes lose their way, the essays always come together “to resurrect and...

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Poet Journey (English/Univ. of Southern California; Vulgar Remedies, 2013, etc.) gathers 14 quirky, earthy, lyrical essays, a number of which have been previously published.

In “Modifying the Badger,” about the author’s transforming a badger into a raccoon via taxidermy, she discusses C.D. Wright’s poem “Personals” and how, “through accumulation and refraction, Wright’s slivers of personal history…expand into a larger social matrix.” So do Journey’s essays, many of which are autobiographical. Each piece is like a “sliver” of a photo album in which we observe the author’s grandparents, parents, sister, friends, and boyfriends. Sometimes it’s not pretty, like when she writes about calling a suicide hotline or when she describes herself and her best friend burning their arms with the ends of cigarettes. There are many secrets in closets, and there’s also glorious prose, beautiful images and metaphors composed by a fine poet. In “A Common Skin,” about how a rider and horse “share a common skin,” she describes her rigid calf muscles as “dried corncobs,” her heels hanging down, “hard as rubber.” Many of the titles are poetic: “Epithalamium with Skunk Pigs,” “A Flicker of Animal, a Flank” and “Prologue as Part of the Body.” Readers will learn intriguing tidbits along the way—e.g., how to stuff a starling, that “taxidermy is about life, not death,” how to be a potter, give a tattoo. We also visit interesting places, like dusty Deyrolle, part Parisian taxidermy shop, part museum of oddities, and Los Angeles’ Museum of Death, home to the preserved head of the vicious serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. These elegant essays are sometimes-bewitching meditations and musings: a “unique mixture of pathos and humor, revelation and concealment, banality and wonder.”

Even though they get a bit precious at times and sometimes lose their way, the essays always come together “to resurrect and walk.”

Pub Date: March 14, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-61902-847-0

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Counterpoint

Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016

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.