DEAR MR. BECKETT—LETTERS FROM THE PUBLISHER

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DEAR MR. BECKETT—LETTERS FROM THE PUBLISHER

Name: DEAR MR. BECKETT—LETTERS FROM THE PUBLISHER
Author: Barney Rosset
ISBN: 978-1-62316-070-8

THE SAMUEL BECKETT FILE CORRESPONDENCE, INTERVIEWS, PHOTOS

by Barney Rosset edited by Lois Oppenheim ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 2016

Not the last word on Beckett, Rosset, or Grove, but a vivid snapshot of a revolutionary era in the culture.

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An evocative but somewhat slapdash scrapbook of documents and interviews concerning the iconoclastic publisher of Grove Press and his most famous author.

As Paul Auster notes in his appreciative preface, the late Barney Rosset (1922-2012) made it Grove’s business to challenge the mid-20th-century status quo both by battling censorship with the publication of the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer and by introducing America to a host of challenging new writers, from the Beat poets to such avatars of the European avant-garde as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Eugène Ionesco, and Harold Pinter. Some of them get nods here, but the focus is on Samuel Beckett, first and foremost among this stellar group from the time Rosset contacted him in 1953 to arrange an English-language edition of Waiting for Godot. The author and publisher’s increasingly warm professional and personal relationship is chronicled in rather spotty fashion here: Rosset’s letters—there are only a handful from Beckett—could use a lot more annotation than they receive from editor Oppenheim, who apparently thinks that a list of “Characters” up front is sufficient for general readers, who may be baffled by fleeting references to Beckett’s fiction (also published by Grove) and to Rosset’s notorious ouster by Grove’s new owners in 1986, which should have been covered in more detail or not at all. Still, a wonderful period aroma emanates from the reproductions of typewritten letters on Grove letterhead, telegrams, newspaper clippings, etc., and the detailed documentation of such projects as Beckett’s Film starring Buster Keaton and the world premiere of Rockaby with Billie Whitelaw is most welcome. Interviews with Les Editions de Minuit principal Jérôme Lindon and British publisher John Calder give a nice perspective on the international avant-garde.

Not the last word on Beckett, Rosset, or Grove, but a vivid snapshot of a revolutionary era in the culture.

Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-62316-070-8

Page Count: 480

Publisher: OPUS

Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ROSSET
by Barney Rosset

- BOOK REVIEW
THE OUTLAW BIBLE OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
edited by Alan Kaufman & Neil Ortenberg & Barney Rosset

- BOOK REVIEW
EVERGREEN REVIEW READER, 1957-1966
edited by Barney Rosset

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A MILLION LITTLE PIECES

by James Frey ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2003

Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.

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Frey’s lacerating, intimate debut chronicles his recovery from multiple addictions with adrenal rage and sprawling prose.

After ten years of alcoholism and three years of crack addiction, the 23-year-old author awakens from a blackout aboard a Chicago-bound airplane, “covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood.” While intoxicated, he learns, he had fallen from a fire escape and damaged his teeth and face. His family persuades him to enter a Minnesota clinic, described as “the oldest Residential Drug and Alcohol Facility in the World.” Frey’s enormous alcohol habit, combined with his use of “Cocaine . . . Pills, acid, mushrooms, meth, PCP and glue,” make this a very rough ride, with the DTs quickly setting in: “The bugs crawl onto my skin and they start biting me and I try to kill them.” Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox; for example, he must undergo reconstructive dental surgery without anesthetic, an ordeal rendered in excruciating detail. Very gradually, he confronts the “demons” that compelled him towards epic chemical abuse, although it takes him longer to recognize his own culpability in self-destructive acts. He effectively portrays the volatile yet loyal relationships of people in recovery as he forms bonds with a damaged young woman, an addicted mobster, and an alcoholic judge. Although he rejects the familiar 12-step program of AA, he finds strength in the principles of Taoism and (somewhat to his surprise) in the unflinching support of family, friends, and therapists, who help him avoid a relapse. Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthful spirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics—irregular paragraph breaks, unpunctuated dialogue, scattered capitalization, few commas—that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits.

Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.

Pub Date: April 15, 2003

ISBN: 0-385-50775-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
NEXT TO HEAVEN
by James Frey

- BOOK REVIEW
KATERINA
by James Frey

- BOOK REVIEW
SKY KEY
by James Frey & Nils Johnson-Shelton

- BOOK TO SCREEN
4 Book Adaptations to Check Out In December

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A PIRATE LOOKS AT FIFTY

by Jimmy Buffett ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1998

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Lg. Prt. 0-375-70288-1 This first nonfiction outing from singer/songwriter Buffett (Where Is Joe Merchant?, 1992, etc.) is more food for his Parrothead fans, but there is some fine writing along with the self-revelation. Half autobiography and half travelogue, this volume recounts a trip by Buffett and his family to the Caribbean over one Christmas holiday to celebrate the writer’s 50th birthday. Buffett is a licensed pilot, and his personal weakness is for seaplanes, so it’s primarily in this sort of craft that the family’s journey takes place. While giving beautiful descriptions of the locales to which he travels (including a very attractive portrait of Key West, from which he sets out), Buffett intersperses recollections of his first, short-lived marriage, his experiences in college and avoiding the Vietnam draft, and his brief employment at Billboard magazine’s Nashville bureau before becoming a professional musician. In the meantime, he carries his reader seamlessly through the Cayman Island, Costa Rica, Colombia, the Amazon basin, and Trinidad and Tobago. Buffett shows that he is a keen observer of Latin American culture and also that he can “pass” in these surroundings when he needs to. It’s perhaps on this latter point that this book finds its principal weakness. Buffett tends toward preachiness in addressing his mostly landlubber readers, as when he decries the seeming American inability to learn a second language while most Caribbeans can speak English; elsewhere he attacks “ugly Americans out there making it harder for us more-connected-to-the-local-culture types.” On the other hand, he seems right on the money when he observes that the drug war of the 1980s did little to stop trafficking in the area and that turning wetlands into helicopter pads for drug agents isn’t going to offer any additional help. Both Parrotheads and those with a taste for the Caribbean find something for their palates here. (Author tour)