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IN MY OWN SWEET TIME

Name: IN MY OWN SWEET TIME
Author: Blanche Cooney
ISBN: 0-8040-0966-X

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

by Blanche Cooney ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1993

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A beguilingly candid love story of the two radicals—the author and her husband, Jim—who founded the Phoenix, the quarterly that first published Henry Miller in the US. Despite their shared political sympathies—left wing and pacifist, though Jim had been expelled from the Communist Party for anarchist ``tendencies''—the Cooneys were in most other respects completely different from each other. Blanche was the daughter of Jewish Russian and Rumanian immigrants: Her father worked with mobsters like the notorious Lepke Buchalter, who once attended a family sabbath dinner, while her mother, an intellectual, wanted the author to become a scholar. Jim, on the other hand, came from a suburban and traditional Irish Catholic family that he rebelled against by moving to N.Y.C., where he wrote an acclaimed novel and was active in radical politics. The pair met in the Village and- -even though Jim was living with another woman—soon became lovers and then, in 1936, newlyweds. The Cooneys moved to a commune in Vermont, where—after an unsuccessful fund-raising trip to New Mexico, during which they met Frieda Lawrence—they began publishing the Phoenix, in which excerpts from Anais Nin's diary appeared, along with Miller's writings. War ended the publication, and for the rest of their long married life, the couple, now living on a Connecticut farm, struggled to implement their never fully realized communitarian ideals. In Connecticut, the Cooneys raised four children; entertained literary and artistic friends; were active in the antiwar movement of the 70's; and, though Jim grew moody as he aged, enjoyed their great love for each other until his death in 1985. A striking record of unwavering commitment, told without gloss or sentimentality—and, like the best autobiographies, with all the shading and narrative drive of a good novel.

Pub Date: June 15, 1993

ISBN: 0-8040-0966-X

Page Count: 246

Publisher: Ohio Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993

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.