In a memoir on an uncharacteristically somber subject, Trillin (American Stories, 1991, etc.) traces the life of his college friend Roger ``Denny'' Hansen: Phi Beta Kappa, Rhodes Scholar, possessor of charm and good looks to spare—and, at age 55, a suicide victim. Denny had seemed such a golden boy that he was photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt for a Life feature on his 1957 graduation from Yale, and his classmates joked about serving in his cabinet when he became President. But life didn't work out that way. Drained of his confidence at Oxford, unable to enter the Foreign Service as he had desired, Denny (now known as ``Roger'' to new acquaintances) fell into a succession of jobs as an itinerant foreign-policy specialist before becoming a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins's School of Advanced International Studies. In his last years, old friends were puzzled by his broken dinner engagements and unreturned phone calls; new associates found him an unsmiling, moralistic nag who never quite fit in. Why did Denny finally kill himself? Because of unbearable back pain (as implied by a suicide note), a dead-end academic specialty, lack of family or loved ones, long-repressed homosexuality—or, as one friend noted, simply because he was ``depressed all of his life''? After searching for the point of no return in his old friend's life, Trillin wisely settles for no easy conclusions (``Roger would have said that you didn't know him at all,'' one lover of Denny's remarks—with which Trillin ruefully agrees). What makes this gloomy post-mortem bearable and even fascinating is a smattering of Trillin's one- liners, as well as shrewd observations on sexual orientation, changes in universities' demographics, and American attitudes toward success. Perhaps more appropriate as one of Trillin's shorter New Yorker pieces—but, still, a fine meditation on one life's aborted promise, the crippling burden of anticipated success, and the mysteries of the human heart.
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-374-22607-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993
A lively narrative that illuminates the science of forensic anthropology. Ever wondered what happens to the human body while it's decomposing or to a silicone breast implant during cremation? Maples, bone expert for the Florida Museum of Natural History (affiliated with the Univ. of Florida) and crime solver extraordinaire, with Miami Herald reporter Browning, answers these questions and many more in an exceedingly well-written and accessible volume. He provides insight into his unusual profession, revealing how an experienced forensic anthropologist can glean from a few bone fragments the age, sex, race, and lifestyle of the deceased. Each chapter covers a different episode in Maple's career, from his days as a budding young scientist studying baboons in Kenya to his identification of the type of murder weapon used in the 1990 Gainesville, Fla., serial murders. Maples has trained his expertise on an assortment of murders and suicides. The most interesting chapters discuss some of his more celebrated cases, such as his analyses of the skeletons of the Elephant Man, servicemen who fought in Vietnam, and Francisco Pizarro (conqueror of the Incas); his inquiry to determine whether the 12th president of the US, Zachary Taylor, died of arsenic poisoning or natural causes; and his trip to Ekaterinaburg in 1989 to examine nine skeletons, all that remained of the last Russian czar and his entourage after the Bolsheviks executed them in 1918. Maples avoids euphemisms, describing much of his gruesome work in vivid language that may repulse some squeamish readers, but he tempers the mood with occasional doses of tasteful humor. He expresses profound respect and sympathy for the dead but stresses that he puts his emotions to the side while conducting his investigations. His occasional forays into the merits of capital punishment and the criminal justice system are less interesting, but these are minor flaws in an otherwise superb book. Not just for the morbidly curious.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-47490-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
A sensitive biography of a young dancer/choreographer who died of AIDS just two days after his first two dances premiered at the Joffrey Ballet in March 1991. Freelance journalist Solway uses Edward Stierle's short life to contrast the development of a prodigious talent with the tragic waste of early death. She looks at these intertwining themes from the personal perspective of Stierle, his family, and close friends as well as considering them as part of a larger picture: the effect of AIDS on the dance world and on the arts scene in general. Born in 1968, Stierle was raised in Florida, the youngest of eight children of a hardworking high school custodian. His mother ferried her talented son from age four on to endless classes and auditions; she trumpeted his achievements to all who would listen and tried to control his personal life even after he moved to Europe and then New York City. In spite of a short, stocky build, Stierle became a brilliant dance technician and at age 16 won a gold medal in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne competition. Shortly thereafter, he joined the Joffrey Ballet, where he was put directly into starring roles and encouraged to choreograph. A tireless self-promoter, Stierle alienated many colleagues and friends by his obsession with his own talent and career—although after his death some would charitably attribute his urgency to the knowledge that he was running out of time. Stierle's struggle with his bisexuality is fully recounted here. He attributed his infection to a 1987 encounter in California, and although he was virtually symptom-free for a couple of years, by 1990 the disease was rapidly progressing as he worked desperately to finish the two extraordinary ballets- -Lacrymosa and Empyrean Dances—that are his legacy. While keeping Stierle's story within the context of the larger AIDS tragedy, Solway's plain, measured prose makes clear the personal and professional magnitude of this individual loss. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-78894-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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