by Carol Scibelli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2011
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After the death of her husband, a woman finds humor in everyday situations.
Comedy writer Scibelli was 55 when her husband Jimmy, 56, died of Burkitt’s lymphoma after being sick for just about a month. High school sweethearts, the two had been happily married for 33 years, lovingly doting on precious granddaughter Skylar. In Jimmy’s absence, the author managed to find the levity in life when circumstances were grim. Among the topics covered are financial matters such as her husband’s business partnership, her therapist “Mean Jean” and the “posse” of men who handle tasks formerly relegated to Jimmy. Well-meaning friends and relatives surround her, including a couple who name their baby after Jimmy by calling her Liat Zoe (reasoning that “Zoe” means “life” and Jimmy loved life—an argument the author is quick to poke holes in; Scibelli writes, “I imagine him responding, ‘I loved ice cream, too. Maybe some people should name their kid Rocky Road.”). Eventually Scibelli enters the dating scene, surprisingly enjoying herself. Despite the book’s theme, the tone stays lighthearted as it follows the arc from death, to funeral, to burial, to eulogy and into that defining moment when the curtain falls and one is truly alone, sans mate. Although the book is brief, the author strikes a recognizable chord in the post-marriage life of a 50something. The brevity of the text, and Scibelli’s line of work, suggest that a live performance may best bring the material to life—after all, in comedy, timing is everything. Families have their particular nuances, and those of the Scibelli clan are hinted at here. Unlike Joan Didion’s exploration of the loss of her husband, The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), there’s not much depth, which is no doubt intentional, but there is an arc of experience and a final wrenching moment in which the author comes to terms with widowhood, not for a few days or months or even for the length of a book, but through the years. Widows will find comfort, inspiration and laughter here. It’s a humorous, touching read and, in the words of the late Jimmy Scibelli, “Abbondanza!” An amusing, heartfelt look at life after loss.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983261001
Page Count: 77
Publisher: Pigeon
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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