Engaging, depressing, and remarkably free of artifice, these vignettes of 1980s low life by the late downtown actress and performance artist may not succeed in capturing her scene as well Henry Miller did his—but they make an impressive attempt. Mueller died in 1989 of AIDS, but she left behind a considerable body of fiction and journalism on the wildly inventive, indulgent (and frequently self-destructive) '70s and '80s. A nice suburban girl from Maryland, she dropped out early and in the mid-1960s ran away to Haight-Ashbury. After some time there (and in a few mental wards), she came back to Baltimore and began hanging out with John Waters, who was just then starting to set up one of the strangest shops the movie world had yet to see. Mueller's career in show business began with Pink Flamingoes, Waters's masterpiece of tasteless excess that seems, with its coprophiliac climax, to have lost none of its shock value in the intervening years. After that, she became a part of Waters's entourage, moving with Divine and the rest of his crew to New York or Provincetown or farther afield as their whims or fortunes suited them. Most of Mueller's account is a straightforward autobiography, and even the fictionalized segments (with such titles as ``Abduction & Rape—1969'' or ``Sam's Party—1979'') seem to be narratives of actual events. For a while Mueller wrote pieces for Details and the East Village Eye, and some of those included here- -like an advice column on how to shoot up properly—could have been consigned to oblivion without much loss. But the portrait of the author that emerges in general—a humorous, self-destructive, intelligent, self-sufficient, strangely likable young woman—is compelling enough to overcome the many gaps in this spotty and rambling narrative. Essential reading for bohos, dropouts, and poseurs of every stripe and era.
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-85242-331-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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