Using lurid accounts and photos of the day, Gathje's strong debut brings to garish life a crime that captured New York City's attention in 1937. A nudie model, her mother, and their English boarder were found brutally murdered in their midtown Manhattan apartment on Easter Sunday, sending the city's tabloids into a frenzy of sleazy reportage. Stephen Butter—Gathje's uncle—drunkenly escorted the lovely 20-year-old Ronnie Gedeon home after a night on the town and was the last to see her alive. He was soon replaced as chief suspect by Ronnie's estranged father, Joseph, an upholsterer with a passion for bowling and for girlie magazines (the press, which ran dozens of Ronnie's ``art'' photos, hinted that his daughter's was among his bedside pinups). Joseph, who didn't appear overly bereaved at the loss of wife and child, blurted something about being a ``naturalist'' with ``seven lives'' and was beaten up during police questioning. He decided to sell his story to the press. Other suspects and characters included a boyfriend who sold his story to the News for $25; an itinerant sculptor and former boarder at the Gedeons'; a mental patient who went to the press with a diary and ``dangerous knowledge'' about the murders; Ethel Kudner, Ronnie's sister, who, as a secretary at Vanity Fair, provided Ronnie with ``modeling'' contacts. She sold her version of events to the Daily Mirror for $500. Walter Winchell tried to connect Joseph to the Lindbergh kidnapping; Ed Sullivan bought nude photos of Ronnie ``from a peddlar in Times Square''; and rival columnists Dorothy Kilgallen and Adela Rogers St. John weighed in with inanities of their own. As Gathje so marvelously shows, the sensationalist press of the 1930s had a lot in common with the trashy TV ``journalism'' of today. Gathje's unobtrusive writing is consciously set just a notch or two above the tabloid style, making it read like a mystery and a saucy tour guide of preWW II New York. (Illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Feb. 26, 1995
ISBN: 1-55611-428-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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