A fresh voice with a bright future.
Debut collection of essays traversing everything from the mysteries of summer camp and the eccentricities of one’s parents to acting in independent films and the love one feels for a newborn.
Freelance journalist Kaplan grew up in the WASPy Connecticut of the 1970s (“In my town there were so few Jews that unless you were dressed like the Hasidim, it just didn’t occur to people that you might be Jewish”). Like many a humorist, she observes high school from the edge of popularity, watching her girlfriends slow-dancing with jocks while she nurses multiple cases of unrequited love. After graduating from college, she settles in Manhattan and tries her hand at acting in commercials, indie films, and theater. (“I play at least one lesbian a year in one or another downtown theater.”) To support herself, she waits tables—usually running into her overeducated former classmates. Her fellow waiters teach her the lyrics to Sondheim songs, the choreography from every Broadway show from the past 50 years, and how to make a decent cappuccino. She finally abandons restaurant work for the world of the retail headhunter, which allows her the financial freedom to seriously pursue acting. The eccentrics of the world seem fond of Kaplan; she moseys through a community populated in part by a therapist who needs more help than her clients (the therapist tries to borrow money, credit cards, and prescription drugs from her patients), a gadget-loving father (he was one of the first drivers in the 1960s to own a mobile car phone), and a host of loser boyfriends (one even stood her up on her birthday). Not everything is glibly rendered; as Kaplan’s grandmother succumbs to Alzheimer’s, the author’s meditation on the symbolic value of inanimate objects—in this case her grandmother’s leather pocketbook—is simple and heartfelt.
A fresh voice with a bright future.Pub Date: July 22, 2002
ISBN: 0-688-17850-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
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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