An engaging, if unchallenging, account of an author whose route into—and out of—literary celebrity makes him seem, for better and worse, a man of his time. From the first short stories Caldwell (190387) struggled to get into print, his works drew on the observations he made of poverty in the rural South and the lessons in social consciousness he received from his father, a preacher. Caldwell's first wife, Helen, and their children shared his life of grinding poverty while enduring his volatile temperament. He honed his craft, helped by Helen's editing, but even his best-known work, Tobacco Road, generated poor initial sales—in Miller's estimation because the publisher, Scribner's, marketed the sexually explicit book so timidly. When playwright Jack Kirkland turned Tobacco Road into ``the bawdiest Broadway hit in history,'' Caldwell gained a solid income and practice at arguing for artistic freedom as local officials across the nation tried to close down touring-company productions. As he adapted to a more luxurious life, he also found himself a more glamorous wife: photographer Margaret Bourke-White, with whom he collaborated on studies of southern sharecropping and of Russia during the German invasion—an arrangement that collapsed as Caldwell learned he came second to her art just as Helen and the children had come second to his. Miller (who has a Ph.D. in History of American Civilization from Harvard) tends to avoid probing such fissures in his subject's actions and writings, particularly during Caldwell's decline from celebrity, finally giving this account the feel of a life observed with only intermittent intensity. For example, when discussing Caldwell's mid-1950s output—stories for ``mediocre (often X-rated) journals'' and a ``melodramatic, mildly pornographic'' novel whose sales were enhanced by its spicy cover—he concludes without a trace of irony that Caldwell was ``earning a living from his craft.'' Miller reveals, but never really explores, the complexities and inconsistencies of a man who wrote both first-rate fiction and disposable prose.
Pub Date: Jan. 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-42931-X
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
A welcome pinprick in the bloated hot air balloon of management advice–should accompany The 8th Habit or Raving Fans in the...
A necessary icy dash of pessimism in the warm sea of feckless optimism that is the business management genre.
Like Machiavelli's The Prince or Swift's Gulliver's Travels, this parody of "Business Inspiration" contains more verisimilitude on one page than does an entire library penned by Steven Covey. Remaining a shadowy figure throughout, Kersten looks out from the author photo–rendered as a Wall Street Journal pen-and-ink portrait–with a heavenward gaze that rivals that of Ralph Reed seeking divine guidance. Credit him with the ability to couch the actual facts of most business organizations in jargon that even a Ph.D. would understand. Kersten’s essential point is that most businesses, seduced by the pernicious myth of the "Noble Employee," waste precious time and ungodly sums of money attempting to transform mediocre wage slaves into superstars. This is wrongthink, he avers. Not only can you not teach a pig to sing, but in so attempting, you sacrifice a lot of bacon. Passive, dependent, unmotivated employees are easier to exploit and require relatively low maintenance. Accordingly, managers who spoil employees by boosting their self-esteem are only contributing to employee narcissism. Employees must be put squarely in their place–in Kersten’s world, this falls somewhere between medieval serfdom and indentured servitude. Radically demotivating employees includes such techniques as creative amnesia–"forgetting" employees’ names and contributions; also, managers should respond impersonally to employees, refraining from sharing or engaging in eye contact or emotional displays. Kersten even advocates physical "cleansing" after employee contact–make sure to apply antibacterial liquid after an employee handshake.
A welcome pinprick in the bloated hot air balloon of management advice–should accompany The 8th Habit or Raving Fans in the same manner that The Wealth of Nations should accompany Das Kapital.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 1-892503-40-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A ramshackle biography of the legendary jazz innovator. Gourse (Madame Jazz, 1995, etc.) has researched Monk's life thoroughly, interviewing his surviving family members and musical cohorts, as well as combing the archives for contemporary profiles and reviews of his work. Sadly, however, there's insufficient narrative thread here to stitch together Gourse's assemblage of quotes. Monk grew up in New York City; by 1934, when he was 16, he had dropped out of school to devote his full attention to the piano. After touring the country with a gospel group, he returned to New York and began experimenting with his uniquely personal tonal and rhythmic language, often identified as the essential ammunition of the bebop revolution. While Monk profoundly influenced Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, it wasn't until the late '50s that his seminal gigs at Manhattan's Five Spot garnered him full public recognition as a musician and composer. He was equally famous for his eccentricities: Generally late for his performances, he often left the piano and danced around the stage, letting the ever-changing members of his quartet supply the music. In private, Monk was notoriously taciturn, and occasionally he would experience episodes of complete withdrawal that required his hospitalization. Gourse entertains the idle speculations of many nonexpert acquaintances about the causes of his behavior, but the conclusion she seems to support—possible extensive use of unspecified drugs, complicated by genius—is vague. And about Monk's music the author offers silly tautologies like, ``In the aggregate, his songs comprised an oeuvre, each a commentary on his unique universe of sound.'' The book's obvious title, already used for a Monk documentary, is a perfect tipoff that Gourse has little to say about her subject that is imaginative or useful. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-02-864656-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
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