A bold attempt to understand a tormented genius, to examine a grisly crime and to explain the latter’s effects both on...
An informative, swift-moving account of how Edgar Allan Poe transformed a sensational 1841 New York City murder into “The Mystery of Marie Roget” (published in three installments in the winter of 1842–3).
Stashower knows murder, and he knows the craft of biography. He has written mystery novels (Elephants in the Distance, 1989) and an Edgar-winning life of Arthur Conan Doyle (Teller of Tales, 1999) and brings to this current, complex task both considerable intelligence and wide-ranging research (he scoured Poe scholarship, 19th-century newspapers and Poe’s letters and fiction). For a while, chapters alternate between the murder investigation and the life of Poe. But eventually, the two converge. Mary Rogers, by universal assent, was a beautiful young woman who worked in a cigar shop. Men—not all of them smokers—flocked to the store. But Mary’s life was not untroubled. In 1838, she wrote a suicide note, disappeared, then returned to work. She had at least two serious suitors (both would soon be murder suspects). On a summer Sunday, she left home, supposedly to visit her aunt and attend church. A few days later, her body was found floating in the surf. The initial examination revealed signs of rape and strangulation. Local newspapers—both Horace Greeley and James Gordon Bennett were involved—fanned the flames of the investigation, printing ever more lurid speculations. Some men were arrested, but all were eventually released. And the case gradually fell from the front pages. Enter struggling writer E.A. Poe, who had already written his first detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and believed his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, could solve the Rogers case. Poe had published two installments of “Roget” when alarming new evidence suggested that Mary had died during an abortion. Poe had to modify his final installment.
A bold attempt to understand a tormented genius, to examine a grisly crime and to explain the latter’s effects both on Gotham’s system of law enforcement and on abortion legislation.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-94981-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
A hilarious, collectively appealing index of words and pictures drawn with wry exuberance and a head-nodding relevancy.
Beloved New Yorker cartoonist shares an alphabetized listing of life’s little irritants.
Veteran illustrator and humorist Chast (Too Busy Marco, 2010, etc.) has crafted a colorful career from parodying unsavory situations and maladies alongside the happenstances of the human condition. To truly enjoy her nimble pen and watercolor sketches, readers must be willing to laugh at their own harmless foibles. In the charming introduction, the author admits to being a life-long “anxious person,” a chronic insomniac who is “genetically inclined to worry,” and she brilliantly plays this personal shortcoming to maximum comical effect with the jagged line-drawing style and ironical wit that have become her trademarks. From the unsettling possibility of waking up during general anesthesia to the offbeat catastrophes of “Jell-O 1-2-3” and spontaneous human combustion, the author presents an A-to-Z catalog of distressing concerns and her unique take on “what might funny about them.” Chast prefaces each pictorial with a short, personal preamble describing what it is about each subject that has become so bothersome for the apprehensive author. She lightheartedly exposes the inconvenient nuisance of nightmares and beach undertows, the unknown consequences of Ouija boards and the wincing “imminent explosion” of annoying balloons. Chast doesn’t have much use for assumptive doctors, quicksand or carnivals, either (they’re “particularly awful at night”). Her takes on vision loss (“the girl who sat too close to the TV”), “mysterious” dental tools and the dark sides of the color yellow are sure to elicit knowing chuckles. With realistic, tongue-in-cheek foresight, the author spotlights a selection of the most commonplace, phobia-inducing situations (elevators, air travel, heights, etc.) and defuses them with brilliantly dry, flippant humor.
A hilarious, collectively appealing index of words and pictures drawn with wry exuberance and a head-nodding relevancy.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60819-689-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
This factual account of the Battle of the Alamo brings more vigorous personalities to life and effects more dramatic contrasts than many of its fictional competitors. Not only does Robert Penn Warren delineate battle strategies; he clarifies the ambitions and personal histories of the adversaries who met at Bexar and lays bare the stakes for which the battle was fought. The claims and crises of both Mexico and of the American settlers, desperadoes, and outlaws who lived in the no-man's-land state are dissected. Texas, hoping for equal rights in the new Mexico, after Spanish dominion was ousted, was settled 4-1 by ex-Americans. Then American immigration was halted by law — bringing to an end hopes of prosperity. And the rise of dictator Santa Anna meant an end to hopes for impartial jurisprudence. Boys and girls with any appetite for historical information will endorse this.
Pub Date: Aug. 28, 1958
ISBN: 1596872616
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1958
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