A provocative new perspective of TKAM that often misses the mark.
In this imaginative debut literary study, Dessauer seeks to unlock “secrets” surrounding Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Here, Dessauer has three key aims—to understand Lee’s silence following the publication of TKAM, to discover the author’s sources of inspiration, and to prove that the novel couldn’t have been written by Truman Capote (a persistent rumor). Dessauer believes that Lee refrained from discussing TKAM during her lifetime because she wanted the reader to uncover the novel’s secrets for themselves, which would lead to a “far greater appreciation of this book.” Regarding her inspiration, Dessauer contends that Lee, moved by her Methodist upbringing, references numerous biblical passages in her writing. For example, TKAM mentions an episode of a radio play (“One Man’s Family, Chapter XXV, Book II”); the chapter and book number point toward Proverbs 25:2, which begins: “It is the glory of God to conceal things.” (Dessauer suggests that Lee’s book abounds with similar concealed references.) About the rumor that Capote wrote the famous novel, the author has a simple response: The In Cold Blood author couldn’t have written TKAM because Capote courted celebrity and couldn’t have kept mum about that singular achievement. Along with presenting his three aims, Dessauer offers intriguing observations about TKAM. For example, he combed through Rammer Jammer, a student magazine to which Lee contributed, and draws thought-provoking links to Lee’s novel. He spotted an advertisement for Billups gas station in issue 25.2 of the magazine and notes that “X Billups is a minor character” in Lee’s masterpiece. Dessauer’s research into Rammer Jammer unearths many more convincing examples that suggest Lee was drawing from the magazine in her later work. Such proposals would most likely prove interesting to Lee scholars, but it’s disappointing that this brief book doesn’t expand further on these ideas. Scant attention is paid to academic tone or structure. The result is a meandering work that draws interesting but premature conclusions in its introductory passages but neglects to provide a developed or meaningful conclusion at its close.
A provocative new perspective of TKAM that often misses the mark.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66280-634-6
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Mill City Press, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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