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TWENTY THOUSAND ROADS

Name: TWENTY THOUSAND ROADS
Author: David N. Meyer
ISBN: 978-0-375-50570-6

THE BALLAD OF GRAM PARSONS AND HIS COSMIC AMERICAN MUSIC

by David N. Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 2007

The Grievous Angel never takes flight here.

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One more time through the gaudy life of the ’60s country-rock pathfinder.

Though he released only six albums in his 26 years, Gram Parsons was and remains legendary for his affecting, unprecedented music, his drug- and booze-saturated lifestyle and the sensational story surrounding his demise. (After he overdosed in 1973, two friends stole his body, took it out to the desert and set it on fire.) This fifth full-length biography is by far the longest, but it doesn’t top Ben Fong-Torres’s Hickory Wind (1991). Meyer (Cinema Studies/New School for Social Research) is strongest on Parsons’s privileged youth as scion of a wealthy Florida citrus family. His Southern-Gothic upbringing and a round of tragedies—father’s suicide, mother’s death from alcoholism—receive deep, riveting scrutiny. When Meyer turns to Parsons’s life as a trust-funded rocker, however, the narrative bogs down in thrice-told tales. His move to Los Angeles with pioneering country-rock unit the International Submarine Band, his trend-setting sojourns with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers and his dope-suffused solo career are all dutifully logged in frequently superfluous detail. Meyer attempts to sift the plentiful legends about Parsons but eventually somewhat wearily admits that many witnesses were just too stoned to remember what went down. Though well-researched, the book is hampered by reliance on secondary sources and the non-participation of such crucial family members, friends and collaborators as Parsons’s oft-bashed widow Gretchen, Keith Richards and Emmylou Harris, all of whom appear in Gandulf Hennig’s excellent 2005 BBC documentary. Small, irritating factual errors abound, but the book’s uninformed observations and suspect critical judgments are even more aggravating. Meyer finally loses patience with his gifted, self-destructive subject, and the resulting snarky tone does not serve his story well. He also misses the heart of “Cosmic American Music,” the term Parsons coined to describe the synthesis of country, R&B, gospel and rock that he aspired to play.

The Grievous Angel never takes flight here.

Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-375-50570-6

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Villard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.