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FUGITIVE SPRING

Name: FUGITIVE SPRING
Author: Deborah Digges
ISBN: 0-394-57722-1

A MEMOIR

by Deborah Digges ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 1992

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In this gentle, unassuming memoir set against the Vietnam era, Digges (English/Tufts Univ.), a poet, recounts her coming of age and the break with home and family that emancipated her as a woman and a writer. One of ten children born to Dutch Reformist parents in Jefferson City, Missouri, Digges grew up amid the family orchards and the rats used by her doctor father for his cancer research. It was a childhood made lonely by too many siblings (no friend is ever mentioned) treated too much the same by preoccupied parents. In high school, Digges worked for a while in her father's cancer clinic, discovering that she had neither the ability nor the temperament for dealing with the gravely ill. She had a brief, unsuccessful college career devoted entirely to acting out, mostly sexually, her rebellion against her background. After flunking out, she married straight-arrow Charlie Digges, a favorite of her parents, and quickly became pregnant. She, Charlie, and the baby moved first to Texas, then to California, as Charlie went through pilot training and became a military airman, sent away on missions for long periods of time. In her solitude, Digges began writing poetry. She took writing courses at a nearby university and made a friend who seemed to embody all her own suppressed nonconformist urges; this friend died in a car accident. Digges and her husband finally divorced. Not bad, but not memorable. The events aren't especially dramatic; the language doesn't dazzle; the characters aren't particularly vivid (though the parents have their interesting features, they are never quite seen whole); no extraordinary insight emerges. Perhaps this is a case of a poet unable to surmount the potential quicksand of prose.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 1992

ISBN: 0-394-57722-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991

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.