Morris is a blatant body-watcher, entranced by the human form in all its naked-apeness. He profits from his studies by producing pop works that combine some fact, some crack-fact, and a lot of what used to be called "pious pornography." Because he is a clever writer, because he writes about human behavior, and because he is not at all unhappy being found out on a limb, he commands and gets attention. Thus, Bodywatching, a brow-to-toe study of human parts and appendages, their uses and abuses in cultures now and then. A lot of this is tim, a lot borrowed from his previous, less opinionated study of human gestures (Manwatching). We learn about the head roils, the brow knits, the earlobe touches which come with universal or particular meanings. Touch an earlobe as you face a man in Italy, we are told, and it will be interpreted as an accusation of effeminacy—the guy should be wearing an earring. In Portugal, the same gesture means something delicious, from girls to food. Then there are the historical bits. Morris describes exactly how the feet of well-born Chinese girls were bound and how the resulting size and shape, called the Golden Venus, took on erotic meaning. His discussion of spittle is interesting, too. The association of saliva with the soul meant that spittle could be a reverential offering to the gods. Later, spitting was used to ward off the Evil Eye and generalized as an opprobrious gesture toward anyone undesirable. But beware. Some origins and explanations smack of Morris Just-So stories: that breasts are substitute buttocks, for example, or that man may have gone through an aquatic phase (one explanation for our protuberant noses). Even the anatomical/medical facts aren't always right. Not all head or chin hair would grow to record lengths if never cut. And the principal cause of tooth decay is not the bacteria named, but a certain streptococcal species. If the examples chosen suggest interesting topics but caveat emptor, fine. In addition, most of the body parts described here have sexual connotations (e.g., breasts, buttocks, legs, mouths), and here Morris the Macho reigns supreme: he is much more focused on female anatomy and interpretations, playing hard on the theme of women as submissive, helpless, virginal and nurturing than on his heap-big male hunter and protector. So expect many women to react with arms akimbo, if not chin stuck out. For the rest, keep your eyes wide open and be prepared to smile, frown, and hardly ever yawn.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1985
ISBN: 0586202749
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1985
An extraordinary true tale of torment, retribution, and loyalty that's irresistibly readable in spite of its intrusively melodramatic prose. Starting out with calculated, movie-ready anecdotes about his boyhood gang, Carcaterra's memoir takes a hairpin turn into horror and then changes tack once more to relate grippingly what must be one of the most outrageous confidence schemes ever perpetrated. Growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s, former New York Daily News reporter Carcaterra (A Safe Place, 1993) had three close friends with whom he played stickball, bedeviled nuns, and ran errands for the neighborhood Mob boss. All this is recalled through a dripping mist of nostalgia; the streetcorner banter is as stilted and coy as a late Bowery Boys film. But a third of the way in, the story suddenly takes off: In 1967 the four friends seriously injured a man when they more or less unintentionally rolled a hot-dog cart down the steps of a subway entrance. The boys, aged 11 to 14, were packed off to an upstate New York reformatory so brutal it makes Sing Sing sound like Sunnybrook Farm. The guards continually raped and beat them, at one point tossing all of them into solitary confinement, where rats gnawed at their wounds and the menu consisted of oatmeal soaked in urine. Two of Carcaterra's friends were dehumanized by their year upstate, eventually becoming prominent gangsters. In 1980, they happened upon the former guard who had been their principal torturer and shot him dead. The book's stunning denouement concerns the successful plot devised by the author and his third friend, now a Manhattan assistant DA, to free the two killers and to exact revenge against the remaining ex-guards who had scarred their lives so irrevocably. Carcaterra has run a moral and emotional gauntlet, and the resulting book, despite its flaws, is disturbing and hard to forget. (Film rights to Propaganda; author tour)
Pub Date: July 10, 1995
ISBN: 0-345-39606-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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