Hall (Here at Eagle Pond, 1990, etc.) has updated his 1977 book of literary gossip—memories, anecdotes, psychoanalytic clues- -beyond the original quartet of subjects: Dylan Thomas, Frost, Eliot, and Pound. He's now included Yvor Winters, Marianne Moore, and Archibald MacLeish as well. (There are two Moore-Hall interviews included too.) Though it is the aged poet whom Hall- -himself aging, no longer the young ancillary and apparatchik—now finds himself most interested in, the memories here are still angled upward: Hall the student or eager interlocutor of the renowned. The MacLeish/Winters chapter is especially forthright in its admission of Hall's hunger for models, no matter the age or station: ``Wanting to be as generous or affable as MacLeish yet wanting to be as rigorous as Winters, I totter from one example to the other, in temperament closer to MacLeish and in aspiration to Winters.'' The Marianne Moore piece is milkier—Moore's fastidious mystery harder to subsume personally. The additions here, then, hardly transfigure (or even much enlarge) the earlier edition—but many of the stories, especially the Pound and Eliot ones, remain honeys.
Pub Date: Aug. 19, 1992
ISBN: 0-89919-979-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A memoir begging for an editor.
An epic autobiography that’s part chronicle of American life gone-by and part diatribe against controlling men.
Caless begins her diary-style memoir with an account of life on a poultry farm during the Depression. She recalls a secure childhood with enough to eat and, eventually, modern conveniences–oil lamps give way to electric lights, a radio and, at long last, a refrigerator for her mother. All is not well on her homestead, however–her father molests and exposes himself to her, and her brother physically abuses her. Her parents spoil her brother but give her often-grueling jobs, even leaving her alone working their roadside stand at night. By the time she was 18, she’s had enough, and takes a bus to her boyfriend’s home in New Jersey. She’s out of the familial frying pan, but soon becomes infuriated by her new husband’s stingy and cruel ways. After he returns from World War II, she leaves him and her young son and aimlessly heads off to make a new life. For decades, she works at an insurance company and meets men at the Jersey Shore–some of whom are married and some aren’t. In her 50s, Caless is visited by a man from her past, but that relationship too has an unhappy ending. His story is woven in between the author’s interminable battles with lawyers and banks, after deaths in her family. Caless can be spunky and sparkling, and some of her stories are engrossing, notably those of reconciling with her son and caring for her dying mother. Her details about the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s are historical treasures. However, those attributes are ruined by her wordy, redundant writing. Caless belabors her points, repeating small establishing details constantly. As the massive page count indicates, she includes far too many long, extraneous stories, even devoting two pages to the story of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. The author’s life story has compelling moments, but they are buried under an avalanche of unnecessary recollections.
A memoir begging for an editor.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4257-3185-4, 9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An anthology containing some of the most amusing, insightful, and moving sports writing from the past year. Sure, series editor Stout and guest editor Boswell (Cracking the Show, p. 294) might not have extended their search to every hamlet with a sports page, as the preponderance of Sports Illustrated and New Yorker pieces clearly indicates. However, the fact that nearly all of the submissions faithfully depict athletes and their exploits as part of a grander choreography clearly establishes that many of the authors included are famous (or infamous) for good reason. Among the best entries are Bruce Buschel's ``Lips Get Smacked,'' a profane, Runyonesque trip to an Atlantic City casino with Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra (``Watching Lenny Dykstra gamble is like having an orchestra seat at a one-character David Mamet tragicomic- psychodrama. You are appalled and delighted by the language and the largesse''); Davis Miller's ``The Zen of Muhammad Ali,'' a touching portrait of The Champ battling the march of time and Parkinson's Syndrome—possibly the result of taking too many punches—with a generosity and dignity that fans seldom attribute to sports heroes; and Frank Deford's ``Running Man,'' an examination of the far- reaching effect of Phil Knight and his $3.7 billion sneaker-making, sports-marketing, and entertainment colossus, Nike. Nearly all the selections display uncanny wit and flourish, and these writers have the imagination to shun the obvious ``feet of clay'' athlete profiles to deliver realistic, humane portraits of people who, like many of us, have either risen to face life's adversity or turned tail and fled. Not just the best sports writing, some of the best writing anywhere. Period.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-63326-5
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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