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COME HELL ON HIGH WATER

Name: COME HELL ON HIGH WATER
Author: Gregory Jaynes
ISBN: 0-86547-522-9

A REALLY SULLEN MEMOIR

by Gregory Jaynes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1997

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A message in a bottle, in diary format, from the author's journey to the South Seas on a British-operated cargo ship with a Russian crew, a sling of senior citizens, and a growing sense of ennui. In the summer of 1995 Jaynes, a writer for Esquire and other magazines, turned 47, feeling ``devalued, like a peso.'' Maybe it was a midlife crisis that set Jaynes in motion, or his feeling that becoming a grandfather, as he soon would, was ``a little premature.' In either event, suspecting a long sail might be the answer to what ailed him, he signed up for passage on a Russian icebreaker refitted for the tropics with a bulbous nose across her pointed bow. Venturing out of his vibrating cabin en route through the Caribbean and the Panama Canal to the Pacific, Jaynes sees ``a ship full of comedy'' at his disposal, but soon finds his shipmates for the most part humorless, the food ``unremarkable to terrible.'' His favorite companions seem to be the officers, especially the captain, who is confessor and friend through Jaynes's eventual ``mini nervous breakdown'' in Papua New Guinea. The real trouble begins when Jaynes falls off the wagon between Christmas and New Year's—from Samoa, where his he-goat alter ego enjoys the favors of a prostitute, to Fiji, after which he retreats again into sobriety. Departing the ship for the day in the busy and dangerous port of New Caledonia, Jaynes realizes he's running from the very transport he ran away on. When his breakdown comes, it is mild, mercifully brief, really little more than an extended crying jag- -leaving Jaynes and the reader to wonder whether it even happened. Arch, cynical, sullen indeed, Jaynes's salty conversation with himself is a comic, cautionary tale of the pitfalls of midlife sailing adventures.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-86547-522-9

Page Count: 256

Publisher: North Point/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997

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.