Fawning and trivial. How much is there to say about someone whose main claim to fame is that he wore the first modern, urban...
The insubstantial life of a turn-of-the-18th-century party boy and clotheshorse.
George Brummell (1778–1840) reigned briefly in London society before being hounded out of the country in 1816, plagued by debts and failing health. British biographer Kelly (Cooking for Kings, not reviewed) aims to celebrate Brummell’s lasting contribution to men’s fashion as the prototypical dandy (according to such contemporary observers as Byron and later admirers like Oscar Wilde). A commoner whose father made a fortune as Lord North’s private secretary, young Brummell grew up on Downing Street and was sent to Eton, where he mingled among the upper crust and made his mark with witty put-downs, a handsome figure and an understated elegance of dress. Indeed, by the time he came of age in 1799, Brummell was a favorite of the Prince of Wales. Blessed with a considerable inheritance, he could step out in style from his residence at 4 Chesterfield Street in Mayfair. He rode in Hyde Park, dined and gambled at White’s and Brook’s and attended the theater in the company of famous demimondaines Harriette Wilson and Julia Johnstone. “Beau,” as he became known, was mostly remarkable for his choice of tailoring. Tall and well-sculpted, he favored a deceptively simple, manly look, distinguished by exquisite attention to detail. Kelly quotes Max Beerbohm, who called Brummell “the Father of Modern Costume” and praised his style as “free from folly or affection, yet susceptible to exquisite ordering.” But in later years, his credit wore thin, his barbs no longer struck the Prince Regent’s funny bone and Brummell contracted syphilis, leading to unhappy retirement in Normandy, madness and death in an asylum.
Fawning and trivial. How much is there to say about someone whose main claim to fame is that he wore the first modern, urban suit?Pub Date: May 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-7089-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her...
With the assistance of Chambers (co-author; Yes, Chef, 2012, etc.), broadcaster Roberts (From the Heart: Eight Rules to Live By, 2008) chronicles her struggles with myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare condition that affects blood and bone marrow.
The author is a well-known newscaster, formerly on SportsCenter and now one of the anchors of Good Morning America. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which she successfully fought with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Five years later, after returning from her news assignment covering the 2012 Academy Awards, she learned that chemotherapy had resulted in her developing MDS, which led to an acute form of leukemia. Without a bone marrow transplant, her projected life expectancy was two years. While Roberts searched for a compatible donor and prepared for the transplant, her aging mother’s health also began to gravely deteriorate. Roberts faced her misfortune with an athlete’s mentality, showing strength against both her disease and the loss of her mother. This is reflected in her narration, which rarely veers toward melodrama or self-pity. Even in the chapters describing the transplantion process and its immediate aftermath, which make for the most intimate parts of the book, Roberts maintains her positivity. However, despite the author’s best efforts to communicate the challenges of her experience and inspire empathy, readers are constantly reminded of her celebrity status and, as a result, are always kept at arm's length. The sections involving Roberts’ family partly counter this problem, since it is in these scenes that she becomes any daughter, any sister, any lover, struggling with a life-threatening disease. “[I]f there’s one thing that spending a year fighting for your life against a rare and insidious…disease will teach you,” she writes, “it’s that time is not to be wasted.”
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her mother’s passing.Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4555-7845-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting and exquisitely crafted.
Musician, poet and visual artist Smith (Trois, 2008, etc.) chronicles her intense life with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe during the 1960s and ’70s, when both artists came of age in downtown New York.
Both born in 1946, Smith and Mapplethorpe would become widely celebrated—she for merging poetry with rock ’n’ roll in her punk-rock performances, he as the photographer who brought pornography into the realm of art. Upon meeting in the summer of 1967, they were hungry, lonely and gifted youths struggling to find their way and their art. Smith, a gangly loser and college dropout, had attended Bible school in New Jersey where she took solace in the poetry of Rimbaud. Mapplethorpe, a former altar boy turned LSD user, had grown up in middle-class Long Island. Writing with wonderful immediacy, Smith tells the affecting story of their entwined young lives as lovers, friends and muses to one another. Eating day-old bread and stew in dumpy East Village apartments, they forged fierce bonds as soul mates who were at their happiest when working together. To make money Smith clerked in bookstores, and Mapplethorpe hustled on 42nd Street. The author colorfully evokes their days at the shabbily elegant Hotel Chelsea, late nights at Max’s Kansas City and their growth and early celebrity as artists, with Smith winning initial serious attention at a St. Mark’s Poetry Project reading and Mapplethorpe attracting lovers and patrons who catapulted him into the arms of high society. The book abounds with stories about friends, including Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, William Burroughs, Sam Shepard, Gregory Corso and other luminaries, and it reveals Smith’s affection for the city—the “gritty innocence” of the couple’s beloved Coney Island, the “open atmosphere” and “simple freedom” of Washington Square. Despite separations, the duo remained friends until Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989. “Nobody sees as we do, Patti,” he once told her.
Riveting and exquisitely crafted.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-621131-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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