An engaging, meticulously edited collection for all fans of literary biography.
A self-portrait in letters by an iconic poet and indefatigable correspondent.
Hammer, a Merrill biographer and English professor at Yale, and Yenser, a poet, literary critic, and Merrill’s co–literary executor, have gathered a copious selection of letters by the acclaimed poet (National Book Award, Pulitzer, etc.), beginning with young Jimmy’s request to “Santa Clause” for a flashlight and continuing through countless letters to family, friends, lovers, and literary luminaries. The son of Charles Merrill, founder of Merrill Lynch, the poet had a privileged childhood: By the age of 12, he had seen 18 operas. But he grew up beset, he admitted, by “my sense of what others expected of me, and my shame over not being the person they wanted me to be.” At the age of 20, writing to his first lover, he confessed, “through you I have made the first assertion away from my family.” Still, he reported that their relationship precipitated “another long, quiet, strained talk” with his mother, who insisted that he see a psychiatrist. Many letters are ebulliently alive with gossip, such as Merrill’s delightfully catty recounting of a lunch hosted by publisher Alfred Knopf (“sniffing about in his chalkblue suit”) to celebrate the 75th birthday of a grumpy Wallace Stevens; guests included Marianne Moore, wearing a black tricorne (whom Merrill met there for the first time), W.H. Auden, Jacques Barzun (“someone to whom I was never introduced,” Merrill noted), and Lionel Trilling. Many letters chronicle his affairs and long-term relationships. Diagnosed with HIV in 1986, Merrill reported on his health only to a few confidants. Amplified by the editors’ authoritative annotations, a chronology, and capsule biographies of major figures in Merrill’s life, the book creates a palpable sense of the poet’s wide, eventful world, “properly stuffed with culture and people,” travels, and accomplishments—as well as struggles and, inevitably, loss.
An engaging, meticulously edited collection for all fans of literary biography.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-101-87550-6
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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