Laid-back and quite competent, if not consistently soul-stirring, certainly well-enough executed to be enjoyed in the shade...
From the South Florida School of American Literature, home to both Ernest Hemingway and Dave Barry, comes hard-working Hall: erstwhile poet, current thriller-writer, and sometime English teacher here undertaking a new form.
For three years, while he kept the action going in his spirited adventures (Blackwater Sound, 2002, etc.), the author also found a friendly format in the short essays he contributed monthly to a Florida newspaper. The collected pieces deal with a variety of subjects, but most are related to the splendor of the Peninsula State, from the myriad shells of Sanibel to the wonderful feeling of sunburn-grade warmth on the epidermis. “We have only two seasons in south Florida, summer and not-quite-summer,” he declares. But the sunshine is not unabated. There are the casinos in the Everglades, the feral Florida drivers, the young muggers, and don’t forget the Disneyfication. “Before we know it,” Hall warns, “we’ll be living in a place concocted by cartoonists.” But despite his holidays in the hills of North Carolina (that’s where native Floridians can be found in summer), the author’s devotion to the birthplace of the early-bird special is unfailing. Along with the fright engendered by hurricanes, his musings venture beyond the shuffleboard courts to describe unpleasant dealings with hustling TV producers and humiliating book tours. As seems de rigueur in an essay collection, Hall pays homage to the pleasures of books and reading, as well as offering appreciations of the Hardy Boys and Papa Hemingway. He provides a choice glimpse of James Dickey in action, and a heartfelt eulogy for his late father signals the author’s fundamental decency. But does he really go fishing for dolphin?
Laid-back and quite competent, if not consistently soul-stirring, certainly well-enough executed to be enjoyed in the shade with the sound of the surf not far away.Pub Date: June 24, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-28859-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
In a poetic and emotionally charged account of a journey back to her native Japan, Mori creates beautiful scenes even as she uncovers painful truths about her family and her past. Not knowing what else to do for a sabbatical, novelist Mori (Creative Writing/St. Norbert's College; Shizuko's Daughter, 1993) applied for a grant to travel to Japan, which she had left 13 years earlier, when she was a junior in college. This chronicle covers her departure from her adopted America; her rediscovery of her hometown of Kobe; her reacquaintance with the land and people she had so eagerly fled; and her remembrances of a childhood that included her mother's suicide when Mori was 12 and her father's subsequent beatings and cruelties (he forbade Mori to see her mother's relatives and, whenever his new wife threatened to leave because of Mori, would menace his daughter with a meat knife). Her book, which begins like entries in a conscientious traveler's journal, soon becomes a memoir wrought with suspense and wisdom. Will she contact her father? Will she understand her parents' early love for each other and their subsequent loss? In her initial encounters, Mori has difficulty communicating: Not only is her Japanese rusty, but she also respects the customs of Japanese restraint. So she says little and later dwells on what she should have said. But after visiting her mother's grave and relatives, she arrives at an emotional watershed. The book becomes richly rewarding as Mori opts for the most complicated, interesting, and difficult answers. She has an acute eye for metaphors. Some are delicate—like a stone slab at the bottom of a temple gate over which people step because it is a bad omen to touch it. Others, like the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima (whose victims include her relatives), are explosive. This beautifully written voyage through a ``legacy of loss'' is a trip well worth taking.
Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1995
ISBN: 0-8050-3260-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
An academic exegesis of the popular jazz form and its musicians. Bebop was a revolutionary new style when it burst on the jazz scene in the late 1940s. Created by a small coterie of primarily New Yorkbased jazzmen, including legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianist Thelonious Monk, and trumpeter/bebop spokesperson Dizzy Gillespie, it was a melodically and harmonically complicated chamber music with unusual rhythms that demanded serious listening (the earlier big-band jazz had been more approachable, with its simple, repetitive melodies, predictable chord changes, and toe- tapping rhythms). Beginning his work with a historical overview, Owens traces the roots of bebop, focusing on Parker's saxophone stylings. He then moves rather mechanistically through a study of different instrumentalists (alto and tenor sax players, trumpeters, pianists, bassists, drummers, etc.), ensembles, and today's ``young masters.'' Owens primarily relies on close interpretation of the ``scores'' of the major bebop works; like a patient graduate student, he guides us through the key motives and harmonics employed by Gillespie, Monk, et al. Of course, such a discussion is absurdly reductionist: Owens asserts that Parker's memorable style is primarily based on a descending ``scalar organization'' that he finds in the saxophonist's solos, ignoring Parker's unique sound, his raw emotionality, and his stunning technique. The author himself admits that many elements of the bebop style ``defy meaningful representation in musical notation,'' yet this is essentially his modus operandi throughout the book. Another problem is his decision to group together instrumentalists who are often stylistically disparate, which results in a disjointed narrative. The inclusion of a glossary with definitions of basic musicological terms will not make this more palatable for a general audience. A triumph of the academy over a musical style that, to this point, had avoided institutionalization. ``Bebop lives,'' Owens asserts—but not in this text.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-505287-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
