A wonderfully chatty and knowledgeable examination of “all things Fiddler.”
A wide-ranging book explores the history and lore of Fiddler on the Roof.
Huttner’s study was first published in 2016 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of Sholem Aleichem, the author of the original handful of Tevye the Dairyman stories. These tales were transformed by show writer Joseph Stein and his colleagues into Fiddler on the Roof, the enormously beloved and successful 1964 Broadway musical. Huttner calls her book a “bibliomemoir” and tells her readers that it illustrates the fact that “one of the deepest relationships in life can be with a text.” When Fiddler closed in 1972, it was the longest-running show in Broadway history (it retained the title until it was surpassed by A Chorus Line in 1984), and it’s been a theatrical staple ever since, generating the vast amount of personal and cultural resonance that the author examines in these pages. She dissects Marc Chagall’s painting Green Violinist, which she calls a “major inspiration” for the creators of Fiddler. She pores over the much-vexed question of how faithful the film version was to the stage musical, the appealing elements in both, and how all adaptations correspond to Aleichem’s original stories. The book’s chapters are composed of individual, self-contained lectures Huttner has given at various venues over the years, and everything is well illustrated with curations of black-and-white photographs, the show’s sheet music, and images by cartoonist Sharon Rosenzweig.
Huttner’s lifelong history with Fiddler is evident on every page of her book. It will be quickly apparent to readers that there’s nothing she doesn’t know about the stories, Aleichem, the Broadway musical, and the movie. As the author notes, this work represents the culmination of 18 years of research on the subject, which will make its wide reach very satisfying to fellow devotees of Fiddler. For those fans and more general readers, one of the most entertaining features running through many of these lectures is Huttner’s consistent, low-key irritation with what she refers to as the “Conventional Wisdom” surrounding her subject, taking issue with misreadings and misinterpretations and delivering plenty of good-natured corrections. Her discussions of literary antecedents range from the Old Testament to Pride and Prejudice, and all of it is offered with an infectious enthusiasm. The only drawback to the reading experience stems from the composition of the book. Since the chapters are transcriptions of lectures, readers are constantly brought up short by Huttner introducing herself to various audiences or making local venue comments. The frequent “welcome to tonight’s lecture” interruptions stop the volume from feeling like a smoothly flowing narrative. Nevertheless, the author’s authority on the topic comes through loud and clear, and her decision to weave in great amounts of autobiographical reflections is well taken given the intensely personal connection most aficionados have to this particular show. The work is a must-read for Fiddler enthusiasts.
A wonderfully chatty and knowledgeable examination of “all things Fiddler.”Pub Date: March 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9850964-6-5
Page Count: 350
Publisher: FF2 Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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