A forthright, imaginative collection that has moments of clarity.
Greenwood’s debut, a beautifully illustrated poetry volume, describes the painful end of a marriage and the journey toward acceptance.
A frontispiece with two excised hearts bearing the disclaimer, “I was a pretty shitty wife” prefaces this collection, which describes the collapse of a 10-year relationship. Gone are happier days when the couple traveled to Paris and Italy, threw baguettes out of a hostel window, and reveled in the delights of Florentine honey. Back home, “Colony Collapse Disorder” is a stark metaphor for the divorce and the depressing thought that before the marriage ended, bee documentaries foreshadowed that everything she loved “would someday be extinct.” A circumspect view colors the poem “Fall,” in which they crack open a beehive, noting “we never mistook the bees / for angels.” The husband feeds her the honey, but she knows “we couldn’t remain / sound forever.” Other poems reference Emerson, Dante, and ancient Greek myths. In “Pasiphae Admits Her Infidelity,” she breaks the news of her straying to the husband, who tells her “we’ll make it / beautiful, turn this bullshit / into a story.” Her thought in response is spiteful: “That’s when I hate him the most.” A softer tone evolves as the narrator seeks a new life back in the United States in “Honolulu.” Greenwood’s poetry reflects on the past with an unsentimental voice that succeeds in capturing the agonizing feelings of frustration after a significant loss. The nature metaphors, full of bees and cherry blossoms, also work very well, as do poems that are concrete and clearly identify a topic. Some poems are contradictory, unclear, or drop off into nothingness (“you’ll come to me suddenly / your face like like like like”). “The Sound of Ice Melting” wonderfully renders the hissing sounds of the frozen north in a plea for love “until death freezes me shut.”
A forthright, imaginative collection that has moments of clarity.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Sphinx Moth Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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