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WOULD EVERYBODY PLEASE STOP?

Name: WOULD EVERYBODY PLEASE STOP?
Author: Jenny Allen
ISBN: 978-0-374-11832-7

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE AND OTHER BAD IDEAS

by Jenny Allen ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2017

These essays will resonate most strongly with women of a certain age and economic status.

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Would an Erma Bombeck of the 21st century have subscribed to the New Yorker? If so, she might have written, or at least identified with, this debut essay collection by a writer who has appeared in that magazine and elsewhere but whose topics have resonance beyond the metropolitan parochial.

As she notes, like all mothers, Allen (The Long Chalkboard: and Other Stories, 2006) experiences parenting problems, such as the one detailed in “I Can’t Get That Penis Out of My Mind,” when she discovers that some boy has emailed her teenage daughter a photo of the title offender and she vacillates between rueful amusement and horror. “Just as grieving has its stages, I now enter a new stage of reacting to seeing a penis picture in your daughter’s email,” she writes. “I have passed through Shock, Panic, Hilarity, Pity; now, finally, I enter Outrage. My God, it is not all right to send a picture of an erect penis to a thirteen-year-old. What effect has it had on her?” Such problems give way to empty-nester issues, underscored in the aftermath of divorce. “I live alone,” she begins the next essay, “It’s About Time.” “These things happen. Your children grow up, your husband leaves, and then you are one. This is a happy story, I promise, but I do need to say this: Get ready. You may be next.” Throughout the book, Allen’s humor never approaches the belly-laugh level, like some of her New Yorker pieces; these are more in the vein of bittersweet, wry observation. And sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying, as when the subject shifts to cancer and chemotherapy (“Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”). Allen has toyed with mindfulness and meditation, and she plainly has the Twelve Steps lingo of AA down pat, but she writes like the woman next door, even if the next door isn’t in Manhattan.

These essays will resonate most strongly with women of a certain age and economic status.

Pub Date: June 6, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-374-11832-7

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: April 17, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.