New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb, in consultation with the Cheever family, here adds to the six excerpts from Cheever's journals that originally ran in the magazine. Drawn from 29 loose- leaf notebooks, spanning 35 or so years, this selection represents a mere fraction (1/20 in Gottlieb's estimate) of Cheever's random writings. Fortunately, readers of these remarkable journals are spared the prose interludes (by Cheever's son, Ben) that so marred the selection from his letters a few years ago. This is Cheever as unadorned and self-revealing as we'll getand it's not just more confessions of alcoholism and bisexuality. As Ben suggests in his introduction, these journals serve in lieu of an autobiographythey document the inner life of an artist in a way few works ever have. Cheever proves himself a man of profound tensions: at once drowning in loneliness and warmed by his love for his family, craven in his sexual desire and elevated by genuine piety. These contradictions run through his aesthetic concerns as well: While he has decided to insinuate himself "like a spy" into middle-class suburbia, he fears having taken his "disguise too seriously." He delights in the mundane, and the journals glimmer with quotidian insight and observationthe beauty of nature, the joys of Westchester life. But these affirmations, many of them religious, must break through the despair, which is pervasive. Cheever agonizes over his familial past, his mother dying, his brother's alcoholism. He frets for his marriage, threatened by his constant lust. And he worries over his work, from the nuts and bolts of writing to its afterlife. In Rome, he escapes "the alcoholic life of a minor literary celebrity." In Ossining, he recognizes the progressive nature of his disease. Recovery comes, but so does the cancer that took his life in 1982, with the last entry here written days before his death. More so than his letters, these journals remind us that Cheever has earned his place among the modern masters.
Pub Date: Oct. 9, 1991
ISBN: 0307387259
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
A ramshackle biography of the legendary jazz innovator. Gourse (Madame Jazz, 1995, etc.) has researched Monk's life thoroughly, interviewing his surviving family members and musical cohorts, as well as combing the archives for contemporary profiles and reviews of his work. Sadly, however, there's insufficient narrative thread here to stitch together Gourse's assemblage of quotes. Monk grew up in New York City; by 1934, when he was 16, he had dropped out of school to devote his full attention to the piano. After touring the country with a gospel group, he returned to New York and began experimenting with his uniquely personal tonal and rhythmic language, often identified as the essential ammunition of the bebop revolution. While Monk profoundly influenced Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, it wasn't until the late '50s that his seminal gigs at Manhattan's Five Spot garnered him full public recognition as a musician and composer. He was equally famous for his eccentricities: Generally late for his performances, he often left the piano and danced around the stage, letting the ever-changing members of his quartet supply the music. In private, Monk was notoriously taciturn, and occasionally he would experience episodes of complete withdrawal that required his hospitalization. Gourse entertains the idle speculations of many nonexpert acquaintances about the causes of his behavior, but the conclusion she seems to support—possible extensive use of unspecified drugs, complicated by genius—is vague. And about Monk's music the author offers silly tautologies like, ``In the aggregate, his songs comprised an oeuvre, each a commentary on his unique universe of sound.'' The book's obvious title, already used for a Monk documentary, is a perfect tipoff that Gourse has little to say about her subject that is imaginative or useful. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-02-864656-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
This massive biography leaves no stone unturned in portraying a familiar but little-studied antebellum figure, considered the young country's best orator. Veteran historian Remini (Henry Clay, 1991; The Life of Andrew Jackson, 1988; etc.) maintains a delicate balance between Webster's (17821852) two personas: ``the Godlike Daniel,'' so called for his brilliant public addresses and eulogies of heroes of the American Revolution, and ``Black Dan,'' a tag referring not only to his dark appearance but to his ruthless politicking and ferocious temper. Much of the study of Webster's public life is organized around the famous speeches that defined and shaped his career, including his dual eulogy of presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and his congressional address appealing for early recognition of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, which positioned the congressman and senator for later appointments as secretary of state. Black Dan is more evident in Remini's depiction of the statesman's private life. Besides being alcoholic, Webster had the terrible misfortune of outliving four of his five children, launching three abortive and embarrassing attempts to gain the presidency, and suffering endless financial problems. Remini quite deftly shows why he was known as ``the Great Expounder and Defender of the Constitution,'' depicting Webster as one of the earliest strict constructionists, a man who felt that the Constitution was the defining American document and that the preservation of the Union took precedence over all other policy considerations. Unfortunately, it is here that Webster's political clout was eventually devalued, as he refused to combat the Fugitive Slave Act and chose to accept House Speaker Henry Clay's Missouri Compromise, which perpetuated slavery and did nothing but guarantee the outbreak of war. Remini never properly indicts Webster for this moral lapse, nor does he explain why constitutional amendments to reverse the injustice were not considered. Though Remini's obvious admiration for Webster may sometimes cloud his view, a more complete and engrossing biography could not be produced. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 1997
ISBN: 0-393-04552-8
Page Count: 796
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
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