Just another fascinating day in paradise.
Having spent five years managing the tiny island of Highborne Cay, Exuma, in the Bahamas the author paints a vivid, heartfelt and surprising picture of Caribbean life.
To say that there’s never a dull moment on Highborne Cay–where Albury and her husband have left their comfortable, big-city life in Nassau to work 12 to 14 hour days in a place reachable only by seaplane or boat–is a vast understatement. In the first 50 pages, armed robbers terrorize this native Bahamian couple, a guest nearly chops off his fingers in a fish-cleaning accident and a woman docks at the marina with her husband’s dead body aboard her boat. If not for its highly specific details, this exotic memoir easily could be mistaken for fiction. The author moves us swiftly through her unusual world, scattering photos of the island and its inhabitants throughout the book, lending a personal touch. What’s not shown in pictures is deftly illustrated in words. Albury introduces wonderfully drawn characters like Rosie–“a real island gal” in “skimpy shorts” who “always stepped out of her seaplane in bare feet with her brown, curly hair askew”–adding life to the narrative. Some passages border on the poetic, as when the author rhapsodizes about how “blue hues, mixed with the orange of a new morning, reflected on the ocean’s surface in whatever mood it happened to be in that particular day.” While a boatful of stranded Haitians and an illiterate employee lend this white author’s memoir a racial overtone, to her credit she doesn’t flinch from the uncomfortable truth of the Caribbean’s inequality and desperate poverty. From watching a Sperm whale being devoured by tiger sharks to staying on the alert for drug runners, Albury reveals that island life is less a breeze than a whirlwind.
Just another fascinating day in paradise.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2009
ISBN: 12.50
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
© 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.
