This biography of the great comedienne spends too many pages on the early Lucy we didn't know and don't care much about. Brady (Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker, 1984) traces Ball's life from her somewhat unsettled childhood in upstate New York through her modeling and acting career in Manhattan, her time as a Goldwyn girl, and her television successes, as well as personal and career failures with Desi Arnaz, and her reclusive last years. The biographer leaves few stones unturned in presenting Lucy as a woman who worked hard, loved harder, expected much of those around her, and was never satisfied with the adoration her fans bestowed upon her. Though the book is full of interesting and illuminating material—Desi's blatant affairs, the occasional violence of the Arnaz marriage, the complex negotiations that took place behind closed doors to produce ``I Love Lucy,'' in its day the most popular television show in America—Brady waits far too long before getting to the Lucy of TV that most readers will be able to remember and recognize. In particular, the almosts and could-have-beens of Ball's disappointing movie career receive too much attention; and although the author's access to Lucy's childhood and young-adult friends is impressive, she uses too many of their merely anecdotal stories. To be sure, there are nice moments, including Lucy's single date with Henry Fonda, her fastidious rehearsing of comedy bits, and her 1953 appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee (her grandfather had the whole family register as socialists in the '30s), but there's an overabundance of material that doesn't propel the story or offer significant insight. Too many fits and starts prevent this biography from making Lucy come alive. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 1994
ISBN: 0-7868-6007-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
A slim volume packed with nourishing nuggets of wisdom.
Life lessons from the celebrated poet.
Angelou (A Song Flung Up to Heaven, 2002, etc.) doesn’t have a daughter, per se, but “thousands of daughters,” multitudes that she gathers here in a Whitmanesque embrace to deliver her experiences. They come in the shape of memories and poems, tools that readers can fashion to their needs. “Believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things,” she writes, proceeding to recount pungent moments, stories in which her behavior sometimes backfired, and sometimes surprised even herself. Much of it is framed by the “struggle against a condition of surrender” or submission. She refuses to preach or consider her personal insights as generalized edicts. She is reminded of the charity that words and gestures bring and the liberation that comes with honesty. Lies, she notes, often spring out of fear. She cheated madness by counting her blessings. She is enlivened by those in love. She understands the uses and abuses of violence. Occasionally a bit of old-fashioned advice filters in, as during a commencement address/poem in which she urges the graduates to make a difference, to be present and accountable. The topics are mostly big, raw and exposed. Where is death’s sting? “It is here in my heart.” Overarching each brief chapter is the vital energy of a woman taking life’s measure with every step.
A slim volume packed with nourishing nuggets of wisdom.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6612-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
Literature knows few champions as ardent and insightful—or as uncompromising—as Gornick, which is to readers’ good fortune.
Gornick’s (The Odd Woman and the City, 2016) ferocious but principled intelligence emanates from each of the essays in this distinctive collection.
Rereading texts, and comparing her most recent perceptions against those of the past, is the linchpin of the book, with the author revisiting such celebrated novels as D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, Colette's The Vagabond, Marguerite Duras' The Lover, and Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris. Gornick also explores the history and changing face of Jewish American fiction as expressions of "the other." The author reads more deeply and keenly than most, with perceptions amplified by the perspective of her 84 years. Though she was an avatar of "personal journalism" and a former staff writer for the Village Voice—a publication that “had a muckraking bent which made its writers…sound as if they were routinely holding a gun to society’s head”—here, Gornick mostly subordinates her politics to the power of literature, to the books that have always been her intimates, old friends to whom she could turn time and again. "I read ever and only to feel the power of Life with a capital L," she writes; it shows. The author believes that for those willing to relinquish treasured but outmoded interpretations, rereading over a span of decades can be a journey, sometimes unsettling, toward richer meanings of books that are touchstones of one's life. As always, Gornick reveals as much about herself as about the writers whose works she explores; particularly arresting are her essays on Lawrence and on Natalia Ginzburg. Some may feel she has a tendency to overdramatize, but none will question her intellectual honesty. It is reflected throughout, perhaps nowhere so vividly as in a vignette involving a stay in Israel, where, try as she might, Gornick could not get past the "appalling tribalism of the culture.”
Literature knows few champions as ardent and insightful—or as uncompromising—as Gornick, which is to readers’ good fortune.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-28215-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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