In this extensively researched biography, historian and journalist Cuthbertson (Inside: The Biography of John Gunther, 1992) brings to life the inspired individualism of one of this century’s least recognized and most interesting journalists, Emily Hahn. When Hahn died at the age of 92 in 1997, a chapter in literary journalism closed. She had been a staff writer at the New Yorker through all four of its editorial reigns, producing 181 articles, in addition to 52 books, stories, and poems. She came of age in the ’20s in St. Louis and blazed a trail of gutsy independence and drive through New York and onward. Hahn lived the concerns of our age with an intensity that brightened her work and brought her success. Yet it would be wrong to call her a feminist, though feminists owe a great deal to characters like her. Cuthbertson fails to address this distinction, an important one for Hahn. Her life was defined as much by profession as by passion. Ever the “roving heroine” (as described by Roger Angell), she built her literary career upon impressions of a world in flux. Her swath of discovery stretched across Africa (during the Depression), India, and China, where she broke with Western morality and became a concubine and opium partner to the Chinese intellectual/publisher Sinmay Zau just before the outbreak of WWII. A lasting love affair with the head of the British Secret Service began in Hong Kong during that city’s occupation, a fascinating period which led to some of her most important work. Hahn once wrote that “she wanted desperately to be noticed, and equally desperately to be let alone.” Her exhibitionism found perfect expression in her life’s work. Hahn’s life-at-large was an exhilarating trip across an era. Some of the later research drags on, but Cuthbertson’s contagious commitment to the significance of this life almost justifies every word. Social history at its best. (b&w photos)
Pub Date: May 21, 1998
ISBN: 0-571-19950-X
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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