An ambling and chatty road trip journal that becomes a surprisingly meaningful rumination on getting old without fading away.
Vancouver novelist Chong (Baroque-A-Nova, 2002) hits the road with a few buddies to retrace Neil Young’s steps to rock stardom.
In 2004, Chong was nearing 30 and having a hard time with his second novel. He decided to stave off maturity a little longer by following the trail of fellow Canadian Young from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay and Toronto, then down to California. This “Wild Neil Chase,” Chong explains, “was cooked up on the fly, and with little premeditation.” Chong brought along a few buddies, including the gregarious welder Dave, “the one I could count on to shuck everything to eat Taco Bell and share a double bed with another dude.” After failing to secure a hearse for the trip (Young had a thing for hearses and made many fabled road trips in them), the friends, having renamed themselves “Team Crazy Horse,” amble across Canada, searching for the places Young lived and hung out (Chong occasionally interviews people with vague connections to the rocker). There is never any pretense that this trip is much more than a half-baked escape from responsibility, which actually allows the voyagers (and readers) to enjoy themselves. Chong has a self-deprecating wit that never gets too showy and a knack for the perfectly placed grace note.
An ambling and chatty road trip journal that becomes a surprisingly meaningful rumination on getting old without fading away.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2005
ISBN: 1-55365-116-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Greystone Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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