by Linda H. Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2006
A bemused and indulgent look at the artist, all in good taste.
Charles Addams, longtime New Yorker cartoonist and creator of “The Addams Family,” was a gentle soul manipulated by women, according to Davis’s largely anecdotal biography.
Davis, who has written about Stephen Crane (Badge of Courage, 1998) and Katherine S. White (Onward and Upward, 1987), plays up—without delving too deeply—the contrast between Addams’s public persona and how he was in real life. The author apparently spoke with legions of people to recreate this teeming life, and the problem may be that Addams, born in 1912 in Westfield, NJ, was generally well-liked. A gifted illustrator as a kid, and persistent in submitting his work to the New Yorker, he got his first decorative spot accepted in the magazine at age 20 and his first cartoon a year later. He grew racier in style, moving from line drawings to wash, often relying on gag writers for material. He made a name for himself drawing “aberrations in life,” with a hint of violence—never actually shown. The “dark lady” of Addams’s cartoons—Morticia Addams—made her debut in the New Yorker on Aug. 6, 1938. Editor Harold Ross encouraged Addams to further develop the characters of this intriguing family when the series became a TV show. Meanwhile, Addams lived the high life. He married three times and became entangled with a series of women named Barbara, including his second wife, Barbara Barb, a manipulative lawyer who managed to finagle the rights to much of Addams’s real estate and art work. The homely, big-eared artist was still squiring beauties into his golden years, namely Joan Fontaine and Greta Garbo. He died in 1988.
A bemused and indulgent look at the artist, all in good taste.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-679-46325-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Linda H. Davis
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.