An engaging but bumpy assemblage of amusing and self-effacing stories about parenthood and life.
A columnist, author, and former lawyer based in suburban Atlanta offers a collection of essays.
In this wide-ranging volume, Duff (Telling Your Story, 2016, etc.) explores motherhood, “First World Problems,” her love of food, and her personal life. A self-described “New York Jew living in a small southern town,” the author is married to a former police helicopter pilot and has two children. Crafted much like a blog, Duff’s lighthearted stories examine day-to-day triumphs and tribulations with forthright honesty and the kind of humor that combines self-deprecation and casual philosophizing. “There are two kinds of people in this world,” she muses in an early essay. “People who think adrenaline is fun and exciting and a fresh breath of life, and people who think adrenaline is the stuff of anxiety and ulcers.” She writes frequently about her obsessions—one essay is entirely devoted to Wonder Woman. In court, Duff took notes with a Wonder Woman pen. Such details make it clear that her writing served as a respite from daily stress. One work is just a poem that riffs on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”: “Get this trash out of my car / The Taco Bell / The Coffee Cup / Balloons that you were blowing up.” Elsewhere, she considers the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, the difficulties of small talk, and the challenge of packing healthy lunches for her kids. One of the funniest essays classifies nine types of PTO parents, though Duff is not opposed to tackling more serious subjects like mortality (“My Funeral”) and sexism. The author tends to use informal spellings and usages—“gen-you-wine” is one example. It’s a prose style that’s perhaps better suited for the internet and may be cloying for some readers. A few pieces read like mundane diary entries, as when she writes: “In the following pages I will try to make clear my expectations for people who interact with me. For the people who don’t interact with me on a daily basis, I’ve tried to make my expectations entertaining and, possibly, just a little bit relatable.” Still, many readers will find Duff’s candor bracing and satisfying.
An engaging but bumpy assemblage of amusing and self-effacing stories about parenthood and life.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947309-70-8
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Deeds Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Part tabloid-style tearjerker, part sophisticated corporate exposÇ, by a former People magazine crime writer and bestselling author (The Strawberry Statement, 1969). On May 14, 1988, just outside Carrollton, Ky., a drunk-driving ne'er-do-well named Larry Mahoney slammed his Toyota pickup into a schoolbus carrying 63 children. The impact set the bus's fuel tank on fire. Twenty-seven died and 16 were hospitalized with burns. Only two families opted not to settle with Mahoney's insurers and the bus manufacturers. The Fairs, parents of Shannon, 14 when she died, and the Nunnallees, parents of Patty, who was 10, hired John P. Coale, Esq., the self-styled ``master of disaster'' who had represented the city of Bhopal in the Union Carbide gas leak. Coale charged the Ford Motor Company (and Sheller-Globe, which assembled the schoolbus for Ford) with ``consciously disregarding'' the danger they were creating by placing an unshielded fuel tank next to the front door of a bus that had ``flammable seats, inadequate emergency exits and a too-narrow aisle.'' Kunen's lingering account of the crash and its aftermath makes for excruciating reading, especially when he abandons taste for cheap effect. For example, describing a videotape of Shannon and her friends forming a cheerleader's pyramid, he writes: ``Was that pyramid, in that room, in that house, in that moment, on a sort of raft, borne on a river of time toward a bus crash waiting downstream?'' Kunen is on firmer ground when he describes, in meticulous detail, Ford's long history of subverting national safety standards in the name of cost- effectiveness. The book's strongest section focuses on Ford's tawdry behavior during the trial (arguing, among other things, that a schoolbus is a ``truck,'' not a ``bus,'' and therefore not subject to the safety standards of passenger vehicles). You'll want to avert your eyes as Kunen recreates the accident in all its blood and tears, but hang on for some impressive corporate muckraking. (8 pages of b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-70533-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
An entertaining autopsy of a failed NBC TV drama/comedy. Don't worry if you never saw or even heard of a show called ``Smoldering Lust''—or ``A Black Tie Affair,'' as it was retitled. The program lasted only a few episodes. Though it had potential, with $9 million spent on production, the talent of award-winning writer/creator Jay Tarses (``The Carol Burnett Show,'' ``The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd'') and actress Kate Capshaw (also Mrs. Steven Spielberg), and themes like adultery and murder, the project quickly faced trouble. Shaky network support, quirky writing, and a confusing title soon gave way to larger problems: a seven-month delay before airing, bad test results from a sample audience, disputes with the network's top brass, a debut in a bad time slot on Saturday night at 10 p.m. over Memorial Day weekend, and many negative reviews. While he delivers a lot of bad news, former Life writer Muse makes it interesting, providing colorful chapters on everything from shopping for the characters' upscale wardrobes, building and decorating the sets, and scoring the show to basics like scripting, casting, and shooting. He populates the scene behind the scenes with comic episodes and likable, three- dimensional characters who really seem to love what they do, and he avoids easy stereotypes. For instance, Tarses is a seasoned and philosophical TV veteran with high standards and a desire to nurture young talent; Capshaw is an artist, not a pampered star; and the censor at Standards and Practices is laid back and accommodating. Muse remains fairly sympathetic to the doomed show until the book's final pages, when, with hindsight, the author becomes the expert. ``Might the series have succeeded if all thirteen episodes had aired, in a hot spot on a good night, and under the original title? No way...someone probably should have prevented this expensive disaster from happening.'' Overall, a small tale well told.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-201-62223-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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