In 1894, at age 35, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, officer, father, and husband, enjoying success after many years of study, devotion, and discipline, was unaccountably arrested for high treason and thereby became a symbol—as victim to some and traitor to others— of the imperfections in French military justice and the precarious position of Jews in French society. Now, after at least a thousand studies, novels, plays, and films of what came to be known as ``the Dreyfus affair,'' Burns (History/Mt. Holyoke) offers perhaps the first comprehensive study of Dreyfus the man, and of his family. The Dreyfus family history is typical of French Jews. Culturally assimilated after Jews were emancipated by the Edict of 1791, the Dreyfuses found financial opportunity in industry (textiles) and social status in the military, where young Alfred's intelligence, discipline, and methodical nature were rewarded with promotions, an appointment in Paris, and his marriage to a wealthy young Jewess, Lucy Hadamard. Without warning and without cause, however, he was arrested for treason on the basis of an unsigned document in someone else's handwriting, convicted in an irrational judicial process (he believed his crime was being a Jew), publicly humiliated, and deported to Devil's Island, where he spent five years in solitary confinement before his brother won his freedom with the confession of the true spy. Knighted in 1906, Dreyfus championed various working-class causes, served along with his son in WW I, and lived to see the scandal revived in the anti-Semitism of the 30's, finally dying in 1935, having outlived nearly everyone else involved in the affair. Because he was so undemonstrative—he ``lived,'' as his son said, an ``intense interior life''—Dreyfus remains inscrutable, even as the focus of such a carefully documented and analyzed study as this. And with minimal theorizing and offering little cultural context, the virulence of the anti-Semitism that trapped Dreyfus remains unexplained, as does his failure—refusal?—to become the martyr his followers wanted him to be. (Sixteen pages of b&w photos—not seen.)
Pub Date: Sept. 11, 1991
ISBN: 0-06-016366-6
Page Count: 576
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.
Frey’s lacerating, intimate debut chronicles his recovery from multiple addictions with adrenal rage and sprawling prose.
After ten years of alcoholism and three years of crack addiction, the 23-year-old author awakens from a blackout aboard a Chicago-bound airplane, “covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood.” While intoxicated, he learns, he had fallen from a fire escape and damaged his teeth and face. His family persuades him to enter a Minnesota clinic, described as “the oldest Residential Drug and Alcohol Facility in the World.” Frey’s enormous alcohol habit, combined with his use of “Cocaine . . . Pills, acid, mushrooms, meth, PCP and glue,” make this a very rough ride, with the DTs quickly setting in: “The bugs crawl onto my skin and they start biting me and I try to kill them.” Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox; for example, he must undergo reconstructive dental surgery without anesthetic, an ordeal rendered in excruciating detail. Very gradually, he confronts the “demons” that compelled him towards epic chemical abuse, although it takes him longer to recognize his own culpability in self-destructive acts. He effectively portrays the volatile yet loyal relationships of people in recovery as he forms bonds with a damaged young woman, an addicted mobster, and an alcoholic judge. Although he rejects the familiar 12-step program of AA, he finds strength in the principles of Taoism and (somewhat to his surprise) in the unflinching support of family, friends, and therapists, who help him avoid a relapse. Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthful spirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics—irregular paragraph breaks, unpunctuated dialogue, scattered capitalization, few commas—that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits.
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.Pub Date: April 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50775-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
4 Book Adaptations to Check Out In December
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.
A bestselling nonfiction writer offers spirited commentary about memoir, the literary form that has become synonymous with her name.
Personal narrative has exploded in popularity over the last 20 years. Yet, as Karr (Lit: A Memoir, 2009, etc.) points out, memoir still struggles to attain literary respectability. “There is a lingering snobbery in the literary world,” she writes, “that wants to disqualify what is broadly called nonfiction from the category of ‘literature.’ ” In this book, Karr offers both an apology for and a sharp-eyed exploration of this form born from her years as a practitioner as well as a distinguished English professor at Syracuse University. She begins by considering classroom “experiments” she has conducted to show the slipperiness of memory and arguing the need to give latitude to writers tackling memoir. Writing with the intent to record what rings true rather than exact is one thing; writing with the intent to lie is another. Voice is another critical aspect of any memoir that manages to endure through time. By examining works by writers as diverse as Frank McCourt and Vladimir Nabokov, Karr demonstrates that it is in fact the very thing by which a great memoir “lives or dies.” Rather than focus on the narrative truism of “show-don’t-tell,” Karr thoughtfully elaborates on what she calls “carnality”—the ability to transform memory into a multisensory experience—for the reader. When wed to a desire to move beyond the traps of ego and render personal “psychic struggle” honestly and without fear, carnality can lead to writing that not only “wring[s] some truth from the godawful mess of a single life,” but also connects deeply with readers. Karr’s sassy Texas wit and her down-to-earth observations about both the memoir form and how to approach it combine to make for lively and inspiring reading.
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-222306-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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