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MUCH ADO

Name: MUCH ADO
Author: Michael Lenehan
ISBN: 978-1-57284-205-2

A SUMMER WITH A REPERTORY THEATER COMPANY

by Michael Lenehan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2016

A series of bright, clear photographs of what the author saw when he pulled aside the curtain in a Wisconsin Oz.

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A veteran former editor and current freelance journalist delivers a swift story about being imbedded with a summer outdoor theater company mounting a production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Former Chicago Reader chief editorial executive Lenehan generally copes well with a dilemma facing a writer of such a text: how much should I assume readers already know about the Bard? The text? Producing a play? He seems to have decided that his readers already know a bit, so he offers a list of characters, keeps reminding of us of the plot of Shakespeare’s dark early comedy, and quotes passages and lines (sometimes more than once). He spent the summer of 2014 with the American Players Theatre in tiny Spring Green, Wisconsin, about 35 miles west of Madison. APT is a repertory company, so other productions were going on—Lenehan alludes to them periodically—but Much Ado is the cynosure. The author introduces us to the players, the director, and the technical personnel, sometimes giving us fairly detailed back stories, and he shows us with rare clarity how a professional company prepares a production. He chronicles his interviews with people responsible for costumes, wigs, lighting, sets, and so on, and he records the evolution of the show and marvels at the attention the director pays to the text—how he shapes the show to make sure all of its components contribute to the audience’s understanding and pleasure. Occasionally, Lenehan alludes to the films of the play by Kenneth Branagh (1993) and Joss Whedon (2012) and to some filmed stage productions, but for the most part, it’s the APT that commands his interest and, eventually, ours. Tension mounts as opening night advances—and as the rain clouds swoop in, drenching all, delaying the start. But not for long.

A series of bright, clear photographs of what the author saw when he pulled aside the curtain in a Wisconsin Oz.

Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-57284-205-2

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Agate Midway

Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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A CIVIL ACTION

by Jonathan Harr ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995

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A crash course in big-bucks tort litigation, as rich as any novel on the scene. In the mid-'70s, the small industrial town of Woburn, Mass., found itself afflicted with a plague of biblical dimensions: 12 local children, 8 of them close neighbors, had died (or were dying) of leukemia. The parents suspected the water supply, which was foul-smelling, rusty, and undrinkable, but they had no hard evidence of a link to the cancers. But in 1979, the accidental discovery of carcinogenic industrial wastes in the town's wells led the grieving parents to hire personal-injury lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, new to the profession but intoxicated with the sizable damages he'd won so far. This is magazine journalist Harr's first book, but his complex portrait of Schlichtmann is the work of a master. Egomaniacal, quixotic, workaholic, greedy, altruistic, and naive, Schlichtmann is Everylawyer, and as he allows the Woburn case to consume his practice, he almost loses his license and his life. Harr wisely downplays the dying-children angle, focusing instead on Schlichtmann's case against the two corporate Goliaths who dumped the waste: Beatrice Foods (represented by Jerome Facher of Boston's Hale & Dorr) and W.R. Grace (represented by William Cheeseman of Boston's Foley, Hoag & Eliot). Despite their white- shoe lineage, Facher and Cheeseman play dirty, withholding evidence and repeatedly seeking Schlichtmann's suspension for having filed a ``frivolous'' lawsuit. But the real villain of the story is Federal District Judge Walter J. Skinner, whose personal dislike of Schlichtmann (and camaraderie with Facher) leads him to grant the defense's motion to split the trial into two protracted phases. By the time Judge Skinner submits four incomprehensible questions to be bewildered jury, Woburn's young victims have been forgottenand the whole legal system has suffered a tragic loss. A paranoid legal thriller as readable as Grisham, but important and illuminating. (Film rights to Disney)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-394-56349-2

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE ART OF MEMOIR

by Mary Karr ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2015

A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.

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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.