The director of perhaps the finest film of the past 30 years is presented as erratic, grandiose, and mysteriously boring for so great an artist. Schumacher (Crossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton, 1995, etc.) marches respectfully from Coppola’s birth in Detroit (his middle name was for the automaker) to UCLA film school and through all his films and legal skirmishes. There’s much here, and it should be great fun—his training with Roger Corman, his friendship with George Lucas, his run-ins with the press (including the “I pattern my life on Hitler” remark)—but it’s not. For starters, there’s not quite enough new stuff on the popular films, though a lot is provided on less well-received efforts. On The Godfather, details of the transformation of ponytailed Brando into Don Corleone, James Caan’s prep work for the role of Sonny, and “persuasive methods of blocking production” (e.g., bomb threats) are catnip; more would have been welcome, particularly given the space granted Apocalypse Now and The Cotton Club. Quotes from actors such as Talia Shire and James Caan provide fresh air, but the many Coppola quotes are stifling. His relentless attacks on the press and the film industry, combined with his excessive optimism (or misreading) regarding reaction to his films, undercut reader interest in yet another quixotic venture (say, Tucker), no matter how visionary the director is. In addition, Schumacher’s intermittently off-the-mark film analyses (viewing Peggy Sue Got Married from the male protagonist’s perspective) and bland descriptions (the disastrous casting of daughter Sofia Coppola in The Godfather, Part Three is simply “one of the most controversial casting decisions of his career”) will make film-literate readers feel patronized and suspicious. Coppola emerges as a boorish genius and the book as a comprehensive but exhausting read. When it ends and the glazed eyes refocus, you’re left with the unsettling realization you’ve just spent 500 pages on the man who directed One From the Heart. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1999
ISBN: 0-517-70445-5
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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