A pointed, energetic collection of personal essays.
Debut author Cacho-Negrete identifies the trends in American life that shaped her in this debut collection of personal essays.
“I remain an immigrant, poverty my country of origin.” So writes Cacho-Negrete early in this volume. Raised by an immigrant Jewish mother in Brooklyn during the 1950s and ’60s, the author was a self-described “street kid”—one of a large demographic of latchkey children without much supervision or access to opportunity—who transcended her lot in life via education and a little luck. In the first essay, “Stealing,” the author recounts the two periods of her life when she routinely shoplifted goods from stores: as a street kid to help feed her impoverished family and again as a divorced mother of two who found herself struggling to stay afloat in her tony suburb. In “The Season of My Grandfather” she writes about her interactions with her mother’s estranged father, whom she met as a girl, sent by her mother to pick up payments for an outstanding debt. Not every essay is so dire, however. “Hair” recounts Cacho-Negrete’s struggle to accept her curly hair as a teenager when it did not conform with mainstream conceptions of beauty. “On the Fire Escape” describes how that particular architectural feature, so associated with New York, played a role at various points throughout the author’s life. Cacho-Negrete writes with a sharp, confident prose that evokes her settings with hyperreal clarity: “We lived in tenements that leaned against each other for protection, their plastic-covered windows blind eyes in winter that popped open in spring to spy into each other’s apartments. The hallways stunk from piss, pot, cheap perfume, cigarettes.” The essays serve as a sort of fractured memoir, one that seeks to underline the iniquities inherent to the American experience. Even this political angle, however, is a piece of supporting information that adds to the autobiography. These are the foundational stories of Cacho-Negrete. They explain why she thinks the way she does. Whether or not the reader comes away thinking the same things, this brief residence in the author’s head is illuminating.
A pointed, energetic collection of personal essays.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9995164-1-6
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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