An absorbing, moving, cathartic collection.
Writers reflect on their experiences of loneliness and solitude.
In this above-average collection of personal essays, a richly diverse set of writers recall how periods of solitude have impacted their lives. Depending on their past or present circumstances, they evoke sensations of dread or despair, joy and enlightened freedom, often working through their darkest emotions to discover a renewed sense of well-being. “I was drawn to essays about the quiet delights of solitude and the shocks of isolation, as well as reflections on the gentler waves of loneliness that come and go throughout our lives,” writes Garrett. “I longed to create a harbor for our most vulnerable stories, told with urgency and sometimes with levity—affirming stories that might reassure and reconnect us. Most of all, I hoped to shine light on a universal emotion and experience that is often pushed down into the dark.” Each essay, most of which are memorable, offers a meaningful glimpse into the varying depths of loneliness. “Javelinas” is Claire Dederer’s account of her six-week writer’s residency in Marfa, Texas, where she confronted her all-consuming issues with alcoholism. In “Exodus 2020,” Emily Raboteau hauntingly recounts a sorrowful sense of impending loss and doom caused by the mass departure of a New York City apartment building’s tenants during the pandemic. Lena Dunham examines her evolving feelings of aloneness during the breakup of a long-term relationship. Yiyun Li’s “To Speak Is To Blunder but I Venture” and Jean Kwok’s “The Perpetual Foreigner” movingly reflect on their personal journeys and struggles as Chinese immigrants; the loneliness of forfeiting one’s native language; and the sense of freedom in allowing one’s ambition to flower. It’s been well noted that writing can be a lonely endeavor, but this book demonstrates that great illumination can be found in the process. Other contributors include Maggie Shipstead, Lev Grossman, Anthony Doerr, Peter Ho Davies, Jesmyn Ward, and Melissa Febos.
An absorbing, moving, cathartic collection.Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948226-60-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.
The acclaimed director displays his talents as a film critic.
Tarantino’s collection of essays about the important movies of his formative years is packed with everything needed for a powerful review: facts about the work, context about the creative decisions, and whether or not it was successful. The Oscar-winning director of classic films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs offers plenty of attitude with his thoughts on movies ranging from Animal House to Bullitt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Big Chill. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides the original reporting and insights only a veteran director would notice, and his engaging style makes it impossible to leave an essay without learning something. The concepts he smashes together in two sentences about Taxi Driver would take a semester of film theory class to unpack. Taxi Driver isn’t a “paraphrased remake” of The Searchers like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? is a paraphrased remake of Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or De Palma’s Dressed To Kill is a paraphrased remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. But it’s about as close as you can get to a paraphrased remake without actually being one. Robert De Niro’s taxi driving protagonist Travis Bickle is John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Like any good critic, Tarantino reveals bits of himself as he discusses the films that are important to him, recalling where he was when he first saw them and what the crowd was like. Perhaps not surprisingly, the author was raised by movie-loving parents who took him along to watch whatever they were watching, even if it included violent or sexual imagery. At the age of 8, he had seen the very adult MASH three times. Suddenly the dark humor of Kill Bill makes much more sense. With this collection, Tarantino offers well-researched love letters to his favorite movies of one of Hollywood’s most ambitious eras.
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311258-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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