An absorbing memoir of three generations of African-American women. In a rumination on the lives of women and how those of generations are interwoven, Tarpley looks to the stories of her mother and grandmother to make sense of her own. Tarpley, editor of Testimony: Young African-Americans on Identity and Self-Discovery (1995), writes most powerfully when she assumes her grandmother’s imagined persona as a young wife facing her loneliness when her husband leaves her behind during the Great Migration; ultimately she decides to follow him from Alabama to Chicago before he sends for her. Her mother’s story—also told through her voice as Tarpley imagines it—is equally affecting; she decides to leave Chicago for Boston after the death of her husband of many years. It’s clear that Tarpley feels a deep sense of connection to her mother’s and grandmother’s history and needs to reimagine it. Her own story—memories of childhood and her own quest for love—is adequately told but it doesn—t have the same impact. The stories of her mother and grandmother are narrated with an almost novelistic quality and are so engrossing that when her own contemporary voice is introduced the reader feels jolted out of a reverie. Tarpley’s story—in many ways about coming to terms with becoming a woman—is more self-conscious. She is a young writer, in her 20s, and her history is still unfolding. On coming to terms with her grandmother’s death at the end of the book, she writes, “I learned from my grandmother that struggle and freedom do not come only in grand and romantic pronouncements, but are as natural as breathing, as ordinary as making sure there are fresh-smelling sheets on the bed.— It’s a strong legacy, wisely recognized. A graceful and personal telling of a young woman’s search for connections.
Pub Date: June 22, 1998
ISBN: 0-8070-7202-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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