Memorable reflections on writing and life from an author who pulls no punches.
After six novels and three story collections, Powell gathers his magazine articles and other short works in his first book of nonfiction.
In 2018, Powell, a professor emeritus of creative writing at the University of Florida, said that he had quit writing, and this book suggests he meant it—all of the pieces were written before 2019 and all but one previously published or delivered at literary events. Yet if this volume collects exhumed work, it has no air of mothballs about it. In a generous foreword, Pete Dexter rightly says of the entries: “They move like stories, carry the same expectations, they end like stories.” Powell’s intersecting preoccupations are the South—its art, music, food, wildlife, and literature—and the demands of writing fiction. Befitting those interests, he includes appreciations of his teacher Donald Barthelme and others he’s known or admired from afar: artist William Wegman; writers Grace Paley, Peter Taylor, Denis Johnson, William Trevor, and Flannery O’Connor; and Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins, with whom he attended junior high in Jacksonville. Standout articles describe Powell’s visits to a world arm-wrestling championship in Sweden and his quest to see “one of the free world’s last indigo snakes” in the wild amid the longleaf pines of Florida and southern Georgia. Elsewhere, he derides “craft books” full of “bloviations” on literary grails such as “round characters and flat characters; backstory; rising action, climax, denouement,” and “the bastardizing of telling versus the apotheosis of showing, hands down the largest bogosity of them all; and the existence of the necessary inevitable, which necessarily cannot be anticipated before its inevitability becomes apparent.” Some writers will see those words as blasphemous, but others will cheer the rare full-frontal assault on MFA program orthodoxies. Either way, if Powell has stopped writing, he’s going out swinging with a fine left hook.
Memorable reflections on writing and life from an author who pulls no punches.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64622-005-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.
The veteran newscaster reflects on her triumphs and hardships, both professional and private.
In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Couric (b. 1957) transforms the events of her long, illustrious career into an immensely readable story—a legacy-preserving exercise, for sure, yet judiciously polished and insightful, several notches above the fray of typical celebrity memoirs. The narrative unfolds through a series of lean chapters as she recounts the many career ascendency steps that led to her massively successful run on the Today Show and comparably disappointing stints as CBS Evening News anchor, talk show host, and Yahoo’s Global News Anchor. On the personal front, the author is candid in her recollections about her midlife adventures in the dating scene and deeply sorrowful and affecting regarding the experience of losing her husband to colon cancer as well as the deaths of other beloved family members, including her sister and parents. Throughout, Couric maintains a sharp yet cool-headed perspective on the broadcast news industry and its many outsized personalities and even how her celebrated role has diminished in recent years. “It’s AN ADJUSTMENT when the white-hot spotlight moves on,” she writes. “The ego gratification of being the It girl is intoxicating (toxic being the root of the word). When that starts to fade, it takes some getting used to—at least it did for me.” Readers who can recall when network news coverage and morning shows were not only relevant, but powerfully influential forces will be particularly drawn to Couric’s insights as she tracks how the media has evolved over recent decades and reflects on the negative effects of the increasing shift away from reliable sources of informed news coverage. The author also discusses recent important cultural and social revolutions, casting light on issues of race and sexual orientation, sexism, and the predatory behavior that led to the #MeToo movement. In that vein, she expresses her disillusionment with former co-host and friend Matt Lauer.
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53586-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
