This unconventional memoir, as life-affirming as it is hip, shows and tells all about the author's self-published, Xeroxed magazine, which helped her survive and flourish during her postcollegiate years. After completing Johns Hopkins University's graduate writing program, cultural critic and fiction writer Kennedy (Stripping and Other Stories, 1994, etc.) was highly ambitious but creatively frozen. So instead of competing to be a ``famous young writer'' in New York, she decided to move to the Boston area and make herself a star, and while she was at it ``trick people into liking me . . . get dates. . . and transform my boring life into an epic story.'' Thus her 'zine (called ``Pagan's Head'') was born. Distributed to friends and acquaintances, and using a mix of text, cartoons, and clip art, it featured tributes to childhood pals, reflections on the Nixon era, paeans to platform shoes, thrift stores, and the Partridge Family, and her crushes on Friedrich Nietzsche and Henry Adams. And it worked, Kennedy says; she became ``the 'zine queen of Boston.'' Each of the eight issues is reprinted here, accompanied by essays about the making of ``Pagan's Head.'' Here she explores the contrast between the bold and witty public persona she created and her ``real-life-Pagan'' self, a semi-insecure, brainy woman who discusses seriously such matters as her dad's death from cancer, the Gulf War, her ovarian tumor, and her ancestors' slave-owning past. But eventually, with the help of her 'zine and the self- discovery that follows, she pools her resources and becomes the unified, present Pagan. Kennedy's delightful chronicle is enough to make you want to pick up a pen and start your own personal fanzine or put on some platforms and dance in the streets.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13628-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
