An affecting account of overcoming despair and triumphing as a painter.
An American artist recounts his hard journey from a troubled childhood to a successful career in this debut memoir.
In 1957, when Ecke was only 4 years old, he was sent to live with foster parents, who immediately established themselves as cold disciplinarians. According to the author, he and his two sisters, Gail and Tina, were fed less well than the couple’s own daughter; forced to perform dreary chores; and forbidden to speak unless spoken to or to cry. Ecke lived in that state of affectionless “imprisonment” for 15 months until he finally was sent home to his parents. He had no idea at the time that his mother had suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of abuse at the hands of his father or that she had spent nine months as a “voluntary resident at the mental hospital.” Ecke discloses that his father was an incorrigible philanderer who eventually left the family, and his mother grappled with depression. The author poignantly depicts his volatile upbringing as well as the challenge of fully accepting his gay sexuality (He had “struggled with” his sexuality since he “was a child”). At one point, he even submitted himself to the mortification of “aversion therapy” during a time when his sexual orientation was routinely treated like a curable disease. But he was able to find love in a healthy, stable relationship and finally pursue a career in art, which he always pined for, earning success as a painter. The author is courageously forthcoming about his personal struggles, and his story, though often heartbreaking, is ultimately an inspiring one. He beautifully describes the retreat he took as a child into his own imagination, a precocious sign of his life as an artist: “With no books or toys to occupy my time, I would escape into a vibrant fantasy world, where anything was possible.” And though Ecke has learned he has advanced prostate cancer, he refuses to harbor any defeatism. The book includes personal black-and-white photographs of the author and his family as well as his art and studio.
An affecting account of overcoming despair and triumphing as a painter.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73232-921-8
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Morrison Meyer Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.
Photographer and author Stanton returns with a companion volume to Humans of New York (2013), this one with similarly affecting photographs of New Yorkers but also with some tales from his subjects’ mouths.
Readers of the first volume—and followers of the related site on Facebook and elsewhere—will feel immediately at home. The author has continued to photograph the human zoo: folks out in the streets and in the parks, in moods ranging from parade-happy to deep despair. He includes one running feature—“Today in Microfashion,” which shows images of little children dressed up in various arresting ways. He also provides some juxtapositions, images and/or stories that are related somehow. These range from surprising to forced to barely tolerable. One shows a man with a cat on his head and a woman with a large flowered headpiece, another a construction worker proud of his body and, on the facing page, a man in a wheelchair. The emotions course along the entire continuum of human passion: love, broken love, elation, depression, playfulness, argumentativeness, madness, arrogance, humility, pride, frustration, and confusion. We see varieties of the human costume, as well, from formalwear to homeless-wear. A few celebrities appear, President Barack Obama among them. The “stories” range from single-sentence comments and quips and complaints to more lengthy tales (none longer than a couple of pages). People talk about abusive parents, exes, struggles to succeed, addiction and recovery, dramatic failures, and lifelong happiness. Some deliver minirants (a neuroscientist is especially curmudgeonly), and the children often provide the most (often unintended) humor. One little boy with a fishing pole talks about a monster fish. Toward the end, the images seem to lead us toward hope. But then…a final photograph turns the light out once again.
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05890-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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