A rich, vibrant collection that pries wide the door to the East, welcoming Western readers inside.
A collection of personal essays and profiles that reveal the wonders and woes of the East.
New Yorker staff writer Hessler (Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory, 2010, etc.) bridges the divide between East and West with riveting reportage. In the opening essay, “Wild Flavor,” the author chronicles his visit to a restaurant in southern China, where the waitress casually asked, “Do you want a big rat or a small rat?”—a line that embodies the collection’s interest in celebrating and questioning cultural differences. In the title essay, Hessler and an old Peace Corps buddy take a road trip across northern China, and the well-seasoned travelers find themselves duped at every turn—further evidence of the slow learning curve between cultures. Yet perhaps the theme running throughout most of these essays is the author’s examination of the perils of living in a closed society, in which even the assistant manager of the aforementioned rat restaurant refused to give his name for the book (despite the fact that most of the village shares his name). In “Boomtown Girl,” Hessler best elucidates this fear of oversharing with outsiders by introducing readers to Emily, a Chinese teacher-in-training who bucked all traditional gender roles and set out a future of her own making. While much of the book depicts a country consisting of walls, gates and fences—both literally and metaphorically—Emily’s idealism reveals a new breed of Chinese woman, one whose intrepid spirit serves her well.
A rich, vibrant collection that pries wide the door to the East, welcoming Western readers inside.Pub Date: April 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-220623-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
Not as focused as Just Kids, but an atmospheric, moody, and bittersweet memoir to be savored and pondered.
Iconic poet, writer, and artist Smith (Just Kids, 2010, etc.) articulates the pensive rhythm of her life through the stations of her travels.
Spending much of her time crouched in a corner table of a Greenwich Village cafe sipping coffee, jotting quixotic notes in journals, and “plotting my next move,” the author reflects on the places she’s visited, the personal intercourse, and the impact each played on her past and present selves. She describes a time in 1978 when she planned to open her own cafe, but her plans changed following a chance meeting with MC5 guitarist Fred Sonic Smith, who swiftly stole and sealed her heart with marriage and children. A graceful, ruminative tour guide, Smith writes of traveling together with Fred armed with a vintage 1967 Polaroid to Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in northwest French Guiana, then of solitary journeys to Frida Kahlo’s Mexican Casa Azul and to the graves of Sylvia Plath, Jean Genet, and a swath of legendary Japanese filmmakers. After being seduced by Rockaway Beach in Queens and indulgently purchasing a ramshackle bungalow there, the property was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy—though she vowed to rebuild. In a hazy, often melancholy narrative, the author synchronizes past memories and contemporary musings on books, art, and Michigan life with Fred. Preferring to write productively from the comfort of her bed, Smith vividly describes herself as “an optimistic zombie propped up by pillows, producing pages of somnambulistic fruit.” She spent seasons of lethargy binge-watching crime TV, arguing with her remote control, venturing out to a spontaneous and awkward meeting with chess great Bobby Fischer, and trekking off to interview Paul Bowles in Tangiers. No matter the distance life may take her, Smith always recovers some semblance of normalcy with the simplistic pleasures of a deli coffee on her Gotham stoop, her mind constantly buoyed by humanity, art, and memory.
Not as focused as Just Kids, but an atmospheric, moody, and bittersweet memoir to be savored and pondered.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-87510-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Brimming with open introspection, engaging anecdotes, and gorgeous photographs, Field’s moving account sheds light on how...
A beloved actor attempts to assemble her fragmented past.
In her debut memoir, Field (b. 1946) takes to the page to explore her early life and storied acting career; she also pens an extended love letter to her mother, who died in 2011, on the author’s 65th birthday. Described by the author as “drop-your-jaw beautiful,” Margaret Morlan was discovered by a Paramount talent scout while sitting in a Pasadena Playhouse audience and instantly got a career at age 23. Affectionately called “Baa” by Field, Morlan never achieved anywhere near her eldest daughter’s screen credits, but she played a central role throughout Field’s life as both a peerless champion of and “backup generator” to her daughter’s burgeoning talents. Baa was also a complicated source of great psychological trauma, as she failed to protect her daughter from the sexual advances of her stepfather, stuntman Jock Mahoney. While the memoir details the rapid progression of Field’s childhood interest in acting to on-screen success in TV (from Gidget and The Flying Nun to winning the Emmy for Sybil in 1977) and film (for Norma Rae, she won “every award for best actress that existed in the United States”), Field’s narrative of her professional and personal achievements may be best viewed through the lens of her fraught relationship with Baa. “My cherished mother had known…something,” she writes. “What exactly that was, I didn’t want to hear, because even at that time, when I was middle-aged, I couldn’t bear the idea that she hadn’t run to my side….I had accepted the idea that I was broken in an effort to keep my mother whole.” Through acting, Field found a way to constitute herself: “By standing in Norma’s shoes, I felt my own feet. If I could play her, I could be me.”
Brimming with open introspection, engaging anecdotes, and gorgeous photographs, Field’s moving account sheds light on how playing larger-than-life figures has enabled her to keep her feet on the ground.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5387-6302-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2018
© 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.
