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THE RELUCTANT METROSEXUAL

Name: THE RELUCTANT METROSEXUAL
Author: Peter Hyman
ISBN: 0-8129-7163-9

DISPATCHES FROM AN ALMOST HIP LIFE

by Peter Hyman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 17, 2004

Though not without the occasional easy joke or sappy tangent, more thoughtful and artfully written than its sell-by-today...

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Winsome, amusing, and intelligent debut collection of essays by a slacker cursed with taste, mildly astounded that a Queer Eye–influenced world has caught up with him.

Journalist and occasional stand-up comic Hyman reflects on how one’s lifestyle choices or aesthetic preferences can result in greater challenges or disappointments—in his case, the incongruity of loving the finer things and yearning for high society while failing to escape the impoverished and lonely life of a New York writer. Of his purported “metrosexual” tendencies, he notes that “a straight man cannot exhibit good taste in design or home furnishings, or the competence to dress himself” without being frequently mistaken for gay. (He shrewdly tags the mainstream fixation upon so-called metrosexuals as a marketing ploy akin to the Gen-X craze of the early 1990s.) Hapless but well appointed, Hyman portrays with the right mix of self-deprecation and acute observation his adventures in incompetence: a failed ménage à trois, a disastrous drug-fueled Oaxacan road trip, Internet liaisons with women prone to first-date vomiting. Other essays utilize fairly ordinary set-ups as a springboard for Hyman’s self-portrait as a confused yet resolute Everyman. “Law School Dropout” depicts his flight from a “mecca for conformity [that] offers vocational training more than it does intellectual challenge.” In “The Seven Habits of Highly Laid-off People,” he takes an archly humorous look at the white-collar chaos fomented by the 2001 recession. Hyman writes with surprising tenderness about the vicissitudes of contemporary dating, as in “The Wedding Swinger” or “The Penultimate Girlfriend,” with whom his moment flamed out too quickly. And he doesn’t neglect topics specific to the true metrosexual experience, such as high-end shirts and Brazilian bikini waxes. His work may appeal to fans of David Sedaris, but Hyman has more in common with such Manhattan chroniclers of the louche life as Jonathan Ames and Thomas Beller.

Though not without the occasional easy joke or sappy tangent, more thoughtful and artfully written than its sell-by-today title implies.

Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2004

ISBN: 0-8129-7163-9

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Villard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.