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THE PATRON SAINT OF DREAMS

Name: THE PATRON SAINT OF DREAMS
Author: Philip Gerard
ISBN: 978-1-891885-89-1

ESSAYS

by Philip Gerard ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2012

A mixed bag, with a fine piece about baseball at the apex but with otherwise too few memorable moments.

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Mannered essays, written to the academic creative-nonfiction formula, on hurricanes, spirits, death and other such weighty matters.

The formula: Start with a brief declaration; hint that the writer knows something the reader doesn’t; punctuate with a few one-sentence paragraphs, hortatory or expository; layer on a blend of arresting statistics and mundane observations. Thus, writes Gerard (Creative Writing/Univ. of North Carolina, Wilmington; Creative Nonfiction, 2004, etc.): “What they don’t tell you about hurricanes is the uncertainty”; “Her name is Maria”; “Some stories do not have an obvious, coherent narrative.” These are three representative opening sentences, all of which lead to tales about the capriciousness, sorrow and violence of life. Death is a constant, as are observations that death is just plain unfair; constant, too, are notes on the manifold ways in which people get caught up in events, yielding those hortatory and I-know-something-you-don’t turns—e.g., “Let me tell you about the daughter of another soldier…There is no need for you to know her name.” The best pieces in the book—and there are several very good ones here—are simple shaggy-dog stories involving government plots and ghosts, the sorts of things you might tell with cigars and scotch around a fire. The worst are workshop-esque exercises in philosophizing. One essay opens, for instance, with a yarn about James Dickey’s saying over lunch that “after the age of forty a man is responsible for his face,” an apercu that Dickey stole from George Orwell. That observation, repeated in a couple of variations, is really just an in-passing setup for a piece on scars, mortality and aging that struggles to get out from under its own commonplaceness.

A mixed bag, with a fine piece about baseball at the apex but with otherwise too few memorable moments.

Pub Date: March 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-891885-89-1

Page Count: 200

Publisher: Hub City Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE THINGS WE DO WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING
by Philip Gerard

- BOOK REVIEW
SECRET SOLDIERS
by Philip Gerard

- BOOK REVIEW
DESERT KILL
by Philip Gerard

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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.