Brief, tender instruction on how to stop and smell the roses.
A French author meditates on the simple pleasures of life.
In the translator’s note, Gladding writes, “these pieces are drawn from The Troubled Waters of the Mojito and The Ecstasy of the Selfie, the most recent collections of…Delerm’s ‘literary snapshots,’ a genre he invented over two decades ago and still uniquely represents.” Throughout this collection of lighthearted vignettes, the author invites readers to slow down and cherish moments—e.g., getting caught in a rain shower, eating a clementine one-handed, and dancing as if no one is watching, “making peace with your body.” Delerm also explores the serenity that comes from folding sheets, the brightness to be found in washing windows, and the calmness that arrives when you hold a physical book in your hand. “In essence,” writes the author, “it holds a promise of solitude, retreat, silence.” Other elements of everyday life take on a darker tone, such as the self-destructive nature of vaping, the drama associated with achieving the perfect selfie, the isolation of using a smartphone, the impatience that can arise from waiting at a restaurant, and the agitation that comes from losing memories to Alzheimer’s. Of one such person, the author writes, “She’ll remember that she lost something, she won’t know what. They say it’s hell. But there isn’t a word for it.” Delerm examines many intimate moments in life, such as the expressions of ecstasy that desserts can elicit or the joy of bouncing a baby in your arms. The author also contemplates the regional joys of France and Italy, including viewing a Michel Bouquet play from the third balcony, watching tango dancers near the Seine, and observing summer tourists gather at the San Giacomo fountain in Venice. Although the text feels disjointed, perhaps necessarily so, Delerm’s brief observations allow readers to dip in and out, offering moments of reflection and contemplation as time permits.
Brief, tender instruction on how to stop and smell the roses.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781953861542
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Archipelago
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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