A diverting jaunt with vagabonds of the West’s open roads and backwoods: mobile nobility nicely considered. (3 maps)
British-born journalist Grant succumbs to indigenous American wanderlust, exploring the land mostly left of the Mississippi in a journey of discovery for himself and other agoraphobics.
It’s a fine excursion, retracing the travels of early explorer Cabeza de Vaca. We follow in the moccasin steps of Cochise and learn the story of the horse in the West. Grant profiles admirable Apache riders and the mighty Comanches, providing lots of Indian lore as well as nature lessons and a quick history of the buffalo. We travel with unsung Joe Walker and join the first non-native travelers to see Yosemite. Plains Indians, mountain men, and cowboys jostle stalwart frontiersmen, buckskinners, and their womenfolk. It’s the story of how the West was won and how the West was lost—or at least misplaced. Now the peripatetic hunter-gatherers are rodeo cowboys, interstate hoboes, drifters, road dogs, members of the Train Riders of America, associates of the Rainbow Family of Living Light, and geriatric RV travelers. Grant attends gatherings of stoned hippies who, citing favored “fakelore,” remember previous Native American incarnations. He joins truckers in the cabs of their Peterbilts while they sail past the spirit of all the slaughtered buffalo. He bonds with retired pilgrims as they hug each other by their pricey mobile homes. He shows up at a sporadically scheduled rendezvous of latter-day mountain men. He also picks up pungent hitchhikers who dispense crafty tramp wisdom before leaving his truck. The author expresses a strong aversion to finishing life in a hospital. He would rather die in the desert someday, like many members of his special breed of traveling heroes.
A diverting jaunt with vagabonds of the West’s open roads and backwoods: mobile nobility nicely considered. (3 maps)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8021-1763-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2003
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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