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West of Goose Island: A Chicago Story

Name: West of Goose Island: A Chicago Story
Author: Richard Stanley Post
ISBN: 978-0989560801

by Richard Stanley Post ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 2013

An earnest, occasionally shocking postcard from a vanished Chicago.

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A memoir of growing up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood in the 1950s—an era the author remembers as “a good time to be a kid.”

This book represents a departure for Post (Global Brand Integrity Management, 2007, etc.), who has written 16 business textbooks. After his father’s store in Florida failed, Post moved with his family to Chicago to live with his maternal grandmother. In the streets and homes west of Goose Island, a dot in the Chicago River covered with gas storage tanks and polluting factories, the Polish language was as ubiquitous as English, and sharp-elbowed babushkas battled to secure the kielbasa, rye bread and hot cross buns on their holiday shopping lists. Post’s straightforward prose never enchants, but it ably gets the job done, with each stand-alone chapter reminiscent of a grandfather’s perfectly told anecdote. In one, Post spends his Saturdays watching triple features in movie houses, where children play tag during the boring parts; in another, he steals from his sister’s coin collection to play carnival games to win free Vienna hot dogs—a scheme that ends when his father discovers the theft and beats him with a strap. Norman Rockwell-esque nostalgia is tempered by everyday brutality: A street baseball game ends when a buddy’s arm is torn off in a hit-and-run accident, and Post watches as an injured puppy is “put down” by having its head smashed. A cast of recurring characters emerges: Uncle Stanley, a drunken vet broken by his service in World War II; Post’s father, an independent family man with little patience for religion; and Davie, a bully sent to reform school for setting a cat’s tail on fire. Readers familiar with contemporary Chicago will also be treated to an extra, uncanny charm: a geography where place names remain the same but their characters have changed, as when Post’s sister describes North Beach as a modest spot for “people from the neighborhood”; today, it’s where the young and toned go to admire one another.

An earnest, occasionally shocking postcard from a vanished Chicago.

Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2013

ISBN: 978-0989560801

Page Count: 182

Publisher: Post & Post LLC

Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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.