by Robert A. Foster ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 29, 2016
An odd, but affecting book that blends history, autobiography, and rock.
This debut memoir gives readers two tragic deaths and a running rumination on Lincoln, the Civil War, slavery, and the author’s career as a musician.
The book opens with the funeral of Judi, Foster’s wife, leaving him with a 2-year-old daughter, Anna. Nine months before, Foster’s younger brother Dave also died of cancer after horrible suffering. Both Judi and Dave are described as almost too good, too saintly, for this earth; Foster was beyond devastated. Then the work backtracks to childhoods; the courtship of Judi; memories of Dave, his soul mate; and Foster’s success as a rock musician in the Boston area and England during the early days of the genre. He was blessed with a solid upbringing. His mother was musically inclined and also a history teacher who taught her three sons true history—the evil of slavery, for example—as against those who would distort or subvert it. This became the bedrock of Foster’s thinking (in his view, the Civil War was not about states’ rights) and, today, he is a highly respected amateur Civil War historian. Slavery remains a recurring theme, not just the institution that shamed the country in Lincoln’s time, but slavery as any addiction (Judi’s father was a hopeless alcoholic) or whatever rules and binds individuals, as Judi’s and Dave’s cancers did. Slavery is all around people and inside them, which is the basic message of the work, and the author is fervent about fighting it in all its manifestations. In fact, Foster is one of the most passionate writers readers will likely find between the two covers of a book, and it is important to emphasize that this is not feigned, that somehow the audience will know that this is not an act. But it must be added that passion, the need to tell all, to wrestle one’s demons and narrative absolutely to the ground, can be an embarrassment of riches. But for aficionados of Lincoln and the Civil War or especially the early rock scene, this should be a rich feast. There is also a helpful bibliography.
An odd, but affecting book that blends history, autobiography, and rock.Pub Date: March 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9864204-8-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: Book Architecture
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
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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