Deceptively packaged, this book presents itself as one of those finds beloved of historians—the untouched trunk in the attic full of journals, letters, and souvenirs. It is, in fact, a work of the imagination, pretending to cover the memories of six generations of women on an Indiana homestead. Here’s the concept: Marianne, a French aristocrat, marries pioneer Joshua Metcalfe in 1835 and happily departs for the Indiana wilderness to chop wood, draw water, tend chickens, clean, and cook. She also sets the scene for a family Christmas whose traditions will continue to the present. Another tradition: an end-of-year journal summing up annual events and appending recipes or household hints (making candles, ink, suckling pig). Both rituals are picked up by succeeding generations, usually daughters-in-law of different ethnic backgrounds—German, Irish, English, Swedish—who can add cultural variations to the Christmas celebrations and reflect in their annual summations the progress of civilization at the farm: indoor plumbing, electricity, automobiles, computers. Sons go to war, daughters support suffrage, the stock market crashes. There’s a birthday celebration with cocktails (recipes provided) during Prohibition, instructions for tie-dyeing during the 1960s, and a Green Christmas, devoted to “creativity, conservation and thrift,” during the 1990s. No matter how accomplished the woman—the alleged compiler of this book was a high-profile TV journalist—each daughter-in-law is happy to settle into the slow rhythm of High Meadows Farm. Author Murphey (Bean Blossom Dreams, 1994), incidentally, is a former BBC producer who now lives on an Indiana farm. Beautifully published, with each woman’s entries in a different handwriting and authentic-looking photographs and memorabilia reproduced, here’s a charming reconstruction of the flow of history as it affects one particular family. Too bad it’s not the real thing. (Photographs, illustrations)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8118-2097-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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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