A kick, a hoot, a truly wonderful read, with loads of down-and-dirty details about characters who are way more interesting...
Fabulously entertaining account of the prole beginnings of fashion-world fixture Doonan.
Visionary fashion director of Barney’s department story, Doonan (Wacky Chicks, 2003, etc.) is known for taking the ordinary and spinning it into the fantastic—a skill, we find, that he learned at his mother’s knee. In the early 1950s, the doggedly glamorous Betty Doonan rose to the challenge of making life a lark in the midst of the terrible and dreary gloom of postwar England. Taking care of the kids and not one but two schizophrenic relatives, plus the occasional boarder, Betty lined shoes with cardboard, scraped together makeshift childcare (the children were sent to a local orphanage during the day), and when all else failed, made an event out of the smallest and most mundane thing (“Who wants to watch me put on my bracelet!!!???”). Doonan recalls the challenges of childhood with love and respect and, where that isn’t possible, bemusement. Key characters include his anarchic gran (called “Narg”), his blind aunt Phyllis, and Biddie, a game partner in Doonan’s quest to find and join the elusive circle of the Beautiful People. Doonan also marks the significant style events of his youth: the Christmas gift that signaled his early love of decor, the moment when he and Biddie discovered “camp” (appropriately enough at a camp for vacationing families), the central role of the floor pillow to his fab aspirations. Most of the text focuses on his early years—the challenging times in Reading and his early days in London, trying to find the elusive tribe of beautiful people—with brief side trips to his years in Hollywood and a present-day meeting with his boyfriend’s parents.
A kick, a hoot, a truly wonderful read, with loads of down-and-dirty details about characters who are way more interesting than those dull Beautiful People Doonan was so all afire to find.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-6704-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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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