A simple, successful portrayal of an award-winning but humble artist.
Raymond offers a debut novel that tells the life story of famed film composer Henry Mancini.
Mancini is born in 1924 to Italian immigrants and grows up in a Pennsylvania steel town during the Depression. His father, Quinto, a “piccolo flute-playing steel worker,” is his first music teacher, training him in classical music and Italian folk songs—but Mancini truly loves ragtime and jazz. His forte is arrangement and improvisation, which earns him a spot at the Juilliard School; in his audition, he performs a “‘fantasy on Cole Porter’s ‘Night and Day’ ” which Raymond describes as “five minutes of pure musical genius filled with wonderful grace notes—those non-essential but inspired additions.” Soon after, he joins an Army band (and is lucky to return home from World War II unscathed), tours the United States as a professional band member, and eventually marries and settles in California. There, he’s hired by Universal Pictures as a staff composer and learns to work in a variety of musical genres. He later gets his big break after a chance encounter with director Blake Edwards, who asks him to score a new TV show: Peter Gunn. “Moon River,” The Pink Panther theme, and various other successful works follow. Raymond’s obvious intention in this fictionalized portrayal is to show her subject in a highly positive light. After all, this book is an entry in the Mentoris Project, a series about trailblazing Italians and Italian-Americans, which frames its subjects as role models. For instance, the author quotes popular singer Andy Williams as saying that Mancini was “one of the nicest men I have ever known,” and she writes that the composer’s peers were generally “inspired by how down to earth he was.” As a result, readers will indeed come away liking Mancini as a person. However, his flaws, if any exist, are left unexamined, so readers looking to read about the life of a tortured artist should look elsewhere. Overall, though, Raymond mostly avoids lionization, painting a low-key look at a kind and modest man with an impressive work ethic.
A simple, successful portrayal of an award-winning but humble artist.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-947431-14-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Barbera Foundation
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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