Quirky and surprisingly affecting good fun—Ira Glass must be jealous.
How far would you go for the World’s Biggest Pumpkin?
Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief Susan Warren spends a season following the travails of a distinctly American subculture: growers of giant pumpkins. The cultivation of a half-ton fruit requires pragmatic ingenuity, a can-do optimism in the face of terrible odds and an enthusiasm for grotesque gigantism. Dick and Ron Wallace, the father and son growing team at the center of Wallace’s narrative, exemplify the type: male (though women do compete), competitive and frighteningly obsessive about the hobby. Growing these freakish giants requires unrelenting, backbreaking physical labor and a firm grasp of botanical science; as fragile as hothouse orchids, giant pumpkins are vulnerable to all manner of disease, pests, balky weather and the genetic strain of achieving such Brobdingnagian proportions. The Wallaces are eminent in the growers’ community, admired for their formidable gardening acumen and generosity to their fellow hobbyists, but they have been plagued by bad luck, time and again raising world-class pumpkins only to have them rupture or rot at critical moments. Ron Wallace views the season covered here as his last chance to go all-out, devoting himself completely to the massive pumpkin patch that dominates his property in a desperate bid to win a world record—his intensity in this endeavor is both admirable and a little frightening. This is all strangely engrossing; while the subject of pumpkin growing might not have obvious general reader appeal, Warren masterfully limns the subculture (complete with rabid Internet message boards) and the personalities of the fanatical growers (who plunge thousands of dollars into the hobby and often risk personal relationships due to the time-intensive nature of the pursuit), and the degree of peril is so high it is impossible not to get swept up in the suspenseful course of the season. It has been suggested that, oftentimes, the smaller the stakes (and bragging rights to growing the world’s biggest pumpkin seem awfully small stakes indeed), the bigger the drama. That’s certainly the case here.
Quirky and surprisingly affecting good fun—Ira Glass must be jealous.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59691-278-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
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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