Anyone who has cared for aging and ill parents will recognize and perhaps be comforted by this frank delineation of the...
From SF novelist Charnas (The Conquerer's Child, 1999, etc.), a true and tender account of caring for her aging father from the time of his truculent arrival at her home to his irascible last illness and death.
Robinson McKee left his wife and children when Suzy was only eight to live the bohemian life of a painter in Greenwich Village. Although they were in touch over the years, this was a man the author “barely knew” when she invited him in 1973 to leave his rundown New York studio to live with her and her husband in New Mexico. Robin would have his own house on her Albuquerque property and a view of the Sandia mountains bathed in the extraordinary southwestern light. He came, and for nearly 20 years Charnas struggled to know him, please him, laugh at his jokes, get him to paint, exercise, take a bath, and, finally, to let him die. He spent his last year in a nursing home, where a miracle of sorts occurred. He fell in love with a patient, Jane, who returned his affection; they spent their days together, with Robin often ensconced in Jane's wheelchair by her bedside. He mellowed and spruced up his grooming, ate better, and, encouraged by Jane, voted in a presidential election for the first time. He died in January 1993, leaving Charnas with his cat and 40 volumes of journals that he kept from 1930 until a few years before he moved in with her. The author makes good use of entries from these journals, full of amusing, brittle, sad, and hopeful anecdotes and musings, epigrams, and reflections on art and life. She intersperses them among her own memories and journal excerpts to capture the mix of guilt, longing, impatience, and empathy that characterized their relationship.
Anyone who has cared for aging and ill parents will recognize and perhaps be comforted by this frank delineation of the mixed emotions called up by the death of a father.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-58542-185-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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