Lynch’s influence will endure as long as there are thinkers willing to dive so deeply and devotedly into his work.
Dickerson offers a spiritual reflection upon and analysis of cinema titan David Lynch’s television series Twin Peaks.
Upon its 1990 debut, Twin Peaks upended primetime television, infusing a lurid murder mystery with surrealism and metafiction. As audiences clamored for (and the network demanded) the answer to “Who killed Laura Palmer?,” Lynch (who co-created the show with Mark Frost and directed key episodes) focused less on the “whodunnit” than on ambiguity, mood, and a philosophical exploration of the duality of human nature. In this light, Laura Palmer’s story becomes more than a mystery to solve; the character functions as the contradiction around which the story’s forces of light and darkness revolve. The symbolism is at first subtle, then pervasive: The Red Room floor’s zigzag chevron pattern serves as a metaphysical divider, the Black Lodge produces evil doppelgängers, and the town of Twin Peaks’ idyllic Americana hides a persistent darkness its inhabitants have always known of. By focusing less on closure and more on the recurring patterns, Lynch’s work engages with contradictions, inevitability, and cyclical processes—core tenets of Taoist philosophy. In addition to the series, Lynch’s music, recurring motifs in his other movies, and personal beliefs reflect the Taoist principles found in his work, which provide a lens through which one can interpret it. Dickerson, an accomplished filmmaker, author, and professor, approaches Twin Peaks with reverence and intimacy, reflecting on his personal encounters with Lynch and even using the director’s typewriters. The result is rooted not in detached scholarship but devotion; the author is a fan-critic passionately extracting meaning from one of modern pop culture’s densest works. At times, the book blurs analysis and authorial intent, but Dickerson’s sincerity and engagement with ambiguity make this forgivable. Leiker’s black-and-white illustrations effectively complement the text.
Lynch’s influence will endure as long as there are thinkers willing to dive so deeply and devotedly into his work.Pub Date: July 27, 2025
ISBN: 9780985188696
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Kettle of Letters Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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
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