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GRASS SOUP

Name: GRASS SOUP
Author: Zhang Xianliang
ISBN: 1-56792-030-6

by Zhang Xianliang ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1995

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A haunting prison diary that depicts the epic sorrow and unmitigated human suffering that took place in the ``re-education'' camps of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Ten years after his release, novelist and poet Zhang reconstructs his 22-year ``rehabilitation'' in Chinese labor camps by referring to a skeletal journal that he kept at the time. Days and weeks are collapsed into single words or short, neutral sentences in order to avoid the wrath of the censors—and the firing squad. He describes a life punctuated by extreme physical labor, up to 18 hours a day spent carrying his own weight in mud bricks or tending rice plants in brackish water that produced painful and extremely itchy inflammation of the legs. Rations, sufficient at first, were later cut to a few grains of rice and scoops of ``grass soup''—a liquid created by boiling the greens weeded out of the crop fields. Literally tens of millions died during the drought of 196062, and Zhang discusses survival tactics such as stealing vegetables and eating boiled rats and toads for extra nutrition. One man killed himself during a visit from his wife after devouring the food that she had brought, perhaps, Zhang speculates, to avoid becoming a ``hungry ghost,'' the worst of the spirits of the Chinese underworld. The most horrifying aspect of the camps was the practice of ``self-surveillance.'' The inmates were so conditioned to report themselves and others for ``anti- revolutionary'' words and actions that high walls and prison guards were unnecessary. Rather than planning escape attempts, most of the energy of the ``intellectual'' prisoners was spent defaming other inmates. The police state had achieved its highest goal—each citizen had begun to police the next. An extraordinary glimpse into one of the darkest periods of human history.

Pub Date: July 1, 1995

ISBN: 1-56792-030-6

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Godine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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A CIVIL ACTION

by Jonathan Harr ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995

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A crash course in big-bucks tort litigation, as rich as any novel on the scene. In the mid-'70s, the small industrial town of Woburn, Mass., found itself afflicted with a plague of biblical dimensions: 12 local children, 8 of them close neighbors, had died (or were dying) of leukemia. The parents suspected the water supply, which was foul-smelling, rusty, and undrinkable, but they had no hard evidence of a link to the cancers. But in 1979, the accidental discovery of carcinogenic industrial wastes in the town's wells led the grieving parents to hire personal-injury lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, new to the profession but intoxicated with the sizable damages he'd won so far. This is magazine journalist Harr's first book, but his complex portrait of Schlichtmann is the work of a master. Egomaniacal, quixotic, workaholic, greedy, altruistic, and naive, Schlichtmann is Everylawyer, and as he allows the Woburn case to consume his practice, he almost loses his license and his life. Harr wisely downplays the dying-children angle, focusing instead on Schlichtmann's case against the two corporate Goliaths who dumped the waste: Beatrice Foods (represented by Jerome Facher of Boston's Hale & Dorr) and W.R. Grace (represented by William Cheeseman of Boston's Foley, Hoag & Eliot). Despite their white- shoe lineage, Facher and Cheeseman play dirty, withholding evidence and repeatedly seeking Schlichtmann's suspension for having filed a ``frivolous'' lawsuit. But the real villain of the story is Federal District Judge Walter J. Skinner, whose personal dislike of Schlichtmann (and camaraderie with Facher) leads him to grant the defense's motion to split the trial into two protracted phases. By the time Judge Skinner submits four incomprehensible questions to be bewildered jury, Woburn's young victims have been forgottenand the whole legal system has suffered a tragic loss. A paranoid legal thriller as readable as Grisham, but important and illuminating. (Film rights to Disney)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-394-56349-2

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE ART OF MEMOIR

by Mary Karr ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2015

A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.

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A bestselling nonfiction writer offers spirited commentary about memoir, the literary form that has become synonymous with her name.

Personal narrative has exploded in popularity over the last 20 years. Yet, as Karr (Lit: A Memoir, 2009, etc.) points out, memoir still struggles to attain literary respectability. “There is a lingering snobbery in the literary world,” she writes, “that wants to disqualify what is broadly called nonfiction from the category of ‘literature.’ ” In this book, Karr offers both an apology for and a sharp-eyed exploration of this form born from her years as a practitioner as well as a distinguished English professor at Syracuse University. She begins by considering classroom “experiments” she has conducted to show the slipperiness of memory and arguing the need to give latitude to writers tackling memoir. Writing with the intent to record what rings true rather than exact is one thing; writing with the intent to lie is another. Voice is another critical aspect of any memoir that manages to endure through time. By examining works by writers as diverse as Frank McCourt and Vladimir Nabokov, Karr demonstrates that it is in fact the very thing by which a great memoir “lives or dies.” Rather than focus on the narrative truism of “show-don’t-tell,” Karr thoughtfully elaborates on what she calls “carnality”—the ability to transform memory into a multisensory experience—for the reader. When wed to a desire to move beyond the traps of ego and render personal “psychic struggle” honestly and without fear, carnality can lead to writing that not only “wring[s] some truth from the godawful mess of a single life,” but also connects deeply with readers. Karr’s sassy Texas wit and her down-to-earth observations about both the memoir form and how to approach it combine to make for lively and inspiring reading.

A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.