Book Review: Holy Fire

(Read on my phone on the Libby app): I heard about this Bruce Sterling sci-fi favorite on a series of lectures on Prime: How Great Science Fiction Works (Prof. Wolfe). It sounded interesting. In the year 2092, a 92-year-old woman undergoes experimental life extension treatments which cause her personality to go somewhat haywire. She escapes from the San Francisco government medical facility where she is recooperating and launches onto a Candide-like trek across Europe. She hits Stuttgart, Prague, Rome as a model and photographer, falling in with a gang of radical anti-agist rebels. There's something important about a digital cache of memories called a "palace" she has inherited from a former lover, but I couldn't figure out why everybody is after her for its secrets. There was a talking dog in the palace and it escapes to menace our heroine, Mia or Maya depending on if we are referring to her old or new self. There's also something called holy fire, a kind of divine inspiration which apparently has affected the new pope and maybe Mia/Maya.

Mia/Maya's adventures seemed rather random and arbitrary. She just bounces from incident to incident with no strong objective or goal. We do get a fascinating picture of late 21st century life with analyses of public life, fashion, art, and intergenerational conflict. Older people called geronticrats stack the deck in their favor and keep younger people impoverished. 

There were individual sequences I found compelling such as a talking dog called Aquinas (not the other talking dog) with his own intellectual TV chat show and a touching scene where Mia visits an actress who has transformed into a Neanderthal version of herself to get away from the stresses of modern life. A mixed bag.

Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief

(Borrowed from my husband after he finished with it.) A fascinating account of Jefferson Davis' tenure as President and Commander of the Confederate forces during the Civil War. Unlike Lincoln, Davis had a military background and tended to take total charge of strategy, going through five Secretaries of War. Lincoln relied on advise from his cabinet and generals (detailed by Doris Kearns Goodwin in Team of Rivals.) Davis was a micromanager, reluctant to delegate authority. He also allowed petty rivalries between his generals to influence him and  allowed personal friends to stay in positions even after they proved unsuitable. McPherson makes the case that another President would not have changed the results and that Davis was the best possible man for the job despite his flaws. The author also makes the point that Davis' intransigence on keeping Southern independence and opposition to the abolition of slavery prolonged the war.   

Book Reviews: The Candy House

(Bought at the Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene, Brooklyn): Even though I sometimes needed a diagram in order to keep straight the multiple characters in Jennifer Egan's intricate, decades-spanning novel, I throughly enjoyed the ride. Employing characters from her earlier Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, The Candy House explores the impact of technology of a host of interconnected people. Each chapter is written in different style, the most involving being an vast chain of emails. Egan's command of language and imagination is awe-inspiring. Like the levels in a video game you can't stop playing, a minor detail in one chapter leads you into the next where it becomes significant. The saga is launched when tech guru Bix Bouton invents a system to access all your memories and upload them to an even-more invasive version of the Internet. Like AI, this new invention has its benefits such as solving crimes, but its flaws have devastating effects.  

From the 1970s into the 2030s, we meet movie stars, music producers, citizen spies, black ops military, anthropologists, artists, drunks, drug addicts (recovering and otherwise). 

Egan expertly explores the dangers and delights of ever-expanding tech and the pitfalls it presents.

Book Review: The Body Artist

(Borrowed from NYPL, 40th St., Manhattan)  I'll be frank. I picked this slim Don DeLillo novella because it was short. (Still not willing to go back to Peter Bogdanovich's insider-baseball interview with Fritz Lang.) It's beautifully written as with all of DeLillo's work, but confusing. A performance artist is mourning the suicide of her older husband, a revered filmmaker. A mysterious strange man shows up in their rented house on the New England coast. He appears to be mentally challenged and repeats phrases from the late husband, jumbled with other seemingly random sentences. (Some of the dialogue reminded me of Samuel Beckett.) The artist is inspired to create a new piece using her own body and she tries to decipher the mystery of her visitor. DeLillo never explains the meaning of the visitor and the ending didn't make sense to me. I did enjoy the description of a typical morning between the artist and the filmmaker which opens the book. The minute details of fixing breakfast, fleeting thoughts, observing birds at feeders, and avoiding conversation were meticulously observed and fascinating to read. DeLillo's books are always interesting, but this one puzzled me. A cold, clinical study of grief with more questions than answers.  

Book Review: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

(Borrowed from the Jackson Heights Library) Finished off the short stories collected in The Complete Sherlock Homes, Vol. I, a 1000-plus page paper back. Doyle was forced to revive Holmes after a public outcry in reaction to his supposed death over the falls with Prof. Moriarty. Holmes and Watson are reunited at Baker Street. It appears Watson is now a widower since they are rooming together once again. Doyle attempts to finish off Holmes once and for all by retiring him to Sussex to take up beekeeping. (It didn't take, he came back again--in movies, TV and radio as well as more stories.) We have another round of puzzling mysteries with Holmes always outsmarting the thick-witted Inspector Lastrade and the eager Hopkins. In many of these stories, Holmes acts as judge and jury of the committer of the crime, often allowing them to go free since their violation was justifiable in his opinion. That strikes me as a dangerous precedent. Still enjoyable. The Golden Pince-Nez was my favorite of this group.

Book Review: Our Country Friends

(Bought at the Strand Bookstore for $10) I really enjoyed Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story. This one, not as much. I didn't really care about any of the characters or what became of them. They struck me as privileged and clueless. I realize that was probably Shteyngart's point, but it made reading most of the novel a real slog.

The premise is a classic one: a group of diverse characters are confined to a relatively small space. Their interests and personalities collide. Learning ensues. Russian-American novelist Sasha (a stand-in for the author) invites a group of friends to his country home during the COVID pandemic. Included are a cross-section of 2020 American elite: a movie star who is so famous we don't even learn his name; an essayist whose best-selling work describes her rural Southern background; an app developer who made millions with a dating app; a failed novelist with health issues; and--I'm not sure what Ed was, a chef? We also have the Russian writer's wife, a therapist and his troubled adopted daughter. 

Shteyngart is a marvelous writer, the descriptions, metaphors, smilies and observations on the current world scene are trenchant and precise. I just had a hard time identifying with these people. The plot hinged on the use of the dating app which I didn't quite understand and this story arc strained credulity. 

Book Review: Kafka on the Shore

(Taken out of the Jackson Heights Public Library) I have to be in the right mood for a Haruki Murakami novel. His short stories are easier to take. The novels are full of symbols, magic realism, nightmares and bizarre plot twists that make no sense unless you wrack your brain to figure them out. But the characters are so real and their plights so relatable that one is drawn into his mystical dreamscapes. This one at about 360 pages was intoxicating and not as much of a chore as the much-longer Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. (Some day I will try the 900-page IQ84.) The novel follows the seemingly separate but later interconnected stories of Kafka, a 15-year-old runaway who may or may not have killed his father, and Nakata, a 60-ish mentally-challenged man who can talk to cats. Their chapters alternate until their stories overlap and complete each other. In addition to talking cats, we have fish and leeches falling from the sky like rain, Johnny Walker and Colonel Sanders coming to life, stones with personality, enigmatic characters and relationships. Murakami not only echoes Kafka, but also Greek tragedy and The Sound of Music. It's a weird experience, mainly about coming of age, finding your identity and coming to terms with your past, but all in indirect and metaphorical ways. Strangely absorbing.

Book Review: Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(Received as a birthday present): My parents must have sensed something was up when I started quoting Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at age 12. Edward Albee's scathing portrayal of a sadomasochistic marriage always intrigued me. I first saw the movie on TV and even with network edits, it was so powerful. Then I viewed the film on the big screen in college and was overwhelmed. This is probably Elizabeth Taylor's best performance and Richard Burton's too. Philip Gefter entertainingly exposes the struggles to get this explosive property on film, and the backstage conflicts, principally between producer Ernest Lehman and first-time director Mike Nichols. Gefter traces the origins of the play and the bohemian gay circles Albee inhabited. The impact of Virginia Woolf on popular culture is seismic as it tore off the facade of polite depictions of American marriage and showed the raging emotions underneath.

The film version effectively ended studio censorship and ushered in the ratings system so film language was no longer so restricted.

Of course, the meat of the book is the day-to-day travails of filming which were mainly a power struggle between Nichols and Lehman. The Burtons did not make things any easier. Their contracts stipulated they would not work before 10am and at 6 pm sharp, an assistant would show up on set with a Bloody Mary for each of them signaling they were through for the day. It's that kind of detail that makes the book fun to read. 

Book Review: I Was Better Last Night

(Received as a birthday present) Harvey Fierstein's entertaining memoir covers his amazing career with humor and insight. From community theater in Brooklyn to drag avant-garde at LaMama and with Andy Warhol to his Tony-winning breakthrough in Torch Song Trilogy to becoming Broadway's go-to book author for musicals like La Cage Aux Folles, Kinky Boots, Newsies, and A Catered Affair, Fierstein's career trajectory has been unique. No one else has succeeded as an actor, writer and gay trailblazer, on such a scale. What's really shocking is reading how being gay was so totally anathema to the majority of American society when Harvey was starting out. I remember when Torch Song was on Broadway, they didn't even mention that it was about a gay drag queen in the commercial. (Happy audience members gushed how it was about love.) That play took the revolutionary stance that gay people wanted the same thing as straight people--love, marriage, children, etc.--not endless booze, sex and partying. In addition to backstage tales of his many credits as playwright and star, Fierstein delivers the goods on his personal life, detailing how his sexuality has affected his relationships with his parents (difficult) and brother (supportive), as well his struggles with alcoholism and many medical procedures.

Side note: As in Mary Rodgers and Barbra Streisand's book, Arthur Laurents does not come off well.

Book Review: Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

(Bought with the remainder of a Barnes and Noble Christmas gift card): I saw this on the counter at Barnes and Noble and the subject matter grabbed me. This actually happened: Ellen and William Craft escaped from slavery in 1848 Macon, Georgia by disguising themselves a young white man and his slave. Ellen was light enough to pass as white and was a clever seamstress. She made herself a suit of clothes and wearing scarves and bandages was able to impersonate a young, white man in ill-health. This was the only disguise that would work. A black man traveling with what appeared to be a white woman would have gotten them both killed. They got on board a series of trains to Philadelphia, then settled in Boston, supposedly beyond the reach of slave catchers. But the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 forced them to move again, all the way up to Canada and then to England. 

Ilyon Woo's narrative reads like a Netflix mini-series with Ellen and William on the verge of being discovered at every moment. Woo details what their trip would have been like with research on what trains, ships, and stagecoaches were like at the time. She also provides context and background with histories of the Crafts' families and their enslavers. Gender issues are also explored. Ellen defied so many rules of the day, but when the couple escaped the Great Britain and went on the lecture circuit, she did not speak. William did the talking because it was considered unseemly for a lady to appear to show agency and speak about it in public. A fascinating read and deep dive into the history of slavery and those who escaped from it.

Book Review: Letter to My Daughter

(Borrowed from the Jackson Heights Library): Another essay collection from Maya Angelou. A quick read with lasting, valuable wisdom. These brief pieces focus on life lessons written to the daughter Angelou never had and to the women she had treated like daughters throughout her eventful life. We get advice on cultural sensitivity, never giving up, and social etiquette. There are also reflections on Celia Cruz, activist Fannie Lou Hamer, and Coretta Scott King. The most striking piece details a gruesome encounter with with an abusive, jealous boyfriend--it's harrowing and brutal--and fills in some gaps in her six autobiographical books. I'd like to read a bio that takes up where her memoirs leave off.

Book Review: Even the Stars Look Lonesome

(Borrowed from the Jackson Heights Library) In between longer books, I took out three short volumes by two favorite authors: Joan Didion and Maya Angelou. I have read all of Angelou's autobiographies and most of her poetry, but not her essays. (I met her once when I was in high school. She was promoting one of her books at a Philadelphia bookstore. I had written her a letter and enclosed a copy of an essay I had written about her which won a prize. She sent me back an autographed copy of a book of her poetry. She was delightful to me at the bookstore.) At less than 150 pages, this is an easy but powerful read, full of Angelou's personal experiences and observations derived from a rich and varied life. Her relationship to the South is particularly fascinating and the piece on a slavery folk museum in Baton Rogue, LA is poignant. I disagreed with her views on supporting the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas. She felt that having an African-American voice on the court outweighted his deplorable record on Civil Rights, that he could be persuaded to see the light. (She doesn't even mention the Anita Hill controversy.) Now decades later, we see the damage Thomas and his wife have done to the country. But her eloquent writing defending her position is wroth reading.

Book Review: Downtown Owl

(Bought at the Strand Bookstore for $6.95) I had been meaning to read this novel for a long time. I bought it because the titles of Chuck Klosterman's books have always intrigued me when I saw them on tables at used bookstores. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Eating the Dinosaur, The Visible Man. I don't really care about high school football, or rock bands of the 1980s, two of the topics which obsess the citizens of the titular tiny town in rural North Dakota, but the characters are well-drawn and Klosterman can be very funny. He focuses on three apparently unrelated Owl-ites--morose high school student Mitch (nicknamed Vanna because his last name Hrlicka has so few vowels), new teacher and lonely alcoholic Julia, and retiree Horace. Each chapter is from the point of view of one of these three, except two focusing on Julia's teaching colleague and football coach John Laidlaw who has a tendency to seduce his female students, and Mitch's fellow student, the antisocial and perhaps sociopathic Cubby Candy. Mitch is lonely, Julia is lonely, Horace is lonely. John and Cubby are nuts. Without revealing too much of the plot, their stories come to a rather abrupt ending with little resolution. But there are plenty of clever and insightful scenes of their desperate search for connection and meaning in a town with little to offer outside drinking, driving around and watching or playing football.

Book Review: Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal and a Swan Song for an Era

(Bought at Barnes and Nobles with a left-over gift card from Christmas) I've been wanting to read this since Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans (based on this book) started airing on FX to see where the two differ. Both chronicle the fallout of Capote's publication of a chapter from his unfinished novel Answered Prayers in Esquire Magazine revealing the dirty little secrets of several of his high-society friends. Rich elegant queens of American elite, whom he dubbed "his swans," were portrayed as vicious, petty gossipmongers. Babe Paley, Lee Radziwell, Slim Keith all froze him out of their circle and he languished in a whirlpool of booze and drugs. CZ Guest remained a friend. Leamer offers biographies of seven of these women--Gloria Guinness and Marella Agnelli were not included in the FX series. Pamela Churchill makes a cameo appearance at the infamous black and white ball. Leamer's book is tight and economical, drawing parallels between Capote's tortured bio and those of his swans. The screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz has imagined several additional chapters to Answered Prayers as well as Capote encountering James Baldwin and the Maylses Brothers (Grey Gardens) filming the black and white ball.

I don't think Capote ever finished Answered Prayers. The series imagines he did but burned the manuscript and screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz imagines endings for each of the characters in the book. It's a fascinating read but not very in-depth.

Book Review: Thank You, Mr. Nixon

(Downloaded from my Kindle for $5.95. Read mostly on my I-phone) I was intrigued by the first story in this collection where a Chinese girl writes a letter to the late president who opened up relations between her country and the US. In the first line she says she's sorry he's in hell while she's in heaven. That's a grabber. What follows is a series of interconnected tales of Chinese people in China, America, and Hong Kong and how they deal with cultural displacement. "No politics, just make money," says Tina Ko whose three daughters each react differently to China's authoritarian regime. That advice reverberates through the stories as the characters' choices have great impact. "Rothko, Rothko" was probably my favorite. As a side hustle, an English Literature professor in NYC commissions an artist to create an imitation Rothko for Tina and her husband Johnson. Meanwhile he has to report a favorite student for using AI on her paper on Middlemarch. When is it best to be totally honest? He tries to help the artist whose mother is sick in China and relies on her daughter for financial help but must report the student who will certainly be suspended. The conflicts are fascinating.

Book Review: My Name Is Barbra

(A Christmas present. Finally finished two and a half months later) As I was reading this door-stopper of an autobiography on the subway, a woman said to me as she was exiting, "I admire you, sir." I was startled and said, "Why, because I'm reading this huge book?" She laughed and nodded her head. The sheer size of Streisand's enormous tome is not surprising when you start reading it and how she relies every detail of every experience she's every had. Some would call her obsessed or controlling. If she were a man, she would be labelled commanding and thorough. But despite the meticulousness, My Name Is Barbra is an engrossing account of one of the most unique and talented entertainers of her time, certainly the best singer and among the best actresses. 

From the decoration of her dressing rooms to the sound mixing of her albums to directorial decisions, Streisand leaves nothing out. If you want to know how to launch a career, put together a TV special, mount a concert tour, deal with difficult studio heads, furnish a home, or process an insanely jealous mother--Babs will let you know how. We learn so much about Broadway, Hollywood, political activism and the music biz, it's like a college seminar. The personal side is not neglected with honest appraisals of her two marriages (to Elliot Gould--they were both too young--and James Brolin--he arrived in her life at exactly the right time) as well her many extended relationships and dalliances. There are also the tragic might-have-been projects such as The Normal Heart, a remake of Gypsy and a sequel to The Way We Were. A fat, juicy lovefest for Streisand fans--of which I am one.

Book Review: Manhattan Beach

(Found for free in library box outside of a church near our house.) I enjoyed Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, Look at Me and Emerald City, so when I found a free copy of Manhattan Beach, I snatched it up. As with her previous works, this is a well-written, engrossing story, also extremely well-researched about the period (the Depression and WWII). But I had trouble caring about the three protagonists and figuring out Egan's theme or message to the reader. Is it the shifting nature of identity? Anna, the female diver, her father Eddie, a small-time semi-hood, and his boss Dexter, a big -time hood, all have to take on different guises when necessity or opportunity prevails. They each must take extreme measures to survive and maybe that's Egan's message about America in this era. Economic disaster and war drastically alter the lives of all.

The stories intertwine and the final resolution was satisfying as far as the father and daughter go, but without revealing too much, Dexter just drops out of the picture and his story is not resolved. Also I didn't get the reasons why Eddie and Dexter meet similar fates.

But Egan does get the evocation of New York in the 1930s and '40s right. The social morays and standards which dictate the characters' choices are clear. I also liked the supporting characters Brianne, Anna's hard-bitten but practical aunt, and Nell, Anna's worldly girlfriend, as well as Dexter's depressed desperate sister-in-law. A mixed bag.

Book Review: Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and the Romance of the Century

(Bought for $4.95 at Central Books, Doylestown, PA) Hollywood Reporter Executive Editor Stephen Galloway's detailed account of the intense, rollercoaster relationship between Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, two of the most glamorous stars of the 20th century, relies mostly on other biographies, letters, diary entries, and memoirs including those of Olivier himself. There are some original interviews and new insights into Leigh's misunderstood mental illness from psychologists. The emphasis is on the romance and break-up with additional commentary on their stage and film projects. Leigh was the big star when she unexpectedly grabbed the most sought-after female role in Hollywood history--Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. She etched another screen memory into history with her Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire. Olivier had to take a back seat until he broke through with definite Shakespeare interpretations of Titus Andronicus, Henry V, Richard III, and Hamlet. Leigh's star faded as Olivier's burned brighter. A cruel industry with few roles for older women shut her out. Plus her mental instability drove Olivier away and into the arms of the more stable and centered Joan Plowright. A fascinating read, but I would have liked more information about the filming of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and Ship of Fools (in which Leigh played characters amazingly like herself). The cover photo is beautiful with both subjects laughing hysterically as they arrive at an airport somewhere. I don't know if the Oliviers were truly the "Romance of the Century." The Burtons (Liz and Dick) or the Duke and Duchess of Windsor may have that title.

Book Review: Armageddon in Retrospect

(Hardback in good condition. Bought for $7.95 at the Bucks County Bookstore, Doylestown, PA) Still more Vonnegut as I continue on my quest to read all of his miscellaneous posthumously published pieces. This collection has the common theme of the horrors of war and what it does to normally good people. This has ten short stories, one long non-fiction piece on his experience as a prisoner of war during the fire-bombing of Dresden, a letter written to his family as he waits to be transported back to the States, his last written speech (given at Clowes Hall in Indianapolis by his son Mark after Kurt's death), and an introduction by Mark.

The terror and devastation of warfare hits the hardest in his nonfiction piece, Wailing Shall Be in All Streets. The litany of death and destruction is truly stunning. My favorite story was Guns Before Butter wherein three American POWs scratch out recipes in notebooks for all the foods they'll eat when they get home. Their 60-ish German guard is also made a fully realized human being. While Spoils, Brighten Up and Just You and Me, Sammy depict Americans who cross over the line into greed and plunder. The sci-fi story Great Day was confusing to me. The premise of soldiers from 2037 time travelling back to combat their 1918 counterparts didn't quite make sense. Was it for show for a 21st century world without war? It wasn't made clear. The Commandant's Desk imagines a world where the Cold War turns hot and Americans occupy Eastern Europe and Russia after conquering the Commies, turning out to be just as harsh and cruel as any other victorious invading army. The final title story is a weird fantasy on the Devil and Armageddon, dripping with irony.

Book Review: Look at the Birdie

(Downloaded from the Libby App and read on my I-Phone) Still devouring the miscellaneous works of Kurt Vonnegut, slowly working my way through all of his short stories. I should have read this collection of unpublished works before While Mortals Sleep since it was published first. This set of 14 stories is much darker in tone than Mortals. People get killed, disillusioned, framed and thrown in prison, and their nasty inner selves are exposed. The tone is set by the first story Confido in which a new-fangled doodad speaks your inner thoughts aloud to you and nearly ruins the inventor's family. Most of the tales are short and stabbing like knife wounds, the exception is Ed Luby's Key Club, a crime-soaked novella which reads like a nightmare noirish film script. An innocent couple is caught up in a web of danger when they leave a cheap tip for the titular club-owner, a mob boss. It's soaked with violence and sleaze, the resolution is ridiculous, but I had to keep reading it. Vonnegut had mastered the art of holding the reader by the proverbial throat and not letting go till the last sentence. Hall of Mirrors, Nice Little People and The Petrified Ants contain elements of sci-fi and fantasy with pointy edges. A Song for Selma returns to the whimsy of Vonnegut's other stories of a high-school band teacher and the joys and pain of teenage love. King and Queen of the Universe is a nice moral tale of the price of privilege and growing up. The collection is introduced with a letter from Vonnegut on his aims as a writer, offering an insight into his state of mind as he struggled to find his voice.