Eleven Brief Book Reviews - oh the joy of reading

I can’t stop reading!  Spurred by a client who writes humorous short essays, I keep finding wonderful, funny women to share.  And there are lots of other women from Queen Elizabeth II to Josephine Baker, a queen in her own right; so much to learn, so little time.   

Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure by Rinker Buck (Avid Reader Press 2022)

As we watch the mighty Mississippi getting shallower and shallower in the fall of 2022 due to drought, I’m glad I read this book.  I now understand that above Cairo, IL, where the Ohio meets the Mississippi, both rivers are bucolic, with more or less natural banks and local docks.  Below that, the Corps of Engineers has groomed the Mississippi into a shipping channel.  Muddy banks are now unnatural and unwalkable rip-rap of huge concrete blocks.  There is no pleasure boating.  Amateurs are a danger to themselves and the huge barge conglomerations that are precisely powered up and down the river by professional pilots in huge tug boats.  Rinker Buck is an affable tour guide and I enjoyed joining his foolhardy trip in a flatboat.

Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis (Hachette 2022)
What a woman!  And I knew little about her except photos of the topless banana dance from her early Paris career.  Tracing Baker’s life from birth in St. Louis, Lewis emphasizes her amazing work from 1940 through 1944 as a spy for the British and the Gaullists.  Beloved entrainer in Europe and North Africa, her ability to travel and perform served as the cover for information gathering and communication at the highest secret levels.  This is an informative read, but I did not love the writing.  Lewis seems compelled to repeat endlessly the dangers faced by Baker and her entourage.  Once you get the hang of the repetition, you can skim at will. Unfortunately, many of the sources used by Lewis are long out of print, and never translated from French.  It would be interesting to read these original accounts written by her fellow spies. 

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo (Avid Reader Press 2019)

In my last set of short reviews, I covered Lisa Taddeo’s new book of short stories Ghost Lover. It was not a favorite, but I wanted to read her previous best-seller non-fiction book Three Women.  It’s about a portion of three women’s sex lives.  It is billed as non-fiction, but from the beginning, it read as fiction.  The three women: Maggie from Fargo ND who is sexually involved with her high-school teacher while in high school, Lisa from Indiana whose husband won’t touch her, and Sloane from Newport RI, who enjoys threesomes with her husband either watching or participating.  It’s a quick read, and the subject matter is interesting.  My takeaway is that women still come out on the short end of the sexual revolution, feeling guilty about their pleasure and protecting their exploiters.  Granted, no men were able to present their points of view in this book.

The Palace Papers by Tina Brown (Crown 2022)

The Queen dies one week to the day after I finished reading The Palace Papers.  I was prepared for the funeral.  Brown covers the last 20 years of the Royal Family, picking up where her first Royal Family book, The Diana Chronicles, ends.  Brown’s writing is engaging; she’s a journalist by trade.  She’s British, she’s connected, and she loves a good story.  If you are “Royal curious”, as I was, enjoy this book.  As for Diana, except that she seems to have been a better mother than most royals, this book turned me off to her entirely. 

The End by Salvatore Scibona (Riverhead Book 2008)

Aghhhh, this book was so dense.  When it was published, it was shortlisted for the National Book Award and winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award.  I picked it up because in my last set of reviews, I read and commented on his second book, The Volunteer.  In ’08, the literary folks went wild for Scibona’s style, a combination, they said, of T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce.  Now that should have told me not to read this book.

The End is about Italian immigrants at the turn of the 20th century through the mid-50s.  Mostly set around Cleveland, the locus is as dim as the city where the sun shines only 166 days a year.  The plot, if there is one, is told in flashbacks from the August 15th Feast of the Assumption.  But I only figured this out after I completed the book and was compelled to reread the first several chapters, trying to understand the sequence of events.  Aghhhh, don’t waste your time unless you are forced to write a term paper on novels that needed better editing.

Would Everybody Please Stop? Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas by Jenny Allen (Sarah Crichton Books, 2017)

Continuing my search for funny women authors over 50, I stumbled across Jenny by researching her agent for a client of mine.  In her essay called “Canonize Me” she uses her newly discovered spiritual superpowers to right all the wrongs in our lives—like eliminating fat-free half and half, reruns of Two and a Half Men, single-ply toilet tissue, and Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kolb.  She made flossing bad for us.  You have to love this woman.  Enjoy this collection of essays, I did. 

I Got Sick and Then I Got Better a play by Jenny Allen

A monologue developed by Allen after her illness with cancer.  She was diagnosed with endometrial cancer and underwent a hysterectomy to treat it. Analysis of the tissue from her hysterectomy uncovered stage IIc ovarian cancer.  I know from my aunt’s experience with uterine cancer that many “female problems” present to a physician as heartburn, or bloated feeling, or random pains in the stomach.  And by the time they are diagnosed, often a year or more has passed with worthless treatment for the wrong ailment.  So it was with Jenny Allen.  Makes you cry and maybe laugh.  Ladies, please use female doctors!

 

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, read by Anne-Maria Nebirge (Blackstone Publishing, 2019)

Crazy, mingled stories of Black women (mostly lesbians, mostly taking place in the UK).  At first, I was put-off by the premise all-Black female lesbian theater—the writers, producers, directors, and actors.  But by the time I’d had enough of one character, another tangential one is developed and off you go.  I listened to the book in 16 hours on a trip to and from Stratford, ON.  Nebirge is a good reader.  The frequent change of location, and character focus mixed it up just enough, and the resolution was clever.  This book won the Booker Prize in 2019.

 

Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails by Estelle-Sarah Brille (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022) originally published in French in 2018

One line of my ancestors is from Versailles, FR.  They owned and managed a sugar cane plantation on the island of Guadeloupe in the West Indies.  In 1848, pushed out by the largest and last of the many slave revolts, they left everything, and boarded a ship for New Orleans.  Speaking only French, they felt welcome in New Orleans, but there was no future for a farmer.  So, like many immigrants from the French West Indies, the deLaureal family made their way slowly up the Mississippi and settled in St. Louis.  Papa Dor and Mama Tee purchased land northwest of the city and named their new home Florissant.  The original home still stands and the surrounding suburb bears the name Florissant. 

Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails is a generational story of families who intermarry, depend upon siblings and cousins, fight in local riots, and eventually emigrate to the Homeland, France.  Well-written.  I enjoyed learning more of the contemporary history of Guadeloupe.  The French aren’t a benevolent colonial power, and today, they pretty much ignore their West Indian possessions.  Though I got the impression that citizens from the West Indies are treated better than those from North Africa.  Just an impression as the book does not deal with French politics.  A good read to broaden your horizons. 

About My Mother: True Stories of a Horse-Crazy Daughter and Her Baseball-Obsessed Mother by Peggy Rowe (Forefront Books, 2018)

The first of Peggy’s funny books.  I call her Peggy because I know she would be a BBF if we were to meet.  Heartwarming, easy to read, and occasionally laugh-out-loud.  An excellent gift book for a special mother in your life.

Vacuuming in the Nude and Other Ways to Get Attention by Peggy Rowe (Forefront Books 2022)

She’s so funny!  Here Peggy shows us how to make a new book out of her previously published stories.  They are tied together with her clever narrative, and I didn’t feel anything but pleasure reading this. 

Short Book Reviews – Gems from the Backlist

We are obsessed with the “new”—mostly due to intense promotional efforts on behalf of deodorants, clothing styles, restaurants, and books. Books from earlier years of a publisher or author are called the backlist. Look there for bestsellers that are now covered with dust, just the thing for a library search.

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Black Spring in the Arts - Five Chicago Productions by Black Creators

In the Fall of 2021, all seven new productions opening on Broadway were by Black playwrights. This Spring, Chicago is flooded with Black cultural productions. Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater, TimeLine Theater, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater—and those are just the ones that I attend. Why this bounty of great and good art?

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Quick Book Reviews - January through April 2022

 

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker (Doubleday, 2020)

A must-read—because we understand so little about schizophrenia. Well written and understandable. The point of view is that of a family of 12 children, 5 of whom develop schizophrenia. The family became a major contributor of DNA samples to medical research for the genetic basis for the condition. Hidden Valley Road will likely change your understanding of mental illness.

The Swimmers a Novel by Julie Otsuka (Penguin Random House, 2022)

Julie Otsuka writes sad books. Her first two, The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine deal with displaced Japanese in the U.S. Buddha is told by Japanese picture brides who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900. The Emperor is about Japanese internment camps in the U.S. during WW II. The Swimmers is about dementia. The writing throughout is elevating—rhythmic, description, engrossing. But if you are getting on in age, prepare to be saddened by the description Otsuka writes about her mother (presumably) diminishing every day. The New York Times Review of Books gave The Swimmers front page coverage, a long review, and never mentioned that it was about dementia. I give them red marks for that—not honest with the reader.

The Summer Country, a Novel by Lauren Willig (William Morrow, 2014)

To learn more about Barbados after my trip there for a bridge tournament, I chose this historical fiction as a good starting place. Situated on Barbados in the both the early and mid-19th century, we learn the family history of early planters on the island. There are wealthy British plantation (sugar cane) owners and their slaves. There are indentured laborers from Scotland, called “Red Knees”, the badges from working on their knees in the fields. There is an ill-fated slave revolt. There is the growth of a small but industrious class of freemen as slavery is outlawed in England. Plotwise it’s a predictable romance, but the historical background is informative.

The Childhood of Jesus (Viking, 2013), The Schooldays of Jesus (Viking 2016), The Death of Jesus (Viking 2020) – three short novels by J. M. Coetzee

I began this series with the last book—picked up just because it is written by Coetzee, a formidable writer. It was interesting enough to make me read the trilogy. The setting is dystopian, but not futuristic. The plot is interesting—a young boy, David, abandoned on the voyage from the old world to the new is rescued by a kind-hearted single man. They eventually form a family unit with a self-contained woman who wants to be a mother. As David grows, he is drawn away from the family and develops a following of eccentrics. He dies as a teenager. There are a few plot points that are analogous to the story of Jesus, but don’t let a search for the meaning of the titles influence your reading. These short books are worthy on their own.

Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age by Sara Wheeler (Pantheon Books, [2019]

If you enjoy Russian literature, this book will reward you. Wheeler is a well-known travel writer, who hangs her travel narratives on unique attractions, mostly the Artic and Antarctic. Here she visits the homes and territories of famous Russian writers. Since they mostly lived in northwest Russia, I was interested because we visited St. Petersburg and areas west to the Baltic. Another book by Wheeler that I found fascinating is O My America!: Six Women and Their Second Acts in a New World. In it Wheeler travels in the U.S. following the trails of woman in the 19th century who immigrate or visit the U.S. and find new lives in their audacious endeavors.

I’m Dyin’ Here: A Life in the Paper, by Tim Grobaty (Brown Paper Press, 2015)

Love newspapers and magazines? Sad about their demise or reincarnation as digital publications? You will enjoy Grobaty’s memoir about 40 years writing humorous columns for the Long Beach newspaper. He’s the quintessential homeboy. His love for Long Beach, his family, and his colleagues shines through. His columns interstice the memoir. I didn’t put it down until I read it through. Much fun.

Lyndon Johnson: The Passage to Power by Robert Caro (Knopf, 2013) Fourth in the LBJ biography series by Caro.

For history wonks only. This is the fourth of Caro’s series about LBJ. It covers the time from his election to the Vice Presidency to the passage of the civil rights legislation. All four books are masterful and have changed my views about Texas, politics, Washington D.C., the Kennedys—so many of the historical events and people who surrounded my life from childhood. Highly recommended reading. Caro is still working on the Fifth book about Johnson and the War in Viet Nam. He’s in his 80’s, fingers crossed he makes it through to publication.

We'll Laugh About This (Someday): Essays on Taking Life a Smidge Too Seriously by Anna Lind Thomas (Thomas Nelson, 2021)

Truth: I read this as research for my client, a writer of humorous essays. What a delightful discovery. Anna Lind Thomas is funny! Laugh out loud funny! Read this book and enjoy. She has another coming out later this year.

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth (Overlook Press 2002) originally published in 1932

Similar to Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, but not as long nor as slow. This is the story of a military family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the brink of WWI. Beautifully writing. Like Buddenbrooks, you constantly wanted to grab the characters by the shoulders and shake them into awareness. Great read for history lovers.

I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being A Woman by Nora Ephron (Alfred Knopf 2006)

Another research book worth sharing. Ephron never grows old. Though in this book when she laughingly talks about death, it’s hard not to wince. She was writing in her mid-60s and died at 71. A great read especially if you have already read it once.

Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan (Penguin 2021)

Ryan writes about Ireland; about how the land occupies the people. He writes beautifully about small people in small places. Though I felt the plot was a bit “pushed”, the book is still worth a read – as are all of his other books.

“Good Night, Oscar” written by Doug Wright, directed by Lisa Peterson, starring Sean Hayes, produced by The Goodman Theatre

People of a certain age (old) remember Oscar Levant as the acerbic side-kick in movie musicals, the quick-witted panel member on TV game shows, and the concert pianist known for interpreting the music of George Gershwin (Levant’s contemporary who died in 1937 at age 38). As he aged and waxed and waned in popularity, his mental illness became his trademark. He had pronounced tics, shaking hands, a wobbly walk. He was addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, and prescription drugs. During his lifetime, and still today, there is no cure for schizophrenia. Though producing a calming effect in the brain, the drugs debilitated the body. He was a mess, but a polymath with a brilliant mind and a fantastic wit.

Parr and Levant on the Tonight Show

Jack Parr was the TV late-night star personality on NBC in the early 60s. The play is based on Parr’s exploitation of Levant’s “off the rails” persona to grab ratings. It’s one Tonight Show, from LA, an admirable constraint for the roller-coaster of events on stage. Levant is released on a four-hour pass from Mt. Sinai Mental Health Center to his wife’s care, accompanied by a hospital aide carrying a medical bag of emergency drugs. And the action begins…

Sean Hayes (Oscar Levant) has left behind his various TV characters—he is Levant. Brilliant performance.

Emily Bergt (June Levant) embodies the loving, hating, frustrated wife. Her costume by Emilio Sosa is stunning—early 60s Dior at its best.

Peter Grosz (Bob Sarnoff, head of NBC) is sufficiently snide and menacing as he tries to control Parr and later Levant.

Ben Rappaport (Jack Parr) is a conniving, undermining buddy to Levant, but could add depth to the character by using more of Parr’s physical mannerisms and vocal pattern.

Ethan Slater (Max Weinbaum) is a perfect suck-up fanboy to Levant as he preps guests for Parr’s show.

Tramell Tillman (Alvin Finney, the hospital aide) plays it straight, challenged but not overwhelmed by his manic charge.

John Zdrojeski (George Gershwin) looks like a handsome Hugh Hefner slinking around in a silk dressing gown. He shows no empathy to Levant’s problems—because he is a schizophrenic apparition.

We saw the fifth preview of this premier production. It was polished, though much will be tightened as it inevitably goes to Broadway. The crown jewel of the performances is Hayes playing a totally manic version of Rhapsody in Blue. Yes, folks, he is actually playing it. Show-stopping. See Good Night, Oscar if you can get a ticket.

There are not yet production stills, but this video montage will give a feeling for Good Night, Oscar.

"Gem of the Ocean" by August Wilson, produced by The Goodman Theater

Photo credits: Goodman Theater

This play was so strange, it could only be an allegory. Though not the first play that Wilson wrote in his ten-play Pittsburgh Century Cycle – one for each decade from 1900 – 1990, Gem of the Ocean is the first in order of time—set in 1904 when many Blacks were former slaves. Emancipation was 1863, and the war did not end until 1865, so Blacks in their 50s and older were likely born slaves.

Such is the case at the Pittsburgh Hill District home, where Aunt Ester (read “ancestor”) lives with Eli and Black Mary. Neither are related to Aunt Esther, but they take care of her, as does her friend Solly. He and Eli are former workers on the Underground Railway. Ester claims to be 285 years old – dating back to the time of her arrival from Africa and sale into slavery. Her house is where Blacks come to be “washed” – a hypnotic journey led by Aunt Ester on an imaginary boat called the Gem of the Ocean, to the Isle of Bones (the remains of dead slaves), and back.

There is a young Black, Citizen Burton, recently moved from Alabama, who comes to Aunt Ester to be washed and made whole after losing his moral compass. From this, the plot of deception, death, murder, and eventually salvation derives. Going through the story arc is not relevant for these comments. What is important is Wilson’s depiction of the need for younger Blacks to learn the soullessness of slavery—to take the journey with Aunt Ester and former slaves. This provides the moral compass in their development so they understand and embrace the crusade for freedom.

Wilson makes clear, freedom is not just the abolition of slavery. Blacks are still enslaved by poverty, lack of education, Jim Crow laws in the South, blatant and subtle discrimination in the North.

For me, the play was slow and droning. The actors were excellent. The set was evocative of place and time. But August Wilson did his job. I learned about a time never considered in my history books where a young Black 20th-century citizen came to understand how he was enslaved by the past, and what he could potentially do about the present and the future. Wisely, Wilson does not comment on the success of these endeavors – that is revealed in the chronology of the other plays. Wilson died in 2005.

For those interested, here are Wilson’s plays in the Pittsburgh Century Cycle in chronological order with a brief synopsis. Courtesy of breakingcharacter.com. I’ve seen five of them.

Gem of the Ocean, 1900’s (US/UK) Written in 1993

Though written second-to-last in 2003, Gem of the Ocean kicks off the Century Cycle in the year 1904. It begins on the eve of Aunt Ester's 285th birthday. When Citizen Barlow comes to her Hill District home seeking asylum, she sets him off on a spiritual journey to find a city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The Broadway run of Gem of the Ocean starred Phylicia Rashad and earned five Tony Award nominations, including Best Play.

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, 1910’s (US/UK) Written in 1984

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is set in a Pittsburgh all-Black boarding house in 1911. The play explores the lives of each denizen of the boarding house, who all have different relationships to the legacy of slavery and to the urban present. They include the proprietors, an eccentric clairvoyant with a penchant for old country voodoo, a young homeboy up from the South, and a mysterious stranger who is searching for his wife.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, 1920’s (US/UK) Written in 1982

This cornerstone play — recently adapted in to a Netflix film starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman — was the first penned play of the Cycle, honoring the life of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, the “Mother of Blues.” The year is 1927 and Ma Rainey is recording new sides of old favorite songs in a rundown studio in Chicago. Fiery and determined, Ma Rainey fights to retain control over her music while her cocky trumpet player, Levee, dreams of making his own name in the business. More than music goes down in this riveting portrayal of rage, racism, self-hatred, and exploitation.

The Piano Lesson, 1930’s (US/UK) Written in 1986

It is 1936, and Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in a battered truck loaded with watermelons to sell. He has an opportunity to buy some land down-home, but he has to come up with the money right quick. He wants to sell an old piano that has been in his family for generations, but he shares ownership with his sister and it sits in her living room. She has already rejected several offers because the antique piano is covered with incredible carvings detailing the family’s rise from slavery. Boy Willie tries to persuade his stubborn sister that the past is past, but she is more formidable than he anticipated.

This touchstone work earned the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and five Tony Award nominations, including Best Play.

Seven Guitars, 1940’s (US/UK) Written in 1995

In the backyard of a Pittsburgh tenement in 1948, friends gather to mourn for a blues guitarist and singer who died just as his career was on the verge of taking off. The action that follows is a flashback to the busy week leading up to Floyd's sudden and unnatural death. Part bawdy comedy, part dark elegy, and part mystery, Seven Guitars was a Finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Fences, 1950’s (US/UK) Written in 1984

This sensational drama centers around Troy Maxson, a former star of the Negro baseball leagues who now works as a garbage man in 1957 Pittsburgh. Excluded from the major leagues during his prime for being Black, Troy has grown embittered, straining his relationships with his wife and his son, who now wants his own chance to play ball. Revived in 2010 starring Denzel Washington in the lead role, the play originally starred James Earl Jones as Troy Maxson. Fences was yet another awards darling when it first premiered, earning the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play, in 2010.

Two Trains Running, 1960’s (US/UK) Written in 1990

Memphis Lee's coffee shop is located in a Pittsburgh neighborhood on the brink of economic development. As the play unfolds, we follow the characters who hang out there: a local intellectual, an elderly man who imparts the secrets of life as learned from a 322-year-old sage, an ex-con, a numbers runner, a laconic waitress who slashed her legs to keep men away, and a developmentally disabled man who was once cheated out of a ham. With Chekhovian obliqueness, Two Trains Running reveals the simple truths, hopes, and dreams of this group, creating a microcosm of an era and a community on the brink of change. Two Trains Running earned its place as a Finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Jitney, 1970’s (US/UK) Written in 1979

During the 1970s, regular taxi cabs would not drive to the Hill District in Pittsburgh, so residents turned to unofficial and unlicensed taxi cabs called jitneys. The play follows one such company, owned by Jim Becker, on the day his son, Booster, is released from jail early after serving twenty years for the murder of his college girlfriend. When news comes in that the building the station is located in is to be condemned, the estranged father and son must learn to fight back and try to build bridges. This tender, tragic look into a turbulent time premiered in 1982, making it the first play of the Cycle that Wilson penned.

King Hedley II, 1980’s (US/UK) Written in 1991

Peddling stolen refrigerators in the feeble hope of making enough money to open a video store, King Hedley, a man whose self-worth is built on self-delusion, is scraping in the dirt of an urban backyard, trying to plant seeds where nothing will grow. Getting, spending, killing, and dying in a world where getting is hard and killing is commonplace are threads woven into this 1980's installment in the author's renowned Century Cycle. Drawing on characters established in Seven Guitars, King Hedley II shows the shadows of the past reaching into the present as King seeks retribution for a lie perpetrated by his mother regarding the identity of his father. Premiering in 1999, the play was a Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Radio Golf, 1990’s (US/UK) Written in 1995

A fast-paced, dynamic, and wonderfully funny work about the world today and the dreams we have for the future. Set in Pittsburgh in the late 1990s, it’s the story of a successful entrepreneur who aspires to become the city’s first Black mayor. But when the past begins to catch up with him, secrets are revealed that could be his undoing. The most contemporary of all August Wilson’s work, Radio Golf is the final play in his unprecedented ten-play cycle. Completed shortly after his death in 2005, this bittersweet drama of assimilation and alienation traces the forces of change on a neighborhood and its people caught between history and the twenty-first century.