Reviewed Elsewhere
- Reviewed Elsewhere
Contributing editors Nell Altizer, Alana Bell, Judith Lütge Coullie, Michael Fassiotto, Marie-Christine Garneau, Théo Garneau, Noel Kent, John W. I. Lee, Gabriel Merle, Dawn Morais, Barbara Bennett Peterson, and Valeria Wenderoth provided the excerpts for this issue.
Publications reviewed include the American Quarterly, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, L'Espresso, Far Eastern Economic Review, French Review, French Studies, Toronto Globe and Mail, Journal of World History, The Medieval Review, Le Monde des Livres, New York Review of Books (NYRB), New York Times Book Review (NYTBR), Pacific Historical Review, L'Repubblica, Studi Francesi, Times Literary Supplement (TLS), and Washington Post National Weekly Edition (WP); and from South Africa, The African Publishing Record, Cape Argus, Cape Times, Femina, Journal of Southern African Studies, Outer West Local News, Rapport: Perspektief, Saturday Dispatch, The Sunday Independent, Transformation, and The Witness.
Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America. Walter B. Rideout. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2006. 833 pp. $60.00.
" . . . the fullness of his interviewing alone would have made this the 'definitive' biography." "In considering the importance of what made Anderson a writer, Rideout suggests the importance of his work in advertising. . . ." "Rideout devotes generous attention to Anderson's novels."
William H. Pritchard. TLS, July 14, 2006: 32.
Let Me Finish. Roger Angell. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. 302 pp. $32.95.
The long-time editor of the New Yorker, "86-year-old Angell has formed these essays, some new, some previously published in The New Yorker, into an elegant grab-bag—more of a beaded clutch, really—of moments, people and times he has known."
Michelle Orange. Globe and Mail, July 8, 2006: D4.
"Let Me Finish puts me in mind of an elderly, rather distinguished-looking man rummaging in a trunk full of old snapshots. Maybe he is not looking for anything at all. Sometimes it is simply pleasurable to visit bygone times. But if absolutely everything must be justified, let me say that he is exploring the mystery of memory. . . . Most of these pieces were written over the past decade and published in the "Personal Memory" columns of The New Yorker. They were not meant to form a memoir and, as he says, certainly do not [End Page 762] add up to a biography. Perhaps they belong to a new form to be called 'glimpses.' 'Life is tough and brimming with loss, and the most we can do about it is to glimpse ourselves clear now and then, and find out what we feel about the familiar scenes and recurring faces this time around,' Angell writes."
Russell Baker. NYRB, Aug. 10, 2006: 14–17.
The Afterlife. Donald Antrim. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006. 185 pp. $28.50.
"Donald Antrim, the American author of three (in some respects unworldly) novels, has written a memoir about his late mother, Louanne. . . . The After-life may not be the completely sustained work of art that Antrim is certainly capable of, but it is artful and affecting and, in its emotional complexity, as true, as living, a portrait as any parent, good or bad, could deserve."
Bernard Kelly. Globe and Mail, July 22, 2006: D10.
A Memoir of the Jewel. H. I. D. Awolowo. Ife-Ife, Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo UP, 2003. 112 pp. $29.95.
This account of the powerful woman and leader, based on tape recordings, takes the form of a natural conversation; however, the reader is hard-pressed to form any accurate impression of Awolowo because of poor editing. Consequently, this work constitutes a missed opportunity for disclosing to the world an exceptional figure in Nigerian public life.
Vincent T. Maphai. The African Publishing Record 31.3 (2005): 221.
An Eccentric Marriage: Living with Jim. Barbara Bailey. Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2005. 288 pp. R175.
Barbara Bailey sees her late husband Jim, proprietor of Drum magazine, as a hero because of his contribution to the black press in South Africa. Although we do not come much closer to understanding him, her diary records of how she fell in love with him when she was almost 12 and he was 31 hold the strongest appeal of the memoir.
Maureen...
