Tag: book reviews

Review: My Mother was Nuts

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I know what you’re thinking. Dany, you read another comedian memoir? Yeah, I did.

This time around it was Penny Marshall’s My Mother Was Nuts which opens with the fun story of the modern-era (now deceased) Ms. Marshall’s house being broken into by two young kids dressed as ninjas with samurai swords.

A promising opening.

It definitely grabs your attention. And unlike Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher which I read earlier this year, Penny Marshall has a lot to say about her friendship with Carrie Fisher. Carrie must have forgot to mention that while married to Paul Simon she accidentally set up her best, oftentimes oblivious, friend with Art Garfunkel who then went on to keep unwittingly inviting the famously toxic duo to the same places.

That seems to be my overall review of Ms. Marshall. She seems to stumble into being funny.

The book loses some traction midway when Ms. Marshall just begins recounting the details of her career. There’s some interesting facts about Hollywood history, particularly around her directing Big and A League of Their Own, but these are just interesting facts. It becomes almost a list of accomplishments, like she needs to make sure that you know why you’re here. I found the really interesting and insightful parts of the memoir to be just that–when she remembers to talk about herself.

There is a sense that fame and success changed Ms. Marshall, but not in the way it changes anyone else. Instead of becoming big headed or indifferent, she becomes a series of sighs. A long, unending line of ‘and, well, then this happened. What are you gonna do?’

Review: Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life

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I remember a copy of Cruel Shoes that belonged to my father sitting on the bookshelf and feeling compelled to read it–in large part because my father hates Comedians. My father does not trade in Comedy, that’s my mother’s sole business, so it always struck me that Steve Martin must be somehow special.

I remember Cruel Shoes very vaguely because I was a lot younger when I read it and I remember it as sort of a sparse humorous collection of jokes or bits. It wasn’t very memorable for me, I’m sorry to say, more memorable that my father owned it.

Given my partner’s own predilection for Steve Martin, and this errant book on the shelf, I always sort of assume some mythic quality to Steve Martin. Reading Born Standing Up it is a much more genuine look at him, his career, and what informs his choices—not just throwing up jokes as a deflection. At one point after discussing his father Martin notes that if you’re required to experience pain and abuse in order to get into comedy as a business, you need not worry about his qualifications.

The book was very somber and honest, detailing how ideas were developed as well as panic attacks and hypochondria, not lingering on any one problem but always moving forward to the next thing, the next bit, which I’ve found to be a pattern in the memoirs of funny people.

I think that’s the real lesson to come away from an honest, relatively short blip of a book. Steve Martin knows his limits and what could drag him down, then turns and walks in the opposite direction.

I read Elton John’s autobiography!

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It’s called “Me” which is both on the nose and a manifesto.

I feel like if I could get books right as they come out I’d love to do a ‘I read this so you don’t have to!’ but I’m always behind the curve.

I get the distinct impression that whatever editors and ghost writers and cleaners-up-heroes came in to lend a hand had a full-time gig with Elton John. He writes the way he speaks, which is darling, and he isn’t afraid to take the piss at all. He’s aware, exactly, how he’s behaved historically and he’s determined not to be ashamed of it. The man has an excellent sense of humor and humility, particularly in the face of his addictions. I found his abusive romantic relationships, played up as a central theme of the Rocketman film, are lacking. He doesn’t linger. Elton John is all about accountability, particularly his own.

He doesn’t have a bad thing to say about one single person he’s known in his life, just a string of ‘life goes on’ sighs, occasional disappointments, but primarily a lot of gratitude. I was struck particularly by the way he reaches out to people if he’s heard they’ve had a difficult time that he can relate to– celebrities, people in the news, anyone he comes across’s story, he’s willing to be a friend. Some people may find that claim of his to be self aggrandizing or insincere, but I’d disagree. He talks about reaching out to addicts in the music industry and offering his advice and it strikes me like a lot of men of his generation I’ve talked to, a touch sad and wishing someone had done the same for them.

He strikes me as a good guy and also a bitch, which he fully agrees–not afraid to talk about his ego, his outbursts, his own ridiculousness, or the way he yells just like his mother. There is one picture that struck me which he captioned ‘George Michael wanted a somber affair and so naturally I am dressed as Donald Duck’.
The man is very self aware, and yeah, he does whatever he wants.

I found out after I’d read it that his former wife, Renate Blauel, had sued him over the book. I wondered if I had then read a changed or edited copy as it’s been on shelves for two years now. He honestly only has lovely things to say about her, and how sorry he is that she was dragged into his mess. That seems to be the big theme of the memoir —sorry I’m like this, thanks for coming.

Review: In The Dream House

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I am not sure I could tell you how much I adored this book.

In The Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado, in an agonizingly beautiful memoir about domestic violence , acknowledging the complexity and the difficulty of addressing domestic violence in same sex relationships out of fear of promoting stigmas against the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s heart wrenching, each chapter reflecting a different trope explored within the fantastical setting of the Dream House.

Machado’s abusive partner is only referred to as ‘The Woman in the Dream House ‘ and the book is written in second person, addressing the audience as Machado, bringing you into her seat of power and disempowerment, while walking through various memories and scenes that inform Machado’s growth and development into an adult and in her relationships. It was a deeply vulnerable and presumably honest exploration of Machado as you, the reader. It’s clear she’s a short story buff and she doesn’t shy from fictionalizing herself.

It is excellent, viscerally written and Machado’s style continually grounds the reader into her experience.

Review: If We Were Villains

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I had heard people talking about this book here and there since it was first published in 2017. The buzz around it is deserved and I believe I heard it’s being adapted to a series.

M.L. Rio creates a fantastic dark academia murder mystery with compelling characters while beating you over the head with Shakespeare quotes and all the atmosphere of a behind the scenes play. There is a distinct ambience that reminds me of working on plays when I was young and stupid and did such things.

Bright is the word that comes to mind. There’s a refreshing easiness about the writing style, pacing, and course of the story. Everything feels as though it comes together the way that it should. That’s what you’re shooting for in a good murder mystery, no sense of doubt in the reader that things could have had a different outcome.

Early on while reading it I had texted my sister trying to plug in my assumptions before I finished reading the book, so I could adequately call it. That’s another goal of writing a good murder, I think. You want the audience to engage as much as they can.

The pacing is fast, tight, and flows in a way that mirrors the play structure and sets the reader clearly as a distinct audience much in that way good Shakespeare should. I cannot fathom the research that went into this because each scene is so well crafted and mirrors the Shakespeare well.

Review: Ninth House

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I’ve read Leigh Bardugo before, specifically I read Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom a few years ago. From a promotion for Hell Bent, the second Alex Stern book which came out in January of this year, I got a chance to snag a copy of the first, Ninth House.

I feel like I’ve been kind of blessed this year in that I keep finding books that I actually like, and early on! Ninth House scratched an itch for Dark Academia, Noir, Murder Mysteries, and necromancy, ghosts, and the paranormal— anyone who knows me knows that I’d have taken any one of those individually. Ninth House delivered all.

The switching between two main timelines, illustrating Alex Stern’s, our antiheroine’s, guilt and culpability in the plot was well paced and a neat unfolding. Nothing ever felt forced or sandwiched in, though there was a distinct a and b storyline. The interwoven noir elements as she investigates a murder and the potential involvement of the magic user’s secret society houses felt like a separate style almost, the storytelling split between the mystery and the emotional involvement of Alex’s own revelations, but gently switching so that readers had natural breaks in what could be a heavy story.

It is Bardugo’s first ‘adult’ novel though I always struggle to understand what that means —it means sex. All of the excellence of her writing style, but now we can talk about hard ons. Publishing is a silly place. I’m excited now to read Hell Bent.

Review: Wishful Drinking

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Technically, this is the first book that I had finished reading this year. I have been going through a difficult time and I had this idea sprout in my head—sometime when I was reading all of those John Waters books, that I need Role Models….so naturally I went first to John Waters and then to Princess Leia.

Not because of Princess Leia, of course. While I was once a pedantic Star Wars nerd, I mentally separate the actors from the franchise. Carrie Fisher isn’t Princess Leia, she’s a punch up writer. This is much, much cooler to me. She’s someone you send a script to when you know it’s close but it ain’t gonna make it—or did, past tense, now that she’s passed on. It’s in Wishful Drinking that she shares the story about George Lucas’s intuitive costume decisions and wanting her obituary to read: drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.

My reasoning is that Carrie Fisher survived divorce and bipolar disorder and drug additions, and did so with a well known flare for humor, charm, and ‘fuck it’. I could use that sort of role model. I think anybody could.

The book is a quick 164 pages with a lot of photographs and anecdotes—this is where I noticed the trend in the memoirs I was reading. Folks stack in as many pictures as they can. Carl Reiner, whose I Just Remembered I also read early this year had a glut of photographs. It’s something both cool, reaching into history, and that I want to make fun of it. How many memoirs were you people going to write, you couldn’t cram it into one, you had to fluff it so you could get in a few sequels?

I say that lovingly.

Carl Reiner is another good role model for me. The man seemed aggressively optimistic.

But I think that’s what memoirs are best for, rooting through and finding the humanity in people and grabbing onto those traits you admire—and getting a strangle hold on them.

Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

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I am a known sucker for deals with the devil. Anyone who’s read one of my manuscripts can guess at that. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab was a recommended read that dropped in my lap, generated by an algorithm that I don’t usually pay attention to, but I decided to read it completely blind with all the spirit of why not, and it may be my first contender for favorite book of the year.

It originally came out in 2020 and I feel already late to the party of people who already know that this book is amazing, this book has a purposeful and distinctly timeless quality.

I found the pacing, character development, and flow of the story to be beautifully drawn out and balanced, shifting between scenes from the past and scenes from the present in 2014. The flow of story is important because it is reminiscent of the story’s crux, known as the darkness or Luc with whom Addie has made a deal for her soul. In her plea for time and freedom she has inadvertently rendered herself unable to leave a mark on the world around her, walking for eternity. Addie comments that Luc had initially been short, in her imagination, for Lucien but now apparently Lucifer. There is an elegant, flowing, consuming quality to the prose that mirrors its antagonistic presence well.

Ultimately, though, the most compelling nature of the book is that Addie herself is indomitable. At no point does she surrender, as Luc keeps seeking, and even in the end she is scheming her way to independence and survival. The love story that intertwines is practical in many ways while still romantic.

At 444 pages, it was a methodical, visually descriptive read and I would absolutely encourage you to seek it out.

On John Waters

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In the past year I grew really fond of reading different memoirs. It’s a daunting and heavy task, filing through lives quickly in a 300 page format. It can make life feel small, condensed to retellings of old thoughts and anecdotes. But it can also make life feel rich, remind you that each person has their own vastness. It’s the bigness and smallness of being alive.

So, this is my way of warning you that there’s going to be a lot of memoirs and biographies this year. I’ve already selected out a lot of memoirs this month to read.

When you’re grinding through the wood pulp of memoirs it gets to be hard to judge them. Do I like it for being funny, inspirational, moving, all of the above. Is there a rating system that’s going to judge one life against another? So I think I’m going to stick to talking about ones that made me think.

And that generally requires some misdirection.

So for my first foray, I’m going to talk about John Waters.

That John Waters short story I put out last year is true, I did meet him as a little kid. You can read about it here: https://aliactast.com/2022/06/11/excerpt-from-mazes/

Years ago I read an introduction Waters wrote to a book on Tennessee Williams, about how John Waters hadn’t met Tennessee Williams and was glad for it. I agree. I hope I don’t meet John Waters again. It would ruin the anecdote.

I read, recently, both Role Models and Mr Know It All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filthy Elder

I liked them both, I’m going to talk about them together.

Role Models, in particular, stuck with me. Especially the chapters on pornographers and convicts. Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in rehabilitation, but one of the things which struck me and which I think people would take for granted or overlook about John Waters is his fervent belief in rehabilitation. He’s a funny man, he’s a queer icon, he coaxed or otherwise suggested that Divine eat dog shit and declare murder legal, but at his heart he is a man who has a lot of faith in people.

That takes guts. Role Models is set up such that John interviewed various people who had inspired him, one way or another, over the years. He wanted to see how they live, how they get along now as opposed to when the world may have known them, and he wanted to give thanks for whatever part they played in his life.

There are people portrayed in the book who certainly would never have gotten a spotlight anywhere else in any other way. And that, sort of, is how I feel about memoirs. These brief glimpses into whole lives, this reminder that everyone is just out there, trucking along however they can.

John did a solid job, I think inexpertly with nothing to offer from myself about it. He did something that plants the seed of these people in other heads. That’s beautiful. Even if not everyone agrees that they should be there. You don’t get to cast judgement and John doesn’t. His brand is being nonjudgmental, whether you view it that way or not.

The second book was Mr. Know It All, a more traditional memoir filled with bits and stories and life progression. But, in some ways, it lacked the heart of Role Models. Reading them both, I think Role Models tells you more about John than the book about John.

He does devote a lot of time to talking about dying and aging and as interesting as the anecdotes about movie sets and his life are, I’m morbid and I love the grit. He goes into detail on trying acid again in his old age which sounded delightful, but also that he and so many of his friends have bought funeral plots near one another so that the party can keep going. I love that.

My thing with John Waters, the reason I like the old man so much, apart from the fact I’m some weird alt indie gonzo monster, is that so many people, especially people with some success or notoriety, look at it and say, ‘I’m amazing, I’m an auteur, you couldn’t possibly understand me, I’m on the edge of creativity’ etc etc.

There are so many people who look at their success as a success of their personal vision. John doesn’t give that impression. John seems to look at whatever success he has had and instead of lifting himself up, he says, ‘if I’m successful, there must be more people like me out there than I’d thought.’ And then everyone is less alone.

Review: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

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Making an effort to post a review every Friday!

I’ve referenced Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in the last two reviews I wrote and upon realizing that I thought maybe I should say something about this book I’ve unwittingly referenced back to multiple times. I had pegged Piranesi earlier this year as a contender for my favorite book of the year (since I’ve read it recently, of course; I certainly don’t do anything chronologically). Susanna Clark writes like a historian. Anyone who has read the introduction at the beginning of The Ladies of Grace Adieu, the collection of stories, could tell you that the references and style in her short story work is reminiscent of a researcher who has happened upon these stories and is sharing them with you purely from the perspective of historical interest. You clearly already know this history, having lived it yourself, but here is a scholarly assessment to embellish upon your public school education.

It is educational without being pretentious and it never breaks character. You are always within her world once you have consented to read it. Piranesi, I felt, accomplished this in a much shorter format—which I would argue is more difficult.

I read an absolutely dogshit review of Piranesi where the reviewer complained that Susanna Clark had phoned it in after producing the masterpiece that is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, that the story became too character and too plot driven, and that there wasn’t nearly the same psychotic attention to minuscule detail that didn’t advance anything—you can see where I’ve put things into my own words. I cannot understand a criticism less than one that is upset that book has a tightly knit plot. That’s what we all want, for a plot to fold in on itself like a musical score; criticizing Piranesi for doing what Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell does in less words is…you don’t understand fiction. You’re welcome not to like a book, but by god, what a reason.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is, of course, a difficult act to follow. Nearly a thousand pages, it stands around 782 depending on the print, and it is a complete history written in the sensibility of its characters—academic and practical scholars of English magic during the Napoleonic wars. I would argue that it is meant to be written in a way that not even Mr. Norrell could criticize it. It is a thoroughly and joyously British Book. It celebrates English character, ideals, and it’s nearly like reading Edith Hamilton’s Mythology in its textual reverence for its own story.

It is a very good feeling to read something and to feel that it couldn’t have been done any other way. That what the author intended—which as a reader you’re only guessing at—feels accomplished. The show’s effectively over. I read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as though it was truly a historical text, I paused to look up references, I enjoyed the archaic spellings of words that are period-accurate woven throughout; I really studied this book in several ways and it feels complete to me. I didn’t read it, rushing through, with the speed or mentality of a memoir or fantasy book as I usually would; instead I treated it like an academic study and I just—I have no notes. There’s nothing I could argue could be done differently or would have had a different character or appeal if done differently. The book is what it is and it is whole. Changing any aspect would both cheapen it and make it a completely different book.

That comment I made before on wanting a plot to fold in on itself like a musical score; it’s okay if you read a book and you can see the trajectory of the plot and where it is headed. I read another dogshit review recently of a different novel complaining that the reviewer skipped ahead a few chapters and figure out the ending. Well, of course you did. You read ahead of yourself. Books should have refrains and reprisals. The whole spine of a novel should be its effective foreshadowing without being terribly obvious—but yes, you’re supposed to be guessing at the ending. It’s called being engaged.

I think there is this bizarre push these days, and I’m going to blame things like cheap fx popcorn sellers, to have a twist ending. You want to be surprised by a book. But a lot of the joy, especially in a story that involves prophecy, is that you as the audience know what is happening and are watching it unfold. It is not an author’s job to psych you out. It is an author’s job to raise you to their level, it’s a communication not a deception—and what a more elbow nudging way to do that than to pretend that your fantasy is a reality that has already taken place and that everyone surely knows the punchline to.

The book is too short.