Word: grin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Grin...
...with this paradox that journalist Francois Maspero describes his first novel, Cat's Grin. The tale of a thirteen-year-old boy who seeks his deported parents and missing brother during the upheaval of the French Liberation after the Second World War, Cat's Grin is about the author's own childhood. Yet Maspero protests that the book is "not an autobiography--definitely...
DESPITE ITS energetic style, however, Cat's Grin has some problems of structure and voice. Perhaps because of his background as a journalist, Maspero feels compelled to tell all. Jarringly, he departs from Cat's limited point of view to give the reader information which the thirteen-year-old could not possibly perceive...
...brother with whom he shared those dreams has attained immeasurably more. As a result, says Danny, "I have been living so long with 'Neil Simon's brother' " -- sometimes, erroneously, with "Neil Simon's younger brother" -- "that I'm thinking of changing my name." He adds, with the grin of a borsch-belt comic trying a little too hard, "That always gets a laugh." In fact, there is often a tinge of sadness in Danny's jokes about the situation. He admits, "The more famous Neil became, the more difficult...
...trouble." Watch Cray in performance and it is easy enough to see how he could still get in harm's way. He has a voice that sounds as if he gargles with Old Grand-Dad and a sly smile that looks like an open invitation. The grin does not come easy, but upon arrival it is ! bright enough to beam ships through a fog. All that fits nicely. The blues, after all, have always been music about trouble that is only going to get you into more of the same...