Word: memoirize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...medieval Tuscan village of Sutri (pop. about 5,000) is inhabited, says Rips, by sundry eccentrics, among them a blind bootmaker, an old-timer known to possess supernatural powers in the laying of hands on ailing tractor engines and an illiterate postman. In this slight travel memoir, Rips, a displaced Nebraskan, limns the local characters, as well as the Etruscan culture that bred them. These drolleries are best digested over an espresso at a Sutri cafe; failing that, any Starbucks will...
...story of a woman born on January 1, 1900, but we eventually figure out that it’s just Bruno talking, and talking faster and faster the further along we get. He seems to be in a hurry. The novel takes a wholeheartedly absurd stab at the memoir genre, and, according to its own publicity materials, succeeds admirably (as books always do in publicity handouts). The life of the century through the life of this woman with the little blue dress, as it were. The memoir of this “woman” begins with her childhood...
...subtitle is misleading. Denis Johnson’s Seek is not so much a collection of journalistic efforts as it is a fragmented memoir, diffracting observations of fringe elements at home and abroad through the prism of the author’s opinions. He travels to biker revivals, Alaska, the American Southwest and Liberia. He recounts his brief Boy Scout experiment in the Philippines. He marvels at the intersection between his values and those of violent militia members. And while Johnson always remains the outsider—a stranger attempting self-understanding through observing the natives—the strength...
...might expect a mother's memoir about a handicapped daughter to be a tale of tragedy or an account of a miraculous breakthrough. Exiting Nirvana (Little, Brown; 225 pages; $23.95), Clara Claiborne Park's new book about her autistic daughter Jessy, is neither--or perhaps it is both. Jessy's autism is incurable, but her story is nonetheless one of triumph, of a thousand small skills arduously acquired and a thousand more yet to be mastered...
...almost hear the pitch for Fisher's screenplay, currently in production and now fleshed out in his memoir: Dickens in Cleveland! The Color Purple, but true and male and set in the 1960s! The facts of his life have a movie-of-the-week ring: relentlessly abusive foster care; redemption through military service; and irrepressible intellect. But detailed accounting distinguishes the tale, and Fisher's searing, luminous portrait of his childhood transcends the familiar, as does his retroactive (and likely hard-won) tenderness toward the boy no one else loved...