Average customer rating:
- Best part was O. Henry-like ending
- Good Book-Lousy Sheriff
- Where is the French Broad River?
- Worth Reading and Rereading
- A great read.
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If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy O
Sharyn Mccrumb
Manufacturer: Fawcett
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Similar Items:
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The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
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She Walks These Hills
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The Ballad of Frankie Silver
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The Songcatcher
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The Rosewood Casket
ASIN: 0345369068
Release Date: 1991-08-13 |
Book Description
Sheriff Spencer Arrowood keeps the peace in his small Tennessee town most of the time. Every once in a while, though, something goes wrong.
When 1960s folksinger Peggy Muryan moves to town seeking solitude and a career comeback, and she receives a postcard with a threatening message, her idyll is shattered. Then a local girl who looks like Peggy vanishes without a trace.
Although she was once famous, Peggy has no fondness for the old times. Those days are best left forgotten for Spencer Arrowood, too. But sometimes the past can't rest, and those who try to forget it are doomed to relive it....
Customer Reviews:
Best part was O. Henry-like ending.......2007-09-04
I thought that the author did a far better job with the characters of the men than with the women. Both Martha and Peggy, although central to the dual plot lines, are pretty one-dimensional. Their personalities are described, not shown, and their actions don't seem to have any basis (whether it is a crush on LeDonne or an interest in the sheriff). The only time Peggy becomes two-dimensional is at the denoument, which was startling and O. Henry-like in its twist.
Tyndall's story was poignant but, again, there was no real sense of her as a person.
In contrast, we learned alot about the sheriff and he is very likable even though he has no insight - not even into how his own mother feels about him and his brother. He is also inept as an investigator, although the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation does even worse. LeDonne is an almost existentialist character who does have insight and an interesting background but the author doesn't seem to know what to do with him once she has fleshed his character out.
I agree with other reviewers that the culprit is obvious way too early but I kept reading to see how the various plot lines were resolved. Unlikely that I would read another book by this author.
Good Book-Lousy Sheriff.......2006-08-22
As likeable and complex as he is, the detective work by the Sheriff is so negligible it makes it impossible to suspend disbelief. You've got a stalker leaving clues and bodies all over town and he's obviously zeroing in on Pretty Peggy-O, yet it never occurs to Arrowood to tap her phone, monitor her house, or even feel a lot of concern that any day now psycho Nam-dude will be paying her a visit. He just needs a date for the Reunion and some clarity about his dead brother. Ironically, he is a likalbe, sympathetic character but for his incompetence on the job. Since McCrumb does not address the passivity, I just assumed it was an oversight on her part. Other than that though, this was a good book which sharpened my appreciation for the war that generation fought. I also like LeDonne. I read this after "She Walks These Hills" which I found more absorbing.
Where is the French Broad River?.......2004-04-21
This was my introduction to the Viet Nam War. Oh, I lived through it but refused to read anything concerning that atrocity until accidentally I found this novel. Actually, one of her characters had been in that war.
After that, I was able to read other accounts and not cringe inside. In this one, she lists the "Ballad of the Knoxville Girl," which I had never heard before. At a book conference in Nashville in 1998, she sang this song to me as I waited for her to sign one of her books I had just purchased.
She is a marvelous talent in the writing field and has gone on to do more research and entertain us royally. She's not a bad singer, either.
Worth Reading and Rereading.......2003-06-25
Sharyn McCrumb is one of our finest novelists. Her characters have depth and nuance; there are surprises and suspense along the way; and she manages to touch our emotions in a way few writers do. Readers expecting a puzzle mystery may be disappointed, but that's only because McCrumb transcends the mystery genre and writes real stories about real places and real people.
I've just reread the entire Apalachian series straight through and they were just as good this time as last. Can't wait for Ghost Riders in July.
A great read........2003-05-13
Strange days track everyone down in a small mountain town. The twentieth class reunion reminds them of the contrast between who they thought they would grow up to be and who they are. For the men of the class the war was their crucible and they judge themselves on whether or not they went. For women life was a choice between two wrong answers, with the career women envying the homemakers and vice versa. When a sixties folk singer is menaced by a soldier long thought to be dead it seems that the past is inescapable. This is a moving look at a generation who had to make it up as they went along.
Product Description
If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O. 93417 (8Cassettes/11.5 hours). Copyright 1990 by Sharyn McCrumb. P 1993 by Recorded Books, Inc. Unabridged. Narrated by Sally Darling. ISBN 1556909217. (from cassettes and case)
Product Description
5 massmarket paperback Titles By Sharyn McCrumb Ballad Series : If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy-o - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter - She Walks These Hills - Ballad of Frankie Silver - The Song Catcher
Product Description
8 cassettes
Average customer rating:
- Not so much sage but quite interesting
- A nice little book
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The Old Sage of Atlantis
Willigis
Manufacturer: Amber Lotus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
German | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Occult | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
Historical | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1885394012 |
Customer Reviews:
Not so much sage but quite interesting.......2001-10-20
This book isn't a 'how to spirituality book'. It is a story and it's very interesting. It incorporates a lot into it's very few pages (only a 150 or so) and does it rater well. Reincarnation, synchronicty, utopia, mysticism, spiritual growth, pathfinding, leadership can all be tasted in this little blue book. I enjoyed this book. I have been interested in the subject of Atlantis for along time. ANd ths was the first BOOK that fed my appetite. I always wantd t hear the story of Atlantis told like a story. THis isn't it but it is a story that takes place in Atlantis. Told through the author's own past life. It tells of the quasi utopian Atlantis and it tells a pivotal story that our protagonist was attracted to discover and unveil. ANd that he does.ANd beyond all the Atlantis stuff I think it's a pretty good story. I took a little piece with me. I think it is a very good read for anone interested in Atlantis and what it could have been like.
A nice little book.......2001-10-18
I can't believe that I am the only one that has read this book here. Especially with all the recent interest in Atlantis. It's a great book. If you are interested in Atlantis and what might have been or could have been there this is a nice read for you. It tells the tale of a man drawn to search out lost Atlantis sparked by an enormous interest. THis man finds enlightenment and knowledge for all he craves and understands why he craves for Atlantis. The Altantis that is painted in this story is a beatiful land and tells the tale of paradise before it was lost. ANyway it's a nice short read for anybody who's interested in Atlantis or simply the thought of Utopia or the ancient world. Because the same old story of Apes to humans starting miraculously out of nowhere in Sumaria just is getting really boring and defensive. Let's start searching again. Let's start asking imaginative questions and wondering again. Only then can we find our way back to all our lost knowledge.
Book Description
This superb, rational, and highly readable volume answers a deeply felt need. Parents and educators alike have long struggled to understand what meanings race might have for the very young, and for ways to insure that every child grows up with a healthy sense of self. Marguerite Wright handles sensitive issues with consummate clarity, practicality, and hope. Here we have an indispensable guide that will doubtless prove a classic.
--Edward Zigler, sterling professor of psychology and director, Yale Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy
A child's concept of race is quite different from that of an adult. Young children perceive skin color as magical--even changeable--and unlike adults, are incapable of understanding adult predjudices surrounding race and racism. Just as children learn to walk and talk, they likewise come to understand race in a series of predictable stages.
Based on Marguerite A. Wright's research and clinical experience, I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla teaches us that the color-blindness of early childhood can, and must, be taken advantage of in order to guide the positive development of a child's self-esteem.
Wright answers some fundamental questions about children and race including:
- What do children know and understand about the color of their skin?
- When do children understand the concept of race?
- Are there warning signs that a child is being adversely affected by racial prejudice?
- How can adults avoid instilling in children their own negative perceptions and prejudices?
- What can parents do to prepare their children to overcome the racism they are likely to encounter?
- How can schools lessen the impact of racism?
With wisdom and compassion, I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla spells out how to educate black and biracial children about race, while preserving their innate resilience and optimism--the birthright of all children.
Customer Reviews:
Wife loved this book.......2007-09-06
We are adopting kids from Ethiopia, so I got this for my wife to read. She absolutely loved it. Not sure if it was due to our situation or if she would have loved it anyway. Brings up interesting points about inter-racial adoptions. She is recommending it to our friends and family as an good read.
What is Marguerite's race?.......2007-05-21
This book was one of the worst I have read. As a transracially adopted person, a parent with a white partner and multi-racial kids, a teacher, and a diversity director, this book is misleading. It gives teachers of young children an excuse to not talk about race. This attitude silences children. It also gives them a message that there is something wrong with race. Do we not talk about gender at an early age, hair color, eyes. Let's get all these "researchers" to live, be in and run a classroom over time. There is where your research is. White parents, don't be fooled by this book. She is making money off of your need for eduacation.
Wonderful.......2007-02-17
I have read a lot of these types of books since we are white and my son is African American. Great book for people preparing to adopt transracially. Gives you a lot to think about and prepare for. I think it's the best of these books.
I have also read the very popular "Inside Transracial Adoption" and this book takes a much more positive spin. I found the other one to be somewhat depressing. This book is much more hopeful and helpful. I consider it a must read if you are considering adopting a child of a race different than your own.
Not very good.......2007-01-08
I thought the author spent a lot of time dancing around serious issues and making everything seem lovely and dandy. She seemed afraid to go deeper into truly revolutionary parenting of black and mixed part black kids. I didn't finish the book for this reason.
More for educators, not parents........2007-01-05
This book had some good information in it, but seemed to be geared toward teachers and administrators of schools in inner-city areas where black children, presumably, are not as exposed to other races. The title was misleading to me as the book did not focus on topics, tips, or ideas for parents trying to raise a biracial child. If the title is what caught your attention, try "Does Anybody Else Look Like Me", that book is specifically for parents of biracial children and gives age-appropriate discussion topics as your child grows.
Average customer rating:
- Completely Satisfied
- Gorgeous! Useful!
- essentially....great!!
- Beautiful and Useful
- Detailed information on ingredients, equipment, & techniques
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Kitchen Essentials: The Complete Illustrated Reference to the Ingredients, Equipment, Terms, and Techniques used by Le Cordon Bleu
Le Cordon Bleu , and
Carroll & Brown
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
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Le Cordon Bleu's Complete Cooking Techniques: the indispensable reference demonstrates over 700 illustrated techniques with 2,000 photos and 200 recipes
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Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Techniques: More Than 1,000 Photographs Illustrating 300 Preparation And Cooking Techniques For Making Tarts, Pi
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Le Cordon Bleu at Home
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Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook: Home Collection
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Chocolate (Le Cordon Bleu Home Collection , Vol 8)
ASIN: 0471393487 |
Book Description
A concise, colorful resource for both the novice cook and experienced chef
This comprehensive, highly illustrated book is chock-full of enlightening and eye-opening culinary information, covering a vast range of topics that teach readers what they need to know to be successful in the kitchen—from cooking techniques and equipment to essential ingredients. Le Cordon Bleu Kitchen Essentials offers expert guidance on everything from choosing pots and pans to deboning poultry to storing ingredients—as well as logical solutions to common mistakes. The easy-to-follow text, clearly defined terms, and uncommonly helpful tips make this reference a must-have for all modern kitchens. It demonstrates techniques with 1,100 step-by-step color photographs. Plus, the book outlines the vast range of equipment, along with buying tips and cleaning and care information. Le Cordon Bleu Kitchen Essentials illustrates the cleaning and preparation of food, as well as cooking times and features classic recipes to teach the principal uses of each ingredient.
Le Cordon Bleu provides expert training in cuisine, pastry, and baking. Through its six schools, a student body of over fifty nationalities, and a distinguished team of thirty international Master Chefs, Le Cordon Bleu is dedicated to preserving and passing on the mastery and appreciation of the culinary arts.
Customer Reviews:
Completely Satisfied.......2007-07-30
My order arrived very fast and was in excellent condition. The product was brand new as stated in the description. I am really pleased with my purchase.
Gorgeous! Useful!.......2002-04-20
I've been looking for this book for ages although I didn't know it until I found it! It tells you all the basic information about nearly every possible ingredient and some basic prep info on most--how to truss poultry, scale fish, serve duck, cut and steam fruits and veggies, etc.. Also included is info about herbs and spices, different salad greens, oils, vinegars. So complete! It makes cooking seem very simple and has enabled me to experiment with confidence. And it's *beautifully* presented in full color--someone else said it could be a coffee table book and that person is absolutely right. My friends have been known to start paging through it if I leave it out. The only thing that might improve it is if there were a few actual recipes to try out--those who are looking for recipes will be disappointed as what Kitchen Essentials offers are more guidelines than recipes. I'm hoping that Le Cordon Bleu has or will put out a regular cookbook that will complement this wonderful book.
essentially....great!!.......2002-02-28
This is a wonderful book for showing you how to do all the basic preparations that make cooking fun, delicious and successful. You can easily page back and forth to find the subjects that interest you. This is an essential reference book that is beautifully photographed, easy to follow, full of terrific information and covers a wide range of topics. Anyone who is striving to become a better cook, at home or professioonally will enjoy this book as a valuable asset.
Beautiful and Useful.......2001-03-23
This book is a very useful reference; it tells you everything from how to tell when a tomato is perfect for eating to how to select a knife that will cut it perfectly. It is also stuning - it could be a coffee table book.
Detailed information on ingredients, equipment, & techniques.......2001-01-27
Kitchen Essentials is a compendium of culinary instruction and creations from the famed French cooking school with detailed information on ingredients, equipment, terms, and techniques utilized by their instructor chefs. Wonderfully illustrated throughout with full-color photography, Kitchen Essentials is a superbly presented, very highly recommended, single volume course for elegant cooking that covers fish and shellfish, meats, poultry and game, dairy products, bean and grains, vegetables (including seaweed and sea vegetables), fruits and nuts, and flavorings (including pantry extras, sweeteners, chocolate, coffee and teas).
Book Description
Published in 1916, The Story of Scotch was out of print for decades and listed at a substantial price on the rare book market. Now you can enjoy this long sought after book! *Enos Mills was the founder of Rocky Mountain National Park *Scotch, a Border Collie, played an influential part in the life and observations of this famous naturalist
Customer Reviews:
The most comprehensive book on the Schnauzer........1999-07-17
Gallant combines experience, statistics, and photography to complete a book that gives a wealth of information on the three breeds of Schnauzers. Anyone who wants to truly know about the Schnauzer SHOULD read this book.
The best book available on Schnauzers.......1999-03-27
This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in Schnauzers. Mr. Gallant has been a breeder for over 25 years in the Netherlands and currently in South Africa. Excellent information regarding temperament, grooming, training and pedigrees. The section on the Giant Schnauzer is comprehensive and accurate. I recommend this book to all who purchase a Schnauzer.
intelligent and down to earth introduction to schnauzers.......1998-07-03
This is the first book about schnauzers that I've ever read that combines European and American schnauzers in one book. There are lots of pictures of both US champions and European champions. Mr. Gallant also writes very well about temperment. I really recommend this book to every one who considers getting a schnauzer.
Book Description
Possibly the most popular single pattern of ceramic dishes is Willow Ware and this new book tells its complete story. Stemming from ancient Chinese origins, the blue transfer pattern became standardized in the early nineteenth century in England and has gone on to be interpreted in many variations to the present in America, Europe and Asia. Today, collectors can find examples in many markets of old and new wares, so their search is often happily rewarded. This book will enable them to sort out the makers, dates, marks and range of values they encounter. Hundreds of clear color photographs show the many styles and range of quality. The price guide reflects the current market.
Book Description
The fundamentals of assembling a greenhouse and custom designing it to the gardener's needs, from simple cold frames to large free-standing and attached-to-the-house structures.
Customer Reviews:
I built one of the Greenhouses from this book.......2007-01-12
This book was well written and offered many interesting greenhouse plans. I built a 22x40 foot model from the plans and have been very happy with the results.
Building Your Own Greenhouse (Greenhouse Basics).......2006-01-30
Pretty simple to follow instructions and drawings. Not the most exciting book of its kind I have read recently, but some good information and alternative building ideas.
The Least Expensive Way to Get Started.......2006-01-10
This is simply a magnificent book on how to construct your own hobby greenhouse as well as other gardening structures such as simple cold frames or installing a bay window with a nice ledge in your home. The main advantage of building your own greenhouse is cost-savings; manufactured greenhouses are very expensive to buy and even more expensive to have assembled. And you don't need to be a handyman to put one together - in most cases you'll be building a frame to hold plastic sheeting to keep out the cold and let in the sun's rays. So what if it's a little crooked here or there? Chances are neither you nor anyone else will notice, but the flowering assortment of vegetables, fruits, and specimen plants will grab everyone's attention!
The author, Mark Freeman, shares his own experiences as well as the experiences of others in building greenhouse structures. First he explains how greenhouses work. Then he shows you every step toward the completion of your own hobby greenhouse. The rest of the chapters are 'Site Selection and Laying a Foundation', 'Framing', 'Glazing', 'Ventilation' (a very important chapter because successful greenhouse gardening hinges on this), 'Supplemental Heating, Insulation, and Heat Sinks', 'Plumbing and Wiring', and 'Shutters and Shades'. Sources for suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors are also listed in appendices. In conclusion, he shares designs for eleven different DIY greenhouse structures including a hoop house. Another design is called Mary's Madhouse (an attached second-floor solar greenhouse built lean-to fashion over top of an adjoining shed) and Alwin's Plumber's Friend is a greenhouse made from PVC pipe. Mark Freeman's greenhouse is attached to his home and includes a hot tub nestled among his seedlings and houseplants.
In short, this is a great resource for the home gardener who has thought about building his or her first little greenhouse because you will no doubt experience success without too much fuss.
Just what we need to be self relient!.......2001-10-17
Fun and informative reading. Many ideas to increase you excitement while growing your own food and herbs all year and selling the extra, for a good profitable hobby. See also "Secrets to a Successful Greenhouse and Business"
Just what we need to be self relient!.......2001-10-17
Fun and informative reading. Many ideas to increase you excitement while growing your own food and herbs all year and selling the extra, for a good profitable hobby. See also "Secrets to a Successful Greenhouse and Business"
Average customer rating:
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Build Your Own Carports and Pergolas (Build Your Own)
Penny Swift , and
Janek Szymanowski
Manufacturer: New Holland Publishers Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Building Construction
| Construction
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Building Types & Styles
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1853683477 |
Average customer rating:
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Colour: Jocasta Innes Around the House
Jocasta Innes
Manufacturer: MacMillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Crafts & Hobbies
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Decorating
| Interior Design
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Interior Design
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0333714407 |
Average customer rating:
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French Popular Lithographic Imagery, 1815-1870, Volume 8: Contemporary Events and Caricature (Chicago Visual Library-French Popular Lithographic Imagery)
Beatrice Farwell
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Microfiche
General
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Schools, Periods & Styles
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
| Abstract Expressionism
| Ancient & Classical
| Art Deco
| Art Nouveau
| Baroque
| Byzantine
| Constructivism
| Contemporary Art
| Cubism
| Dadaism
| Expressionism
| Fauvism
| Folk Art
| Futurism
| German Expressionism
| Gothic
| Impressionism
| Mannerism
| Medieval
| Modern
| Neoclassical
| Pop
| Post-Impressionism
| Pre-Raphaelite
| Prehistoric & Primitive
| Realism
| Renaissance
| Rococo
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| Romantic
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European
| Regional
| History & Criticism
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Lithography
| Graphic Design
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Printmaking
| Graphic Design
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General
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General
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Printmaking
| Crafts & Hobbies
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General
| France
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
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ASIN: 0226690199 |
Book Description
French Popular Lithographic Imagery, 1815-1870 will reproduce in twelve volumes approximately 5000 nineteenth-century lithographs from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale. Beatrice Farwell's multivolume text-fiche catalog will be an essential resource to art historians and will appeal to all those interested in nineteenth-century France.
Customer Reviews:
Absurd and Daring and Courageous.......2000-08-20
Chester Himes is a truly remarkable and amazing writer who has largely been forgotten by the reading public. Along with 'The Quality of Hurt,' the first part of Himes' two volume memoir, no where in American letters has a writer so captured the life of an expatriate American artist then Mr. Himes. From his days serving prison time and learning to write, to his final days in Spain where finally he was able to live as the artist he wished to be, this story is as amazing and 'American' as any yet produced in some 300 odd years of our country's literature.On a personal note, I first read this book while living in New York City as a very poor young man myself. It made me laugh on cold nights, at, yes, the absurdity of it all, and I recommend it to anyone who has dared the Gods and tried to make a living by his pen or laptop.
Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, May 2001: In James Sallis's long-awaited biography of novelist Chester Himes, he reveals that his own crime fiction career was partly inspired by the older writer's example. Admiring Himes's work ever since he first encountered it, Sallis began to haunt used bookstores in order to turn up more of it and eventually dedicated one of his Lew Griffin titles to Himes, while making the author of Cotton Comes to Harlem and Pinktoes a character in another.
Researching and producing a life of a fellow author is homage of a vastly greater order. It is a full-time, obsessive commitment that seldom turns out as expected. First viewing Himes as a sui generis author of savagely slapstick ghetto crime comedies, Sallis came to regard his subject instead as "America's central black writer." "It is exceedingly strange to know so well a man one has never met," Sallis begins. Yet a fully rounded portrait of Chester Bomar Himes, the Missouri-born, middle-class rebel and prison veteran, much of whose life was spent as an angry black man in European self-exile, was not an easy one to paint, even for someone as sympathetic as this biographer.
Born in 1908, Himes was a 19-year-old college dropout when he began serving what would be seven years of a 20- to 25-year jail sentence for burglary. "I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary," he would later write. While behind bars, he managed to sell two hard-boiled stories to Esquire. Bought by legendary editor Arnold Gingrich, these "authentic" tales of a real-life convict appeared in a magazine that featured such luminaries as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
In 1936, at the age of 26, Himes was paroled and from then on embarked on a writer's path, though there were many obstacles, real and perceived, awaiting him. Whether moving from a stint in the WPA Writers Project to a utopian community in Ohio, or from the fringes of the Hollywood labor force to the lesser ranks of the Communist party, Chester Himes came more and more to regard himself as "a man without a country."
Even at Yaddo, the famed New York state writers' colony where he had a fellowship in 1948 (and lived across the hall from Patricia Highsmith as she worked on her first novel, Strangers on a Train), he was dissatisfied. Soon joining such fellow African American expatriates as Richard Wright and James Baldwin in France, he began to establish a reputation in Europe that would eventually precede him home.
"It is exceedingly strange to know so little, finally, about a man with whom you have spent so much time," Sallis winds up admitting ruefully at the end of his introduction. Readers of Chester Himes: A Life will know much more than they did when they began this highly intelligent if idiosyncratically assembled volume. --Otto Penzler
Book Description
Chester Himes's novels and memoirs represent one of the most important bodies of work by any American writer, but he is best known for The Harlem Cycle, the crime stories featuring Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. His writing made him a major figure in Europe, but it is only recently that his talents have been acknowledged in the country that spurned him for most of his life, though his work is recognized as being on a par with that of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson.
In this major literary biography, acclaimed poet, critic, and novelist James Sallis explores Himes's life as no writer has attempted before. Combining the public facts with fresh interviews with the people who knew him best, including his second wife, Lesley, Sallis casts light onto the contradictions, self-interrogations, and misdirections that make Himes such an enigmatic and elusive subject.
Chester Himes: A Life is a definitive study not only of the life of a major African-American man of letters, but of his writing and its relationship to the man himself, drawing a remarkable, deeply affecting portrait of a too often misunderstood and neglected writer. This is a work of high scholarship and of penetrating and passionate insight, a rare conjoining of two fine writers-and as much a work of literature as any of their novels.
Customer Reviews:
Derivative biography of a sphynx.......2002-11-11
Expatriate African American writer Chester Himes's complicated life is the subject of a biography published in 2000 by detective novelist James Sallis, a longtime Himes champion. Sallis's biography weighs in at 368 pages. It is readable despite numerous repetitions and some awkwardness about introducing other figures in Himes's life, but Sallis's book does not seem to be based on any new research and relies almost entirely on reviews contemporary to the original publications of Himes's book augmented by what academic critics have written. It is very odd that Sallis provides so little of his own reading of Himes's writing.
The biographical research on which Sallis draws very, very heavily and without citation is the discerning and more succinct (209-page) 1997 biography by Edward Margolies and Michel Fabre, _The Several Lives of Chester Himes_. Margolies and Fabre knew Himes in his later years and did serious biographical research on Himes (and other black American expatriates to France, especially Richard Wright, who helped Himes in many ways when he moved to Paris). Sallis adds no discernible research and does not make more sense of Himes than they did, so I would recommend the Margolies and Fabre biography in preference to the Sallis one (and on Himes's writing, Stephen Milliken's 1976 book _Chester Himes_). One may read both biographies and both volumes of Himes' "memoirs" and still wonder "Who was this guy?" and "What made him tick?" (Himes's own answer was "hurt," but the way he deployed the category made it all but meaningless.)
Average customer rating:
|
MY LIFE OF ABSURDITY The Later Years
Chester Himes
Manufacturer: Paragon House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
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| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| African American
| Asian American
| Classics
| Collections & Readers
| Drama
| General
| Hispanic
| History & Criticism
| Humor
| Jewish American
| Letters & Correspondence
| Native American
| Poetry
| Short Stories
| Women Writers
General
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
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ASIN: 1557783071 |
Average customer rating:
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My Life of Absurdity: The Autobiography of Cester Himes
Chester B Himes
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
African-American & Black
| Ethnic & National
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Himes, Chester
| African American
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0385089090 |
Books:
- In the Event of my Death
- Involuntary Witness
- Irish Eyes: A Callahan Garrity Mystery (Callahan Garrity Mysteries)
- It Had to Be You (Grace & Favor Mystery Series, No. 5)
- J.D. Robb Collection 3: Holiday in Death, Conspiracy in Death, and Loyalty in Death (In Death)
- J.D. Robb Collection 4: Witness in Death, Judgment in Death, and Betrayal in Death (In Death)
- Judge Dee at Work: Eight Chinese Detective Stories (Judge Dee Mysteries)
- Kong Unbound: The Cultural Impact, Pop Mythos, and Scientific Plausibility of a Cinematic Legend (Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World)
- London Boulevard (Bloodlines)
- Long Knife
Books Index
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