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Synopsis
With uplifting candor and honesty, Lucy Grealy tells the story of growing up with a visage distorted by cancer.
Review
Lucy Grealy's memoir about her early life is not an easy book to read. But her life wasn't easy to live, either. Diagnosed with jaw cancer at age nine, Lucy had a face that caused strangers to see only the pronounced, outer scars of her experience.
In her compelling narrative, which spends much time taking us through hospitals and doctors' offices, Lucy pulls us into her existence, sweeping us up into her personal struggle. She examines her experiences as a child and as an adult, dissecting both the internal and external responses to her disease and subsequent disfigurement. Externally, she suffered brutality and cruelty from others, particularly her peers, who unabashedly made fun of her face. Internally, she battled everything from her reaction to her reflection in a mirror to what she called "petty desires and secret, evil hates."
Autobiography of a Face is a polemic about the real meanings of beauty, perfection, and love, and about the way we construct ourselves through the perceptions of others. Grealy's honesty is harsh but impassioned; her humor surprising but appropriate. As an essayist, Lucy Grealy was always able to focus on the details and small things that revealed truths and ideas to her. She made the small seem large and the large become contextualized. In her life and in her work, and particularly in this memoir, Lucy responds to the world and her situation with acuity and dignity; but above all, she seeks to understand.
Although Grealy took her own life in December 2002, this book stands as evidence of the effect she had on the world, and the effect the world had on her. (AD)
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| FICTION |
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A Fan's Notes
by Frederick Exley
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| Published: |
1968 |
| Pages: |
400 |
| Publisher: |
Vintage |
Links:
Exley Bio
Readers' Notes
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Synopsis
An engaging, bitterly funny, and terribly sad fictional memoir about a man for whom football is an obsession, alcohol an addiction, and writing a far-fetched dream.
Review
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "what people are ashamed of usually makes a good story," an assertion that this gripping memoir by Frederick Exley, a man given to "heroic drinking," emphatically confirms. As he recounts his experiences from ages 23 to 33, a pattern emerges: one of Exley aiming ineffably, self-importantly high and then drinking himself into the gutter, as he struggles to find his own fame and define his "self" against American icons writ large — such as NY Giants halfback Frank Gifford — and small — most notably, his father, a fiercely revered former local football star.
For nearly the entire book, Exley is living from Sunday to Sunday, proving his only true inspiration or accomplishment to be his overzealous football fandom. When he's not living vicariously through sport, his narrative is populated less by friends and family, who are held at a remove, than by strange characters whose quirks he no doubt madly exaggerates with blustery barroom strokes and to hilarious effect: the Counselor, a kind but ethically unengaged lawyer with a healthy harem; Snow White, a cuss-mouthed, curmudgeonly fellow funny farm inmate; and Mr. Blue, the down-at-the-heels aluminum siding salesman who does backhandsprings on demand and possesses an obsession with cunnilingus.
Clearly, Exley's true loves are outcasts and romantic visionaries, and it is as such that he's fond of imagining himself. But we generally find him, by his own recount, lying prone on a davenport, doing another stint at the loony bin, or sitting on a barstool watching life go by in Technicolor. He comforts and tortures himself with the fact that "even in America failure is a part of life." And yet, he has written this book, and its existence alone is a success — but the show is not about him. Ultimately, Exley is a fan: he sits back and watches, and boy does he know how to call the game. (JKG)
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| NONFICTION |
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Zhang Huan
edited by Yilmaz Dziewior
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2003 |
| Pages: |
119 |
| Publisher: |
Cantz |
Links:
Zhang Huan Site
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Synopsis
A comprehensive exhibition catalog documenting ten years of photographs and performances by a leading member of the Chinese avant-garde.
Review
Artists' physical feats can become the stuff of legend. In 1960, Yves Klein took a leap into the void and in 1971 Chris Burden was shot in the arm in the name of art. Performance art arrived late in China, but when it finally did, Zhang Huan made it his own. His mythic moment came in 1994 when he staged an inscrutable act in a public toilet. After rubbing his flesh with fish oil and honey, he sat motionless in the stench of a 12-square-meter Beijing outhouse while flies feasted on his shell. His test of endurance was documented on film, becoming a tale of artistic rebellion that soon spread around the world.
This captivating book exposes the body as a dynamic tool of symbolic expression. From the bloody paint-splattered artist with surrogate baby on the steps of Beijing's National Art Gallery to his lying nude, face-down on an ice bed that's surrounded by dogs in the courtyard of a museum in New York City to a nine-page spread documenting Zhang Huan covered in seeds and pecked by pigeons in a giant birdhouse at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, we discover a unique body of work. In the accompanying texts by German museum directors Yilmaz Dziewior and Hans Gunter Golinski, and Asian art scholar Yu Yeon Kim, we learn about the artist's history, the social and spiritual context of his work, and his compelling contribution to contemporary art.
With conceptual prowess, Zhang Huan raises the level of a fishpond by adding 40 migrant workers to the waters; explores his ancestry with a series of photographs portraying his foam-covered head with old family snapshots in his open mouth; wears animal carcasses like a suit of armor; and invites calligraphers to write texts on his face from early morning until night — transforming his identity with the course of time. (PL)
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FEATURE
Self Publishing
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The music business isn't the only medium undergoing a metamorphosis. Spurred by a rethinking of the creative process and an unprecedented accessibility, the publishing world is finally acknowledging and welcoming the burgeoning amateur with a DIY attitude. Print-on-Demand, or POD, is a relatively new and inexpensive process that allows for printing in very small runs, even one book at a time. The implications are staggering. Getting your book published without an agent is now a possibility, and distribution is more readily available. As with any new technology, there are the inevitable growing pains. We must ask ourselves if we want to read every one of Tom, Dick, and Harry's books. And the establishment has a mixed opinion of POD, at best. In any case, there are opportunities for writers now that were simply nonexistent before, and as the technology evolves, we must recognize it as a force that will shape the future of the publishing industry.
To the left are links to a few of the more reputable companies in the space. A good place to start is also
the following website, which not only explains the ins and outs of POD, but also recommends and rates the different companies:
www.booksandtales.com/pod. (JM)
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BOOK NEWS
A few notable bits of recent print reporting.
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2004 Pulitzer Prize winners are announced (New York Times)
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Fiction: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
General Nonfiction: Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
Biography: Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
Poetry: Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright
Drama: I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright
History: A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn
See the complete list.
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Mrs. Cheney stops reissue of her sexy novel (CNEWS)
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The lawyer for Lynne Cheney says her historical romance from 1981, which includes brothels, attempted rapes, and a lesbian love affair, will not be reissued because it's "not her best work."
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Nabokov accused of plagiarism (Guardian)
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The author of Lolita rejects from the grave claims that he ripped off a
novella of the same name, written in 1916 by Heinz von Eschwege.
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Two new, biannual literary magazines launch this spring
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Black Clock, out of CalArts, hit bookstores in March, and Swink, a bi-coastal LA-NYC production, becomes available this month.
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Confessions of a semi-successful author stir debate (Salon)
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The story of a midlist author feeds discussion on blogs such as Gawker, Maud Newton, and The Kicker about veracity and identity.
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Alistair Cooke dies at 95 (Yahoo News)
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The urbane writer, correspondent, television host, and commentator on American culture died last month.
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Updike wins another award (Yahoo News)
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John Updike wins PEN/Faulkner award for fiction for The Early Stories, a collection of his stories from 1953 to 1975. |
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