Gottlieb's 'Avid Reader' highly recommended for the wordy

Like so many other memoirs, I was led to Avid Reader: A Life (2016) by the obituary of the author, Robert Gottlieb (1931-2023), the exalted editor, writer, and publisher of many modern classical titles and periodicals, including, but not limited to, the renowned LBJ series by Robert Caro, the fifth and last volume already ten plus years in the making. Research takes time, Caro is often quoted as saying.

I did try Cato's The Power Broker (Gottlieb, editor) a while back but knowing little about New York, except a bit about Manhattan, I just couldn't get into it, you know how it is with some books you just can't get into, and thus, laid it aside never to pick it up again. 

In cre a ble!  

But Gottlieb's memoir is another story although filled with many unrecognizable names to me, like reading one of those chapters in the Bible where the names go on and on and on.  Anyway, Avid Reader is a must if there's anyone in the publishing world who has yet to read it. 

Earlier this year at the National Press Club, I saw Gottlieb's daughter, Lizzie (who is frequently referenced in Avid) and her film Turn Every Page  about the writing and working relationship her dad shared with Mr. Caro, a delightful film and relationship which I probably liked better than the book since Mr. Gottlieb comes across in the book as a boorish know-it-all, a conceited and uppity man about town, although he insists he did not like dinners out with friends, partying, did not do sports, but ballet?  Oh, yes.  (For the ballet uninitiated, that part went on too long.) 

He's much more likable in the film. 

In Avid, he spares no gloss when it comes to offering negative commentary about writers like Salman Rushdie, Lillian Ross, Pauline Kael and many more. He often mentions the breakup of friendships.  Quelle surprise!

It must be that if you are anybody in the New York's publishing world, your inclusion in the book is important, good or bad!  (Some press is good press, and bad press is press, and no press is bad! Bad! Bad!) 

It sounds like he was estranged from his first child, Roger, from his first marriage to Muriel Higgins, since Gottlieb seldom mentions him nor does he include Roger in the credits or dedicate his book to his great offsprings like he does Lizzie's sons but what do I know about good family relationships?

Avid Reader is a highly recommended title, but is that a typo with the omission of a closing parenthetical mark midway down on page 78?  

Alas!  He is gone!

patricialesli@gmail.com

Mary Higgins Clark's memoir is a must for writers

I've never read any Mary Higgins Clark (1927-2020), but I've listened to Mary Higgins Clark and just finished hearing her memoir, Kitchen Privileges.  

Whatever kind of writers you may be, dear readers who are writers:  Kitchen is a must.

Over many years Ms. Clark persisted at her love, never giving up, developing her craft. The recipient of countess rejection letters, she maintained her sense of humor and joined writers' groups, constantly striving to make her short stories more appealing and improve her writing skills.   

Never does she lose her cheery disposition found throughout the book, despite the many family tragedies she suffered:  the early deaths of her father, husband, and two brothers.  She lived to be 92 and died about a year ago.

The audio is blessed by her mellifluous voice which always adds to the enjoyment of a heard book when the author reads it whenever the author can come close to the beauty of Ms. Higgins' sounds.  In the book, she mimics several characters in her life and successfully produces their voices, cadences, and inflections.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, likens Kitchen to a Bronx version of Angela's Ashes, but I find the comparison a terrible exaggeration since there is no way Ms. Clark's upbringing  remotely resembles that of the hardships endured by Frank McCourt and his family. 

She was married three times, the first and last being happy unions, but the middle marriage lasted all of approximately two sentences, about as long the marriage itself (later, annulled), and this "intrusion" in the book's theme seems out-of-place and thrown in at the last minute, perhaps by a demanding editor to keep it honest? 

 

This was one of those rare books I was sorry to see (or hear)  end.  Maybe, I will join the millions and read one of her 51 books, her second, Where Are The Children?,  published originally in 1975 when she was 45 and now in its 75th printing, according to Wikipedia.  Her first, Aspire to the Heavens, was plagued, she says in her memoir, by the title.  It was re-issued as Mount Vernon Love Story in 2000, the year before Kitchen Privileges was published.

With five children suffering the sadness of the early death of their father and Ms. Clark alone to raise them, she wrote, rising daily at 5 a.m. when everyone else was sleeping. We can do it, too.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: 'Under Red Skies,' highly recommended

If I were in charge of high school curriculum, Under Red Skies: Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China would be required reading in World History classes. (Do any high schools teach World History?)

This little (almost 300 short pages) book is an excellent first-person account of the life of a young girl, born in 1989, in China, and her family's familial and cultural practices, and their experiences with restrictions on personal liberties the communist government places on its citizens.

Consider abortion and the Chinese birth rate.  

Implemented in 1979 to slow population growth, the single-child policy was abandoned in 2015 after 40 million female babies were aborted or murdered. Now China is a society with an inadequate supply of workers to fill jobs, stemming from an insufficient number of females (killed off) to marry and produce children in a nation with a rapidly aging population.


(A 2015 article in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated that next year, China will have 24 million more men than women of marriageable age which translates into kidnapping, human trafficking, other crimes, and relocations to other countries by males searching for mates. Come to the U.S. capital, mates!)


The practice of terminating pregnancies up to eight months of gestation during the one-child rule is wrenching. Women had to submit to monthly door-to-door checks to make sure they were menstruating and were not pregnant (!).  

Ms. Kan writes of neighbors forced to undergo abortions. 

If mothers were able to hide their pregnancies beyond the seventh month, the government allowed the baby to be born. Thus, Ms. Kan's parents, who already had a son, had a daughter, the author.

For readers who know little about China, this fascinating contemporary history provides enlightenment and makes me sympathize with the Falun Gongers I see around town and in parades. 

After Falun Gong membership increased substantially, the Chinese government declared it to be a cult in 1999 and forbid anyone from following the group and/or keeping its literature which a member of Ms. Kan's family did.

Authorities went house-to-house to seek and destroy anything connected to Falun Gong.  Fortunately, Ms. Kan's uncle (I think he was) was not killed for his spiritual practices, but thousands were, including persons used for organ transplants.  (See the website.)

The author experiences all the ups, downs, and heartbreaks of a young person when she doesn't make minimum test scores to enter prestigious schools or when boys she likes do not return the romantic favor, much like what happens in the U.S. and around the world!  ("Love" must be the same everywhere.)

I am certain that one of the reasons I picked the book up from the new non-fiction titles at the library (in addition to its smart cover), was having recently listened to the CD of the autobiography of the Chinese pianist, Lang Lang, Journey of a Thousand Miles (no longer available for $164, newer copy, or $64, library copy, at Amazon).

Under Red Skies is equally as impressive, if not more so, since Ms. Kan did not have a parent as driven and possessed as Lang Lang's father who worked feverishly to ensure his son would become the ultimate pianist. (He has.)

Ms. Kan's mother also wanted the best for her children (Ms. Kan's father has a minor role in the book), and she ignored traditional dogmas to mind in-laws. Rather, she moved her family from the country to the city so her children could attend better schools (with their dad along for the ride), a wild scene played out in the front of eavesdropping neighbors who had a wonderful time listening to the screaming and bitter fight.

Another memorable scene was Ms. Kan's outing with a friend to an English bar when they ordered cocktails. You will smile and maybe, laugh out loud.

For the next edition, may I suggest the addition of a simple map of China showing Ms. Kan's route from the country to the city and Beijing, and a character list with their roles (Chunting, Laolao, Laoye, friend, aunt, uncle, cousin, etc.).  

Also, a glossary of the italicized Chinese words (e.g. zao lian, laobaixing, etc.) in case other readers, like me, forget their meanings which I belatedly discovered in the index while writing this review.


You don't have to be young to adopt Ms. Kan's persuasive outlook to keep on trying and never give up. 

It helps an American better understand the Hong Kong unrest and the freedoms we have and take for granted, freedoms unknown to Chinese citizens.

Movie, anyone?

patricialesli@gmail.com