Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/09/2009

-- Publishers Weekly, 3/9/2009

NONFICTION
 
Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism
Hervé This. Columbia, $19.95 (152p) ISBN 9780231144667
French chemist This, co-creator (with fellow scientist Nicholas Kurti) of the kitchen science discipline known as molecular gastronomy, offers readers a window into his world through this wide-ranging, deeply engaging scientific deconstruction of classic dishes. Those hoping to find recipes for concoctions like wasabi foam or celery “caviar” will be disappointed; This dismisses such cuisine as parlor tricks for foodies. Instead, he examines what he calls “culinary dictums,” such as adding salt to water when boiling eggs or starting a stock with cold water, using science to confirm, disprove or update common kitchen wisdom. Beginning with the humble hard-boiled egg, This explains food concepts thoroughly but plainly—among them why creamy sauces “break,” the proper time to salt a steak, and the importance of soaking sliced potatoes in water before French frying them. This’s tour is frequently fascinating, and his digressions on a host of topics (from cooking trends to proper mayonnaise-beating etiquette to noted French mathematician Blaise Pascal) lend charm and warmth. For anyone expecting a clinical approach buttressed by equations and formulas, the biggest surprise isn’t This’s dedication to good old flavor, but his insistence that love is a cook’s most important ingredient. (Apr.)
 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour: Thirtieth Anniversary Guidebook
Don Herron. Vince Emery, $19.95 (224p) ISBN 9780972589871
Hammett fans, whether or not they have taken the Dashiell Hammett walking tour that Herron has been conducting in San Francisco since 1977, will welcome this 30th anniversay edition of the guidebook. Herron has a deep reservoir of knowledge of the life of the father of the hard-boiled detective genre, as suggested by the biographical essay that constitutes part one. Part two lays out the itinerary of Herron’s tours, including Burritt Street, where a plaque commemorates the first murder in The Maltese Falcon—that of Sam Spade’s partner, Miles Archer. In the book’s preface, Jo Hammett, Hammett’s daughter, reminiscences about taking Herron’s tour. The late Charles Willeford’s introduction still remains relevant, though as Herron points out in an informative new afterword, Willeford garbled Herron’s own biographical details. Admirers of Herron’s biography of the cult crime writer, Willeford (1997), will be interested to learn that he met Willeford, whom he had never heard of before, when Willeford took the tour in 1984. Illustrated with maps and photos throughout, this volume will appeal not just to students of Hammett but to anyone curious about the relation between a writer’s life and his work. (Mar.)
 
Dirt: The Quirks, Habits, and Passions of Keeping House
Edited by Mindy Lewis. Seal, $15.95 paper (280p) ISBN 9781580052610
Inspired in part by “the prime cleaner,” her mother, essayist Lewis (Life Inside: A Memoir) brings Malveaux together with an impressive range of opinions and related issues regarding keeping house in the 21st century. In “Cleaning Ambivalence,” Julianne Malveaux calls keeping house “a dreaded chore for some, a cheerful obsession for others, and a fact of life for most of us.” Other standouts include Joyce Maynard, who traces the correlation between housekeeping arguments and the dissolution of her marriage; and Rebecca Walker, who imagines the efforts her grandparents, sharecroppers who “could be evicted without as much as a week’s notice,” put into creating a stable environment: “They must have grasped at whatever rituals they could...keeping clothes and linens sparkling clean and freshly ironed, displaying fresh fruit... to ease a pervasive feeling of powerlessness.” It seems significant attention was paid to finding not just a talented collection of writers (also including Louise DeSalvo, Kyoko Morri, Richard Goodman and Louise Rafkin) but a diverse set of perspectives, keeping this collection fresh despite narrow subject matter. (Apr.)
 
Frankly, My Dear: Gone With the Wind Revisited
Molly Haskell. Yale Univ., $24 (272p) ISBN 9780300117523
In time for the 70th anniversary of the film version, author and movie critic Haskell (Holding My Own in No Man’s Land) brings a scholar’s rigor to her loving history of our “American Bible,” Gone With the Wind. Vivid profiles of author Margaret Mitchell, starlet Vivien Leigh, and film producer David Selznick re-humanize the work, now known more for its epic grandeur, iconic moments and controversial politics. Haskell draws thoughtful parallels between Mitchell and her protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara, and her affection for these women drives a narrative that gets occasionally bogged down in film production minutiae. Haskell falters while trying to defend Mitchell’s dialog and gender politics, even going so far as to imply that she understands Mitchell and O’Hara in a way that other critics do not (Roger Ebert, for instance). Haskell also highlights the impact of the film on popular culture, but doesn’t bring anything new to the discussion of America’s fascination. Though perhaps too finely focused for casual readers, this sincere, detailed celebration should interest long-time fans and students. (Mar.)
 
How Hemlines Predict the Economy: Explanations, Rationalizations, and Theories on Everything
Peter FitzSimons. Skyhorse, $12.95 (176p) ISBN 9781602393110
Though the title might suggest an economics primer, this goofy, almost quaint compilation examines a long list of “theories, conundrums, observations, quotations, and whatnots,” of which the title is just one. In themed chapters (Sports, Relationships, Traffic, Finance, etc.), Fitzsimons fills in the missing history and logic behind familiar locutions like “women will always notice that the bedroom ceiling needs painting before their husbands do,” “half the money in your wallet disappears every three days,” and the “standard wisdom among taxi drivers” that people wearing hats drive slower. Ideal for browsing, many entries in this volume are good for a quick chuckle, akin to a stand-up comedian’s “didja ever notice” schtick. Unfortunately, FitzSimons doesn’t go very deep into any of his subjects, leaving curious readers amused but dissatisfied. (Feb.)
 
Lincoln’s Men: The President and His Private Secretaries
Daniel Mark Epstein. Collins, $26.95 (272p) ISBN 9780061565441
This meticulous triple biography looks at Lincoln’s three private secretaries, John Nicolay, John Hay and William O. Stoddard. Closer to Lincoln than almost anyone else, these trusted confidantes and advisers handled all of the president’s correspondence, acted occasionally as spies and, between Nicolay and Hay, penned the most famous “authorized” biography of Lincoln. Though their experiences in Lincoln’s administration cast a poignant, personable light on the great president’s working life, Epstein’s work is far from accessible. The level of detail regarding the three secretaries is exhaustive beyond the interest of anyone but devoted American history scholars. Author and historian Epstein (Lincoln and Whitman, The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage) has intimate knowledge of his subjects but little to drive the story beyond the chronological push of history; meandering from man to man, his narrative isn’t cohesive enough to hook casual history readers. Though obsessive Lincoln enthusiasts in search of a new perspective may be fascinated, any number of Lincoln books will offer casual history buffs a more engaging examination. (Feb.)
 
Matthew’s Enigma: A Father’s Portrait of his Autistic Son
Matei Calinescu, translated from the Romanian by Angela Jianu. Indiana Univ., $19.95 paper (224p) ISBN 9780253220660
Comparative literature professor Calinescu (Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism) steps back from academia with this memoir of parenthood, a tribute to his late, autistic son Matthew, “a being apart... not a university professor of course, but a professor all the same, a shy, discreet, taciturn teacher of angelic wisdom and of the ineffable.” Diagnosed with autism as a child and with epilepsy as a teen, much regarding Matthew’s behavior and health remained a mystery even after diagnosis, a situation many parents will recognize, especially those with children on the autism spectrum. Calinescu explores the history of autism and Asperger’s syndrome, discussing medical literature and his own memories with equal comfort and grace. Calinescu is a keen witness, and his 25 years of observation have produced a loving exploration of autism’s causes and effects, its impact on the individual and the family, the unexpected ways it complicates daily life and the differences that make an autistic individual stand out. Beyond the appeal to parents, teachers and caregivers of special needs individuals, Colinescu’s story offers vivid lessons in acceptance: “All people are different, and the degree of difference does not matter.” (Mar.)
 
No Right to Remain Silent: The Tragedy at Virginia Tech  
Lucinda Roy. Harmony, $25 (336p) ISBN 9780307409638
In the fall of 2005, Roy, then chair of Virginia Tech’s English department, began a year of one-on-one work with a student whose professor found his affect and work content disturbing. No one knew just how disturbed he was, however, until he opened fire on faculty and students in April 2007, committing the “largest mass murder by a single shooter” in American history. Roy’s book takes an unflinching look at Seung-Hui Cho, the day’s horrific events, and the University’s role in warning students and recovering afterward. Despite personal risk (her book will probably “oblige me to move on” from a home she loves), Roy is driven by a responsibility to tear down the Tech administration’s “wall of silence.” The book raises important issues regarding the limits of privacy, where a family’s duties end and a school’s begin, and how likely it is that more rigorous attention could lead to unnecessary suspensions and expulsions. Roy’s book makes a difficult read not just because of the subject matter but also because, two years later, much seems unresolved; that Roy needs to expose petty academic politics (at an institution for which she has obvious affection) in order to make the case for more conscientious student care is dismaying. (Mar.)
 
Now Or Never: Getting Down to the Business of Saving Our American Dream
Jack Cafferty. Wiley, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 9780470372302
In the irascible style of his on-air CNN soap box The Cafferty Files, veteran political reporter and talking head Cafferty (It’s Getting Ugly Out There) delivers an uncompromising account of George W. Bush’s presidency and the current state of affairs in the U.S., focusing on the invasion of Iraq and the insider deals between the Bush/Cheney administration and corporations like Exxon and Enron. Also scrutinized is Bush’s lackadaisical attitude toward the growing threat of inner Afghanistan turmoil, the brittle relationship between the U.S. and China, and new class warfare in a cratering economy. Perhaps more importantly, Cafferty recaps the 2008 presidential election, addressing the strategies that lost McCain-Palin the presidency and the cascade of problems Obama has inherited. The stolid Cafferty even takes an occasional step back from politics to offer glimpses of his family and his own climb to success, a personal touch that should surprise Caffety’s fans almost as much as his sincere belief in a coming turn for the better. (Mar.)
 
Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed
Edited by Marlene Podritskse and Peter Schwartz. Rowman & Littlefield, $34.95 (272p) ISBN 9780739131954
Freelance writer Podritske and author Schwartz (The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest) have selected 32 lectures and interviews from the 60-year career of writer and conservative philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982), founder of objectivism, beginning with her first interview in 1923, on the Depression (“Americans… don’t even know what [a depression] is”), when the Russian émigré had just sold her first story to Universal Studios. Rand’s 1943 novel Fountainhead catapulted her to success (amplified by the release of a film version) that was solidified in 1957 by her 1100-page magnum opus Atlas Shrugged. Both novels and later non-fiction were conceived as vehicles for “objectivism,” a laissez-faire world-view based around the ethics of “rational self-interest” (a more familiar iteration might be “Greed is Good”); among her followers were Leonard Peikoff and a young Alan Greenspan. Though she knew hers was “an extreme and unpopular viewpoint,” she was a tireless advocate for “full, unregulated, uncontrolled capitalism,” and a harsh opponent of conservatives who “tie their political views to religion.” With transcripts from speeches, television appearances, radio shows and more, this will no doubt please Rand’s fans and provide a great resource for students. (Feb.)
 
Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
Winifred Gallagher. Penguin, $25.95 (256p) ISBN 9781594202100
Gallagher (The Power of Place, Working on God) couples personal ruminations and interviews with experts to explore the role of attention in defining consciousness, identity and the human experience: “who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.” From paying attention to your inner dialogue (helping eliminate negative thought patterns) to bucking the myths of multi-tasking (says cognitive scientist David Meyer, “Einstein didn’t invent the theory of relativity while multi-tasking at the Swiss patent office”), Gallagher draws practical conclusions from her examination of conscious (“top-down”) and unconscious (“bottom-up”) attention strategies. Though her claims to “a psychological version of... [physicist’s] ‘grand universal theory’“ are a bit outsized, Gallagher takes illuminating forays into the evolution of the species and the global diaspora, looking for instance at how “Western individualism” emphasizes top-down focus while the Asian mentality encourages a broader, contextual perspective. A fascinating psycho-social look at human motivation and the power of focus, Gallagher’s latest is worth paying attention to. (Apr.)
 
We Used To Own The Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante
Eve Pell. SUNY, $23 (256p) ISBN 9781438424972
In this self-indulgent memoir, journalist Pell recollects her privileged East Coast upbringing and her gradual break with the affluence and expectations of her dynastic clan. As a young woman, Pell rode horses, spent time at her grandparents’ Tuxedo Park villa (“with two enormous round towers and a long, splendid living room that you stepped down into from a double stairway”) and shopped at Bergdorfs with relatives called Cooky, Pookie, Goody and Tinkie (Pell was nicknamed Topsy). Following her debut, Pell went to college “to be interesting to my future husband and to pass the time until he showed up,” and it wasn’t until she graduated and moved to the West Coast that she escaped the overweening pressure to fill the family-standard “snobbish foxhunting debutante” mold. Her eventual transformation to black sheep, unfortunately, is too little too late. Though her luxurious childhood is marked by genuine emotional pain, alienation and confusion, most readers will have a hard time empathizing with her personal issues or her upper-class guilt, particularly in the present financial climate. (Feb.)
 
The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business
Tara Hunt. Crown Business, $25 (320p) ISBN 9780307409508
Hunt, cofounder of community-marketing consulting firm Citizen Agency, presents the hows and whys of accruing “whuffie,” her word for social capital in the Web 2.0 landscape. Introducing a wide range of post-blogosphere social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr, Hunt clues in marketers to the possibilities with online success stories, influential voices and winning strategies. Numerous anecdotes (from the Obama campaign, online t-shirt boutique Threadless, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, etc.) illustrate the power of even the most tossed-off communiques; micro-blogging site Twitter, for instance, may restrict posts to 140 characters, but is uniquely powerful in its ability to reach a swarm of “followers,” establish new relationships and provide multi-various feedback. Hunt packs in many specific strategies and concepts, which include seeking out and incorporating feedback, educating and empowering your connections, and treating your company’s message as a conversation (a good net marketer’s goal should be contained in the statement, “I want to create a culture of...”). Detailed, practical profiles of networks and related tools make this a valuable, illuminating title for anyone looking to the ever-expanding realm of online social life for business success. (Apr.)
 
ILLUSTRATED
 
The Disappearance of Objects: New York Art and the Rise of the Postmodern City
Joshua Shannon. Yale Univ., $60 (232p) ISBN 9780300137064
In his introduction, art historian Shannon quotes a 1958 essay by Allan Kaprow predicting that “the new art,” postmodernism, would in the coming decade feature “objects of every sort.” In this handsomely illustrated study, Shannon finds much to back up that prophecy in the work of Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Donald Judd. Shannon asserts that these four were responding to the steady commercialization (“urban renewal”) of Manhattan. Oldenburg’s The Street, for example, debuting in Greenwich Village in 1960, is “a visual cacophony of cardboard, paper, newsprint, wood fragments, and black paint” that spoke to the NYC bureaucrats who preferred profit to authenticity (including a plan to run a massive roadway directly through Washington Square Park, considered the Village’s beating heart). The work of Johns is presented as an “exploration of the role of signification in postmodern consumerism,” while Rauschenberg’s mixed media pieces echo an environment in which he was forced out of his studio in what is now the Financial District to “accommodate more automobile traffic.” Though the text can read like a tenacious Ph.D. dissertation, Shannon provides a thorough, smart consideration of each artist, accompanied by lovely reproductions of their art. 48 color, 141 b/w illustrations. (Mar.)
 
POETRY
 
Selected Poems
Thom Gunn, edited by August Kleinzahler. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $14 paper (128p) ISBN 9780374258597
Serious readers of contemporary poetry who agreed on nothing else could agree to admire Thom Gunn. When Gunn died, age 75, in 2004, critics in his native England remembered a tough young writer who gained fast fame in the 1950s, whose cool pentameters praised motorcycles and Elvis; Americans remembered the certainly learned, and yet perpetually youthful poet who made San Francisco his permanent home, a celebrant of gay life in the 1970s, and an elegist of HIV and AIDS in the 1990s, his extreme topics subjected to remarkable formal control. Kleinzahler (Sleeping It Off in Rapid City)—another San Francisco writer, and a friend of Gunn’s for decades—has put together a slender, effective selection, from early set pieces (“On the Move”) to midcareer retrospectives like “Autobiography” (“The sniff of the real, that’s/ what I’d want to get”) through the valedictory poems of Boss Cupid (2000), with its long-delayed, careful response to Gunn’s mother’s suicide. Gunn “became more adventurous as he grew older,” says Kleinzahler’s avid introduction, and the whole of the poems bear him out. The introduction, and the choice among poems, emphasizes Gunn’s adventurous range in technique—quatrains, trimeter stanzas, meticulous free verse, and so on—more than it shows his sometimes adventurous life: Gunn wrote of dance clubs, street protests, drugs, and sex, but also about grief, care and personal loyalty. Though the volume seems too brief, the whole of Gunn’s power shines through. He could find many more readers now. (Apr.)
 
FICTION
 
Love Mercy
Earlene Fowler. Berkley, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 9780425225974
The mysteries of the human heart fill Fowler’s first of a sweet new series about Love Mercy Johnson of Morro Bay, Calif. This delightful departure from her Benni Harper mysteries (Tumbling Blocks, etc.) features cameos of Benni and husband Gabe, but Love, photojournalist and co-owner of the Buttercream Cafe, takes center stage with former Las Vega cop Melina “Mel” Le Blanc and Love’s 18-year-old granddaughter, Loretta Lynn “Rett” Johnson. Rett suddenly arrives in San Celina County with a banjo stolen from her two-timing ex-boyfriend, Dale Bailey. Thirteen months have passed since Love lost her husband, Cy, and 14 years since Tommy, Rett’s father, died. As Christmas approaches, Love must deal with Dale’s hot pursuit of said banjo, her father-in-law’s struggle with Alzheimer’s and Mel’s brush with a menace from her Vegas past. Fowler delivers some wise lessons on life (e.g., “Looks fade... a good heart doesn’t”) in a heartfelt tale sure to please her fans. (Mar.)
 
Lovers & Liars
Teri Denine. St. Martin’s Griffin, $13.95 paper (288p) ISBN 9780312364304
In Denine’s (Whatever Gets You Through the Night) soulfully sweet second effort, Journey Mason, a celebrated R&B singer as beautiful and gifted as Beyoncé, has everything except what she really wants: to start a family. Journey began life as Serena Childs, but with the help of her best friend, Jada, and her husband/manager Christopher, she became a superstar. Christopher, however, proves a mean and abusive husband obsessed with her fame and fortune. Tired of his controlling and cheating ways, she escapes to Paris where she has an ultimately disappointing whirlwind courtship with a French artist. Back in New York, she’s in an accident that leaves her in a coma and when she finally awakens, she’s blind and learns that Christopher’s used her fortune to launch another singer and broker a dangerous deal with a rap group. She must also grapple with her crack-addicted sister; her friend, Jada, who might not be totally trustworthy; and learning to believe in love again. The result is a satisfying R&B fairy tale. (Mar.)
 
The Nature of a Woman
Sylvester Stephens. Atria/Strebor, $15 paper (416p) ISBN 9781593092337
Stephens (The Office Girls) brings back writer Michael Forrester in a soul-searching thriller about Michael’s brother, the African American psychologist Dr. Johnny Forrester. Johnny is a former NFL star and the major player who’s on a steamy quest to understand what makes women tick. He’s guilty about his past erotic sins but he begins an affair with a patient, Anise, a bi-racial celebrity who is being pursued as a client by Johnny’s wife Alicia’s public relations firm. When Johnny tries to end the affair, Anise threatens to cancel her agreement with Alicia. When Johnny finds out that Anise is meeting with his brother Michael to collaborate on a book, he rushes to her hotel room only to find her recently deceased. Both men are arrested for the crime but Michael is released while Johnny is imprisoned. The only eyewitness who could clear him, a schizophrenic patient, has disappeared. Johnny learns his lesson the hard way, but with aid from friends, family and an agoraphobic psychologist comes to realizations regarding infidelity and both genders’ frailties. (Mar.)
 
Nineteen Seventy-Four
David Peace. Vintage/Black Lizard, $13.95 paper (320p) ISBN 9780307455086
The first volume in Peace’s Red Riding Quartet, a grim whodunit noir, will remind many of the bleak, violent work of James Ellroy. In 1974, Eddie Dunford has just been named crime correspondent for the Yorkshire Post. His first major assignment coincides with the death of his father, but his professional ambitions trump his family obligations. The case he’s covering involves the disappearance of 10-year-old Clare Kemplay. When Dunford’s digging unearths some similar unsolved cases, neither his editor nor the police welcome his efforts. After Kemplay’s strangled and mutilated corpse turns up, an unknown source supplies Dunford with leads suggesting that some prominent officials and businessmen may be implicated in the crime. The staccato, choppy prose is a perfect mechanism for conveying Dunford’s frenetic approach to his life and work. Peace (Tokyo Year Zero) doesn’t pull any punches, and his uncompromising portrayal of his dark and conflicted protagonist will appeal to those who like their mean streets to be really mean. (Feb.)