In characterizing this sequel to his 1981 memoir, Palm Sunday, Vonnegut admits, "Not that anyone was clamoring for one." Such modesty cannot disguise the thinness of this collection of essays and speeches.
What Vonnegut has going for him is that mock-disingenuous voice. In his prime he could marshal deceptively simple plainspokenness and skillfully toss in illuminating analogies. Thus could he sneak up on unexpected truths about the human condition.
No longer. In an often weary tone that mixes nostalgia with nihilism, Vonnegut drifts through quirky ruminations on politics, painters, writers and his family, including his marriage to photographer Jill Krementz, of whom he says, "The older she was the more beautiful she became." (They filed for divorce after the book went to press.)
The most interesting parts of the book are parenthetical asides, such as the fact that he is nursing a grudge against Walter Cronkite. ("Imagine being an American and being treated like something the cat drug in by the most trusted man in America!")
Otherwise there's not much to admire in this literary closet-cleaning, the somewhat creaky machinations of a man who was once a most original stylist. (Putnam, $22.95)
by Ralph Gibson
God, they say, is in the details. So is Ralph Gibson's heart. Over the last 20 years this native Californian has become renowned, particularly in Europe, for his spare yet sensuous black-and-white photographs—female nudes, portraits, still lifes, architectural details—each a tantalizing mystery, the best as poised and insistent as dream images.
After 14 monographs in black and white, Gibson, 52, has now released his first book in color. It's a wonder he waited this long, since his feeling for color is subtle and poetic. Possibly he needed color to express fully his fascination with the subject: the culture of his adopted country, France, which he first visited in 1971.
Gibson doesn't give you vistas. He blurs, truncates, isolates. Water courses along a stone gutter (on the sidewalk beside, half out of the frame, a woman walks in a long blue dress); a metric measuring tape dangles from the neck of a tailor; dead leaves lie amid the shiny decorative bases of tables at an outdoor café.
Through wit, selectivity or the quiet ardor of his appreciation, Gibson manages to elevate even the obvious above cliché. A wine bottle in close-up, for example, becomes a kind of monument, his version of the Eiffel Tower.
The details seem to signify things beyond themselves: the resonance of tradition in French dress, architecture, custom and service; the continuing sensuality of the present. The effect is intimate rather than claustrophobic. The pictures invite reverie. Gibson's way of closing in opens things up. (Kodak/Aperture, $49.95)
Edited by Sara Paretsky
The corpses scattered throughout this anthology will not be remembered for their shocking wounds. The criminals won't menace with fists and snarls. A murder or two may never be solved. But victims' voices at last resound, and motives are nearly always found in these 21 stories starring female sleuths.
Few of the detectives are as hard-boiled as editor Paretsky's own V.I. Warshawski (well represented here in "Settled Score"). Yet all have evolved significantly from their early detective prototypes—women who, as Paretsky notes in her introduction, "did not upset male stereotypes. Jane Marple is everybody's elderly spinster aunt, essentially asexual." These latter-day models know too much, and their worlds are far more jarring.
Paretsky, for example, opens this collection with Liza Cody's "Lucky Dip," in which a homeless child calmly approaches a body braced against a wall: "He had not been dead long. You could tell that at a glance because he still had his shoes on. If you die here you won't keep your shoes for ten minutes." It is not the dead man who poses the mystery, but the street urchin, a girl all too aware that "having things is dangerous. Having things makes you a mark. It's like being pretty." It is a thought only a woman could have.
What might easily degenerate into a Perry Mason plot—an uptight professor accused of bludgeoning a student—in the hands of Amanda Cross ("Murder Without a Text") becomes a credible crime, with a witty twist: The prof is female, the victim a member of her women's studies seminar. The disappearance of an elderly woman's diamond ring leads to a study of class and circumstance in Faye Kellerman's haunting "Discards." Turning the genre upside down, these writers offer shifting, unsettling views.
There are some silly moments—Sue Grafton is not well represented by the sophomoric "Full Circle"; Barbara Wilson's feminist "Theft of the Poet" seems gratuitous; Dorothy B. Hughes's "That Summer at Quichiquois," while provocative, ends the collection on an evasive note.
But that is a question of taste, and there's something for every fan here—even those who miss the grubby digs and staccato speech of traditional male private eyes:
"He sure hadn't expected to find a female detective," writes Spanish author Maria Antonia Oliver in "Where Are You, Monica?' " translated by Kathleen McNerney. "For my part, I certainly never expected to find a man like him in my greasy office. What a man—tall, well dressed, well built, the kind that turns your head on the street, the kind you want a hug from when you have them nearby."
That's right. "The Corpse Wore L.L. Bean." (Delacorte, $19)
by Maury Povich with Ken Gross
As celebrity auto-bio subjects go, Povich is an odd choice. The original host of Fox TV's A Current Affair has neither Cronkitean credibility nor the gullible following of someone like Geraldo.
A reasonably successful but barely famous midlevel broadcast journalist before his stint on ACA, Povich admits that, for years, he was known in the business as Mr. Connie Chung, thanks to his second marriage to the CBS newswoman. That he is now cashing in on his 15 minutes of fame might seem reprehensible were it not for the winning, self-effacing way in which he does it; in this memoir, written with PEOPLE senior writer Ken Gross, he comes across as a nice guy who was liked enough and lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
A Current Affair was not Povich's idea; he says that for months after he was tapped for the job by his boss, Australian-born media baron Rupert Murdoch, he didn't really "get" the show. Most of this book is about his development of the arch, skeptical persona he displayed as host and about the outlaw personalities who staffed the show. Wisely avoiding too much personal revelation (when Chung altered her broadcast schedule to accommodate the couple's baby-making plans, the announcement led to both headlines and satirical commentary), Povich presents an insider's view of tabloid television. It's sometimes defensive (Povich tries desperately to make a case for "playful journalism" that isn't afraid to break the rules) and occasionally manipulative. Some readers may have trouble believing that Povich is really a "wide-eyed idealist."
Still, you can't help but like a guy who makes nasty, knowing comments about former superior Ian Rae: "I could tell that he was serious, because Ian didn't joke, especially not in a holy place like a gathering of important rich people." And when it comes to insider gossip on Robert Chambers, Mary Beth Whitehead and other infamous news subjects of the late '80s, Current Affairs is fascinating. For better or worse, you feel like you're sitting in a smoky beer joint eavesdropping on a world-weary reporter telling war stories. (Putnam, $19.95)
- Contributors:
- David Hiltbrand,
- Eric Levin,
- Susan Toepfer,
- Sara Nelson.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
