Princess Diana's tragic death transported the aloof mother-in-law (who took too long to say she was sorry) to the center of worldwide attention. Following the frenzy of allegations about Queen Elizabeth's behavior, it is therapeutic to have British historian Ben Pimlott's levelheaded study of both the Queen—herself once the world's shining princess—and the family business she has directed for 45 years.
Charting the deterioration of the monarchy from the revered institution of the '20s to the dysfunctional family of the '90s, Pimlott (a professor of politics and contemporary history at the University of London) also celebrates the amazing resilience of the Queen. Elizabeth emerges as the heroic embodiment of dutiful dullness, steadfastly fulfilling her royal obligations in the midst of the chaos around her. Appropriately, for someone who is more at home with horses than people, she stresses, "You can do a lot if you are properly trained—and I hope I have been." As Pimlott observes, "She speaks of herself not as the owner of the Royal Stables, but as the occupant of one of the stalls."
While unflappable endurance is not the sexiest of virtues, neither is it the least of them, and The Queen helps us appreciate the capacities as well as the limitations of a woman who, whatever else happens, just keeps on going on. (Wiley, $30)
by Larry McMurtry
His situation had improved dramatically. He had a knife and a gun and five bullets. On the other hand he was in a flimsy cage, on top of a 500-foot cliff, and he was naked." There in a wink is the cactus-dry wit and prairie-size imagination of Larry McMurtry, imperiling one of many heroes in this saga of mid-19th-century Texas Rangers, the Comanche warriors (and women) they chase and Ahumado, a Mexican chief who is so nasty he makes Darth Vader look like Ralph Nader.
Comanche Moon, the fourth and final volume of McMurtry's Lonesome Dove series, is a joy even if you haven't read the previous books. Those quarrelin' buddies Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae are back, but they're upstaged by one of the Texas author's most delightful creations: the Harvard-trained, Demosthenes-quoting Capt. Inish Scull, who, with his slovenly ways and oversexed wife, is a cross between Teddy Roosevelt and Al Bundy.
At one level this is a dime novel, but even if it costs 285 dimes, it has enough interesting tortures, eloquent scenery and breath-depriving feats to fill as many books. McMurtry is one of our finest storytellers, and he's at his best here. (Simon & Schuster, $28.50)
by Sally Quinn
Sally Quinn is no stranger to the A-list. Her husband is retired Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, and in her own days as a Post reporter she was known for her scoops on the high-society crowd inside the Beltway. So readers will turn to this how-to guide not so much for her tips on party-giving (and going), but in the hope that Quinn will serve up some really good dish. Alas, she is too gracious a hostess to throw and tell. Most of the book consists of sensible advice—treat your guests as you would like to be treated; invite a lively bunch; go for plain, good food, not fancy; stock up on the booze—that sort of thing.
It's especially fun when she affords us a glimpse of notables at play—such as the New Year's Eve party where, at the stroke of midnight, CNN's Larry King kissed Gen. Colin Powell on the cheek and began waltzing him to the strains of "Auld Lang Syne." Without missing a beat, Powell turned to the astonished guests and quipped, "Don't ask, don't tell." Some of Quinn's best anecdotes (like the one about the dinner party where Nora Ephron ended her marriage to a philandering Carl Bernstein by pouring a bottle of red wine over his head) may be warmed over, but they're still tasty. One just wishes there were more ample helpings. (Simon & Schuster, $24)
by Robert A. Burton
Artie Singleton was just getting used to being alone. His father had died when he was 3, his mother only a month ago. He was filling the void with a few slightly loopy friends and Shazam, his San Francisco store known for its rare comic books and hypertext CD-ROM fiction. But a misdirected letter changes all that. Seems that Artie is a clone, created in a lab by well-meaning scientist friends when his parents were unable to conceive. What's more, those same friends made nine others just like him.
Can anyone be an individual when he has nine carbon copies? How much of our destiny lies in the capricious-ness of our chromosomes? Artie has little time to ponder the ensuing questions. When the news gets out, the same identity crisis that led Artie to self-examination leads another of the 10 to murder. As the clones drop one by one—sort of a Ten Little (Identical) Indians—Artie sets off in search of both the killer and his sense of self. A furiously quick read, Cellmates is that rarest of thrillers: taut and thoughtful. (Russian Hill, $19.95)
by A.S. Byatt
Novelist A.S. Byatt, bestselling author of the Booker Prize winner, Possession, weaves here a magical collection of stories (including two already seen in her novels). For the most part these tales take place in faraway lands where princesses and great monsters dwell, but, in distinctly modern fashion, they are also stories about storytelling. In "The Story of the Eldest Princess," for example, the heroine sets out to find a silver bird that will save her kingdom. Instead of completing her task, however, she meets an old woman who teaches the princess that other outcomes to her quest are just as acceptable.
The title story, set in the present day, is the collection's jewel. While attending an academic conference in Turkey, a middle-aged "narratologist" stumbles upon—what else?—a glass bottle. When released, the djinn inside helps the immensely likable and smart woman understand her own feminine narrative and teaches the reader much about the universal desire to write one's own story. (Random House, $20)
by Garrison Keillor
If Garrison Keillor could bottle his charm and sell it as aftershave, it would transform the northern Midwest: All those cheerless Lutherans would suddenly discover the joy of being loved. Author of nine books and creator of A Prairie Home Companion, Keillor is adored by listeners and readers alike, and rightly so—his tender satire on small-town Minnesota life is a pitch-perfect marvel. The radio bard has mastered the art of flattering mockery—wit that bites but leaves no tooth mark.
Wobegon Boy is the low-key story of John Tollefson, namesake of a great-grandfather who left Norway for Lake Wobegon. Reluctant heir to the town's somber worldview, John moves to Upstate New York to manage a public radio station and falls in love with a beautiful historian. His hometown travels with him, whispering the wisdom of the meek: "Life is complicated, so think small." The novel is a treat, especially in the early going before Keillor gets distracted by the demands of plot and the pressure to make up yet another whimsical anecdote. He clutters the ending with gothic improbabilities—ghosts and guns and Siamese twins—but his sly sweetness wins out. Call it eau de Wo'. (Viking, $24.95)
by Seymour M. Hersh
Reading The Dark Side of Camelot is like meeting an acquaintance who just can't wait to tell us the hot new gossip. In the very first chapter of his exposé-history of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, prizewinning investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh offers a sort of tasting menu of the juiciest bits: JFK's frail health, his compulsive womanizing, his Mafia connections. Based on candid interviews and transcripts and tapes that Hersh claims were previously secret, the book confirms old rumors (Kennedy's affair with Marilyn Monroe) and purports to introduce new information on his long bout with venereal disease (chlamydia) and a brief first marriage to a Palm Beach socialite.
What's far more troubling—and less often mentioned in the publicity surrounding the book, which critics have accused of malice and distortion—are its allegations of JFK's approval of covert CIA operations in Cuba, Africa and Vietnam, and about the Mafia's role in his political career. These sections add up to an alarming portrait of the Kennedy Presidency, but one ultimately diluted by the prurient, trivial, censorious detailing of tacky liaisons and skinny-dipping parties in the White House pool. (Little, Brown, $26.95)
by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Before she wrote The Deep End of the Ocean, before it became the first selection of Oprah's Book Club, before Jacquelyn Mitchard became a bestselling author, she had been a weekly columnist at The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. So it is natural to approach this collection of her columns with some skepticism. Chronicling the ups and downs of her life as a working mother, Mitchard at first comes off as a cross between author Joyce Maynard and former New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen—a blandly sensible, predictably liberal sort who roots for good (courage, politeness, garage sales), boos the bad (guns, rudeness, teenage drinking) and is at her snippiest griping about Martha Stewart's tips to moms that they use colored pens, paper cutouts and varnish to spruce up their kids' lunch boxes. But something about Mitchard—one could call it grace—grows on you. She mines her children's lives without exposing or exploiting them; she writes about her husband's premature death without displaying rage or inspiring pity; she exults in a perfectly ordinary, perfectly splendid day without mawkishness. And bully for Mitchard that she's still plugging away (her column is now nationally syndicated). Few are her equal in illuminating the personal stake we all have in the daily business of living. (Viking, $23.95)
by Robert K. Tanenbaum
Page-Turner of the Week
AS HEAD OF THE MANHATTAN DA'S homicide bureau, Butch Karp is preparing to prosecute a twisted scion of Long Island's upper crust—a young creep who has taken to cruising Harlem in blackface and snuffing out old ladies who remind him of his childhood nursemaid. For Butch, it is the case of a lifetime, but he's almost upstaged by his wife, Marlene Ciampi, who has more irons in the fire than U.S. Steel. A former attorney herself, with a rambunctious preteen daughter and new set of twins to worry about, Marlene has founded a feminist security firm that specializes in protecting abused women, including celebrities. Cinematic in design, the book cuts sharply back and forth from the Karp-Ciampi household to the couple's workplaces, mixing criminal violence with domestic particulars as Butch gets down and dirty with star defense lawyer Lionel T. Waley and Marlene confronts an array of bad guys—one of whom she plugs herself. The ninth book in a popular series, Irresistible proves to be just that. (Dutton, $24.95)
by Drew Carey
Let's sample some of the humor in this, the latest entrant in the comedian as litterateur category:
"There's a pair of Siamese twin sisters, joined at the hip. One plays the saxophone, and the other one is a nymphomaniac. They're both big Julio Iglesias fans..." And the punch line is...sorry, folks, the punch line is, this is a family magazine, and we don't print stuff like that.
Okay, let's try another example. "A man walks into a bank..." Oops, can't use that one, either.
Well, how about the chapter that consists entirely of 101 jokes about how big Drew's, er, ah, you know.... Well, maybe not.
Gee, are we having trouble conveying something here? Actually, this book is not all dirty jokes. Drew does share his thoughts on such issues as Vegas vs. Atlantic City and winter driving in Cleveland, and also mentions, almost parenthetically, that he was sexually molested as a kid and tried to commit suicide twice.
That's just Hamburger Helper, though. The meat is in the jokes. And the beer? Hey, look in the fridge. (Hyperion, $22.95)
- Contributors:
- Michael Rosenthal,
- Kyle Smith,
- Paula Chin,
- Cynthia Sanz,
- Laura Jamison,
- Adam Begley,
- Francine Prose,
- Michael Neill,
- William Plummer.
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!
