As her legions of fans know, Clark likes to keep readers in suspense. So it's only fitting that the novelist made her devotees wait 33 years for this, her first memoir. It was worth the wait: Clark has produced a pull-up-a-chair recounting of the memorable moments in her life, from her childhood in the Depression-era Bronx to bestsellerdom.
Those looking for dense autobiographical detail will be frustrated; Privileges is more a love letter to the people who encouraged her. The cheering begins with Clark's mother, Nora, who was forced to rent out rooms in the family home when Mary was a child (thus the promised enticement of the title). Nora lived to see her daughter become an author, but Mary said early goodbyes to her father, her two brothers and her first husband, Warren Clark, with whom she had five children. She makes for a plucky heroine, beginning as a catalog copywriter and later landing a job working on radio scripts. Clark takes readers from the days when horse-drawn milk wagons clattered outside her Tenbroeck Avenue window in the Bronx to the time when she traded up to a Cadillac after a publisher offered her $1 million. (Simon and Schuster, $24)
BOTTOM LINE: Inspiring journey
By Jeff Shaara
Book-bored students who would rather drink Sam Adams than read about him should thank their lucky stars for Shaara. The bestselling historical novelist has kindly crafted his epic two-part series on the American Revolution—this is the sequel to last year's Rise to Rebellion—as rock-'em, sock-'em adventure sagas that richly detail the birth of a nation but never fail to entertain at the same time.
The Glorious Cause begins in 1776, as flustered British forces refuse to yield to an upstart colonial army. Shaara tells his patriotic story via the viewpoints of such complex men as Benjamin Franklin and Benedict Arnold, but it's the military mind games that go on between colonial commander George Washington and redcoated general Charles Cornwallis that drive this gripping narrative. You might know how it ends, but the twisting machinations will keep you riveted until the last musket is fired. (Ballantine, $27.95)
BOTTOM LINE: Earns a tip of the tricornered hat
By Chuck Barris
We expect celebrity memoirs to be ripe with juicy tales of sex, substance abuse and egomania. This one has all that and something else: CIA assassinations. In Confessions—first published in 1982 and now back in print to accompany the movie version, directed by George Clooney—the creator-host of The Gong Show says that he was also a secret agent with a license to kill. He has since hinted that this claim is best taken with a grain of salt, but still, the sheer outrageousness of the conceit turns an otherwise forgettable read into a feverish, loopy joyride.
Barris virtually invented reality TV with his smutty creation The Dating Game, though to hear him tell it, he actually toned the sleaze factor down. Critics frothed at his poor taste, but Barris says, with a wink at his supposed hit-man gig, "What was everyone so worked up about? It's not like I was killing people." (Miramax, $14)
BOTTOM LINE: Dangerously funny
By José Saramago
At the heart of Nobel Prize winner Saramago's haunting new novel is an elderly widower named Cipriano, a potter who sells his wares through the Center—a surreal, futuristic and more than slightly sinister residential and commercial complex. When Cipriano is told that there is no longer any market for his water jugs, the ensuing chain of events forever changes the lives of his affectionate household. This is both a meditation on the heartlessness with which modern society absorbs the individual, and a compassionate study of loyalty, love and the ways in which people face the forces trying to obliterate their spirit. (Harcourt, $25)
BOTTOM LINE: Beautiful and luminous
Page-turner of the week
By James Lee Burke
As the Civil War envelops New Iberia, La., the skeptical, sharp-tongued protagonist of this extraordinary historical novel finds himself, against his own nature, caught up in the fray. Though he doesn't support slavery, Willie Burke joins the Confederate army anyway out of a mixture of honor and fear.
This isn't just another tale of politics and battle strategies, but rather a richly described slice of life that retells the story of the war through the eyes of an array of carefully realized characters: a slave coming into freedom, a strong-willed Yankee abolitionist, a ruthless plantation owner and many noble and not-so-noble fighting men. Describing his characters' interrelated odysseys—and the moral choices each one makes—the author unearths root causes and personal tragedies of America's deadliest conflict. Drawing from his family history as well as extensive research, Burke layers a powerful, engrossing tale with intimate, unforgettable period detail. (Simon & Schuster, $25)
BOTTOM LINE: Civil War blockbuster
By John Updike
Did you see the 2000 movie Pollock? Did you stay awake in art-history class? If so, you may quickly tire of this uncharacteristic dud from Updike. The novel seeks to trace the rise of post-WWII American art through the life of Hope Chafetz, an aging painter better known for her husbands than her canvases. Hubby No. 1 is a barely fictionalized Jackson Pollock: a tortured genius fueled by testosterone and booze. Pollock is Updike's kind of misunderstood manly mess—but even the master's prose, swinging from fine-brush realism to swooping loops of metaphor, can't save his oft-told tale from seeming smaller than life. No. 2 is a believability-straining composite of luminaries—including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol—who serves principally as the subject of passages that could be lifted from one of Updike's art-criticism essays. No. 3, an art collector, encourages Hope's own work. Gallant of him, considering the other men in her life—including Updike—treated her as little more than a means to their own ends. (Knopf, $23)
BOTTOM LINE: Abroad but lifeless canvas
By Jan Karon
Each Christmas, Esther Bolick bakes her prized orange-marmalade layer cakes for her Mitford neighbors and friends. But after realizing that each of the treats is costing her $43, she tries to save some dough by scratching names off her list. Hope Winchester? She can bake her own darn cake. And Father Tim? He shouldn't be eating sweets anyway. All these years she'd been "throwing money away like slop from a bucket!" Esther exclaims.
Anyone who has read A Christmas Carol—or even Dr. Seuss—knows what's coming. But fans of Karon's will enjoy being reacquainted with many of the same characters from the southern town where her bestselling Mitford novels are set. At only 37 pages (including a recipe for Esther's cake), this yuletide short story won't last as long as the average Duraflame, but its sweet message will keep you plenty warm. (Viking, $10.95)
BOTTOM LINE: Cozy as socks from Grandma
By Iris Johansen
If John Woo were to direct a romance novel, the script might come out something like this. Leftist rebel Elena Kyler, Johansen's martial-arts-expert heroine, has been tortured and raped by the evil Colombian drug lord Chavez. Elena flees with the aid of sinewy, handsome Sean Galen, a hostage-extraction specialist who enlists handsome, sinewy assassin Judd Morgan in a plan to lure Chavez to the U.S. There's a lot of repressed romantic friction and body blows (imagine Tracy and Hepburn scissor-kicking each other), but as flesh-and-blood characters—well, these folks might as well be androids. (Bantam, $25.95)
BOTTOM LINE: Two-dimensional action
- Contributors:
- Moira Bailey,
- Sean Daly,
- Daniel Radosh,
- Francine Prose,
- Joe Heim,
- Samantha Miller,
- Jennifer Wulff,
- Ed Karam.
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!
