A poignant drama about two influential yet fragile figures grappling with the “very excruciating life” of an artist.
Actual conversations between two iconic gay artists form the basis for a new play.
In 1978, longtime friends Andy Warhol and Truman Capote made cassettes of their conversations, “approximately eighty hours of recordings.” Roth, director of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, learned that Pittsburgh’s Warhol Museum owned these tapes but that they were inaccessible to the public. With the help of museum board members such as artist Cindy Sherman and filmmaker John Waters, he gained access. Most of the conversations were dull, but then he got to “the magic tape” in which Warhol suggested they “take their words and make a play out of them.” That play never happened, but Roth has fashioned his own “non-fiction invention” from the conversations of “two of my idols.” The first half of the book consists of the text of the play, short scenes in which Warhol and Capote gossip about everything from the vagaries of fame to Capote’s rehab stint for alcoholism. The second half is a “Bonus” section of exchanges in which they dish about boyfriends, sex clubs, and a famous woman who was “one of Hitler’s greatest friends.” Roth redacted many names from the bonus exchanges, leaving place holders for “a very famous rock star” and “a trend-setting woman of high social standing,” among others. These excisions might leave readers who are thirsty for gossip feeling parched. The play, however, is an imaginative portrait, with Capote coming across as the needier of the two, wondering if he’s wasted his years while maintaining he was “the one and only real true genius in America.” Meanwhile, Warhol was his concerned caregiver, eager to protect the man he was so obsessed with in his youth that Capote’s mother had to tell him to stop pestering her son.
A poignant drama about two influential yet fragile figures grappling with the “very excruciating life” of an artist.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982103-82-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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