One day, Dustin is planning to spend an epic summer in Japan with his baseball team, playing the sport he loves more than anything. The next, he’s at the funeral of his 20-year-old cousin, a college baseball player with an undetected heart condition. There, Dustin meets Andrea, and despite his negative first impressions, they grow […]
Veteran film writer McBride clearly esteems Cukor’s “rich, multifaceted, deeply personal” worldview as expressed in his oeuvre. He ascribes Cukor’s masterful conveyance of nuance in human behavior, of subtext, to the director’s own “double life”—Cukor’s outsider status as a “partially closeted” gay man, a son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. McBride appraises Cukor’s craft throughout his […]
Set in 1947, Tracy is a recent war veteran and the youngest cop ever to make detective in “The City.” He’s still struggling to come to grips with the horrors he experienced while in battle. After a crime reporter and an alderman are among those gunned down during an apparent robbery at a diner, Tracy […]
Dubbed “quirky” by her mother (an assessment readers will likely agree with), Millie narrates her own well-paced story in a flow of verbiage she often has trouble stemming. She is “the boss” but defers to her mom, who happens to be the mayor of Washington, D.C. Mayor Maude’s a single parent (Millie’s father is dead), […]
This graphic novel opens on a snowy evening at Hillock College, where the semester is off to a bumpy start for Molly Song and her friend Lou Kingston. Molly is reeling from a recent breakup with her girlfriend, Olene Reed, who dumped Molly via email from the plane to Europe, where she’s spending the semester […]
Timid Bigfoot usually holes up inside his cave, afraid to venture out. Everyone makes loud, terrifying noises whenever they see him. But at least he has other misunderstood monster pals who appreciate his plight, among them Nessie, who lives in Scotland; Mothman, who’s from the Appalachian Mountains; and the Chupacabra, who resides in Puerto Rico. […]
Twelve-year-old Mendel’s incapable of doing anything right. When he hugs his mother, he knocks her into the washtub. While setting the table, he lights the table on fire. And when he chops wood, he almost decapitates his sister. Mendel’s mother tells him it isn’t his fault: Years ago, Starface Matja cursed Mendel when his pregnant […]
Diane, whose last name is not given to protect her family’s privacy, grew up in the idyllic village of Guildford, England, an experience she describes as “sort of a Norman Rockwell lifestyle.” At age 9, her world turned upside down when she found out her doting mom and dad were foster parents, and that her […]
In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), Diamonstein-Spielvogel, former LPC commissioner and nationally renowned arts advocate, invited people knowledgeable about the city’s architecture and history to “write freely on any and all…aspects of the built environment, including the role of preservation in a changing city.” The result […]
It is October of 1886 when 13-year-old Mary Agnes (called Mary A.) Coyne gives her beloved grandfather, Festus Laffey, a tearful goodbye hug and kiss. She is on her way to America—alone, frightened, and excited. Although she had dreamed of seeing the world beyond western Ireland, she had not expected to leave on her own […]