Long, Last, Happy
by Barry Hannah
The Week
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A Voice From Old New York
by Louis Auchincloss
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25)
“Readers lost a thoughtful, wise author” when Louis Auchincloss died last January at 92, said David Hendricks in the San Antonio Express-News. Luckily Auchincloss, who wrote some 60 books while also practicing law, left behind this “posthumous gift,” a memoir of his upbringing among New York City’s Upper East Side elite. This tender portrait of family displays Auchincloss’ sharp ability to observe and “write critically about those who surrounded him, their failings as well as their humanities.”
The Petting Zoo
by Jim Carroll
(Viking, $26)
Fans of Jim Carroll have been waiting for The Petting Zoo for nearly two decades, said Richard Hell in The New York Times. The protagonist is “an unschooled New York artist whose talent gains him early fame, but who dies in a crisis of fear that he’s betrayed himself spiritually.” For Carroll, who died in 2009, at age 60, this was familiar ground. The Petting Zoo is mainly “a mess,” but Carroll “could tell a story as well as anybody around,” and there are moments here of pure poetry.
The Memory Chalet
by Tony Judt
(Penguin, $26)
British essayist and historian Tony Judt, who died last year after a painful battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, “spent much of the last two years of his life unable to move or speak,” said Mike Fischer in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. With assistance, he composed this brilliant collection of 25 short pieces that look back on his life. The result is “a bracing spiritual autobiography of a man whose lofty goal was to think for himself—and push each of us to do the same.”
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”