Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles

The renowned literary critic shares his profiles of Woody Allen, David Mamet, Ingmar Bergman, Frank Sinatra, Roseanne, Irving Berlin, Bob Hope, Mike Nichols, Arthur Miller, and Wallace Shawn, among other cultural icons. 15,000 first printing.

According to Lahr, New Yorker profiles are exercises in biography that average 10,000 words and take four months to research and write. Here, the two-time winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and author of several biographies, plays, and novels turns in 15 of his New Yorker profiles dating from 1995 to the present. Thirteen cover such celebrities as Woody Allen, David Mamet, Frank Sinatra, and Roseanne; two are devoted to Lahr's parents. All 15 profiles are extremely well written and offer insights into their subjects. Unforunately, the sum of the whole does not equal its parts; the book does not cohere, and it is doubtful whether any single reader would find all profiles of interest, as some of the subjects are not household names (e.g., Liev Schreiber, Neil LaBute). With this in mind, libraries might want to think twice before purchasing, but those collecting compilations of writing by New Yorker contributors should consider.ANeal Baker, Earlham Coll., Richmond, IN
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lahr is that rarity among American entertainment journalists, a polished and graceful writer. Others may research their subjects as exhaustively as he does, but few who are as fixated on fame and celebrity as he take as much care to produce balanced, witty, readable prose. Of course, he admits that profiles such as those collected here generally take four months each to write, and each is a distillation of "about fifteen hundred pages of transcribed interviews." Also, Lahr is a New Yorker writer, and that journal has always put a premium on exceptionally good writing. Lahr's subjects in these late 1990s pieces include both celebs like Woody Allen, Frank Sinatra, and Ingmar Bergman, and obscurer, rising stars like director Neil Labute and cross-dressing comedian Eddie Izzard. Bonuses come in the form of moving meditations on Lahr's famous father, Bert, the subject of his son's popular memoir Notes on a Cowardly Lion (1969), and mother, Mildred, who is less famous but no less worthy. Jack Helbig
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