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As a side note: Duheme and Jacqueline Kennedy became friends who shared similar painting styles, and Duheme was invited to Cape Cod to give the First Lady an art lesson.
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Sterba is a veteran reporter, but he is also an astute observer, and he manages to weave some very lucid observations on a variety of issues into his tale of life in a cabin on the Maine coast.
Sterba is also very funny. He touches on any number of subjects with a wry wit that leaves the reader smiling to himself time and again, as Sterba explains the intricacies of being a foreign correspondent who roams the world for nine months of the year and then has the good fortune to spend his summers in Maine.
That good fortune came when he met Frances ("Frankie") FitzGerald, the noted Pulitzer Prizing winning historian. Sterba courts her even from his overseas assignments, and he gets his first taste of Maine when Frankie invites him to spend a weekend in her family's bucolic cabin in Northeast Harbor, located on Mount Desert Island. Frankie comes from the Peabody family from Boston (& Maine) on her mother's side. Her father was Desmond Fitzgerald, a senior CIA Cold Warrior
So Frankie is no pushover, and she puts Sterba through his paces as she introduces him to life on a Maine island. There are freezing plunges into the ocean, morning jogs and long walks. Sterba affectionally refers to this regimen as the FitzGerald Survival School. He eventually survives Frankie's school, and the two get married. Sterba, a fatherless mid-western farm boy, moves Down East.
The first thing Sterba has to cope with is the social strata in Maine. There are the locals ("Mainers"), the middle class summer residents ("rusticators"), and then the high priests of Mount Desert Island -- the multi-generational summer residents who are principally WASP's from Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Sterba spends much of the book searching for the quintessential WASP (or "Philadelphia snob") and is, seemingly, shocked -- shocked! -- to be told that his wife is that very person (she isn't).
But this book is not just about Maine. We learn how Sterba moves from the New York Times (Editor Abe Rosenthal was his bete noir) to the Wall Street Journal where he becomes an A-Head writer, penning the features on the Journal's front page. He sees a lot of similarities between island life in Maine and other parts of the globe where he roamed for the Times and the Journal. He compares the economic development of a tiny rural town in Indonesia to the "improvements" of the trails on Mount Desert Island (not good in either case); he has some cogent observations on the news industry, as well -- noting that the Wall Street Journal offered him the chance to do the kind of reporting and writing that he never could do at the New York Times.
Sterba fancies himself as a good cook, and he reprints his favorite recipes throughout the book. The one thing he doesn't cook is lobsters, for that is Frankie's job. She's no pushover in that department, either, Sterba notes. He describes how she disappears into the kitchen to boil the lobsters alive and then uses a hammer or whatever heavy utensil is handy to crack them open for the dinner table. By the time the lobsters are served, Sterba says, the kitchen looks like a war zone.
Sterba, meanwhile has his own war. He discovers mice in Frankie's Place. So, naturally as an old Asian hand, he consults The Art of War, written by the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, on how best to wage war against the mice. Throughout the book, Sterba gives us updates on his war against the mice -- with body counts just like he reported on in Vietnam. It's sort of a Downeast version of the Saigon follies. But finally (like the Ford Administration in 1975 in Vietnam) Sterba throws in the towel, comparing his mice war to the battles for Hamburger Hill in Vietnam where the Americans took the Hill time and again in a seemingly mindless, winless struggle for military dominance. In the end, Sterba accommodates himself to the mice (they continue to ignore him).
Perhaps the most touching episode in the book comes near the end when Sterba discovers he isn't fatherless after all. His natural father gets in touch with him through an uncle. The uncle calls to tell Sterba that his real father, Walter Watts, has written a letter and wants to meet his son, whom he hasn't seen in some 50 years. The story of how they got together is a gripping account.
Sterba and his father eventually have a reunion in Florida where his father has retired. The two reconcile after all those years, and still enjoy playing golf with each other (His father is gracious enough to let Sterba win).
This is marvelous book, best left for a rainy day, when one has the time to settle in and enjoy the wonders of Maine. Sterba writes well, his humor is intact, and he relates a hell of a good story about a couple of writers who have seen a lot of the world -- but are thankful they can retreat to their own cozy Maine camp overlooking Somes Sound.
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Like the good reporter he is, he tells it in a story so engaging you will not want it to end and when it does you'll kiss the person next to you and run to the fridge to see what is there to be transformed.
It is a symphony of the senses; sight, taste, touch and sound, animated by a generous spirit. In my usual smart alec fashion I would make comparisons to this or that book, place it in this or that category. Finally comparisons exhausted, I realized it's in a class by itself. Read it for the good of YOUR soul.
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it dosen't go into the assassination of JFK, but rather it answers the questions of who was this guy and what was his role.
you learn about when ex-President Jimmy Carter was giving a speech on the JFK assassination and then the tv sound just went mute. the book answers what Jackie was actually reaching over the car for and who people like Lee Bowers were and what Richard Nixon and J Edgar Hoover had to do with the JFK assassination.
this is a very simple book, but it's very informative and very well written.
has numerous photos of some of the people mentioned in the book.
great book.
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The main characters in this book ware Mary and Collin. They are cousin and always cross and nervous. They have a point of sameness. They have lost his mother in child. The reason of their nervous character was affected their environment. In early, Mary's mother was not care of her daughter and Collin lost his mother in his one year. Mary changed his mind more and more because Martha concerned to her at first time. One day, Mary found the secret garden, which was not opened for ten years. Mary and Collin worked hard for recovery garden. They effort to garden's live, to have keep the secret.
I would you read this book what secret is. When you read the end of story, you would experience miracle. And then you will think about your family and your life. Through this book we will recognize what we love, how we love and whom we love at first. Furthermore, when you are lonely,read this book.
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The Secret Garden is a fabulous story and wonderfully well-written. Orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live with her uncle. She is sickly (both physically and emotionally). She is spoiled, inactive, lazy and pale. When she discovers the secret garden, she decides to keep it for herself. But she can't remain alone, and she can't keep the garden to herself; Mary must learn to share, both the garden and her life. As the garden transforms from a lifeless, ugly place, Mary transforms, too. This slow, beautiful process (of the garden and Mary) coming to life is what makes the book so wonderful (and the movies not so good). The greatness of this book lies not in its plot (which almost everyone knows) but in the way the plot unfolds and the characters blossom.
Martha, Dickon, Colin and Archibald play their parts in Mary's transformation, and they, too, are changed by the wondrous things that happen.
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By supporting dummy regimes that encouraged Western Market Capitalism, but did not have the support of the Vietnamese population, America failed to learn from the mistakes of the French and ended up backing the losing side in the Vietnamese civil war.
Fitzgerald's work is an articulate study of Vietnamese society and culture. "Fire In the Lake" elucidates the problems with America's "black and white" assessment of Cold War International Politics and also underscores our inability to look at things from a perspective other than our own.
A significant piece of work!
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Kroll,now 85 has visited the set in Canada-where producers found Spainish-style hacienda..like Scott's in LA.
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Joyce Carol Oates
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Dick Diver is a young psychiatrist; a follower of Freud and Jung who is working his way up in the field of mental health medicine. He is intelligent, handsome, altruistic, and an overachiever. Dick falls in love and marries the beautiful, wealthy Nicole Warren who also happens to be his patient. Dick and Nicole start out living the high life. They travel to exotic locations and mingle with aristocrats. All the while Dick establishes a successful private practice with the help of Nicole's money and becomes a well-respected and sought-after physician. But soon the happy front the Diver's display to the world crumbles. Nicole's mental problems begin to resurface and Dick becomes involved with a young Hollywood starlet. These events trigger a domino of disappointments and downfalls.
Anyone who has studied F. Scott Fitzgerald the man will no doubt see that Tender is the Night mirrors his own life with his wife Zelda. Fitzgerald, a perfectionist in his own career worked tirelessly to establish himself. Meanwhile, he and Zelda traveled the globe, attended parties, consumed alcohol, lived extravagantly, and carelessly spent all their money before Zelda slipped into insanity leaving Scott to pick up the scattered pieces of his broken life. The character of Dick Diver grows to become cynical and is left feeling he is a failure. Sadly, six years after the publication of this book, Fitzgerald himself died prematurely believing he was a failure and destined for literary obscurity.
It would be impossible for me to do justice in describing the splendor of Fitzgerald's prose. His passages are emotionally sweeping and his words strum along as rhythmically as fine music. If you have time for only one book this year, make a wise choice and consider Tender is the Night.
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The experience is hard to describe for me. The skillful intertwining of narratives has already been described by others. The effect is sensitive and deceptively simple. I couldn't help but feel, when I had finished, that there were deeper threads connecting the two stories that I couldn't quite see yet -- much like the threads on the back of needlework can tie together what on the surface is unconnected. I have a sense that by reading it one more time, and one more time after that (etc.) I would gradually see the metaphors that make each story reflect the other.
Without doing that, however, be assured that it is enough to read the book once, just to experience its light touch on your mind (and possibly your heart).
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The common thread is the reading of life through their art - e.g. the seamtress is more impressed with the queen's stitches than her position. Through this comes the title - The Invention of Truth - for both artists read the truth of their lives through their art.