Even as she set towering records and moved mountains with her voice, she was judged at every turn by those who could never step into in her shoes.
Although the love never left, the mockery grew louder in her later years as she fell victim to drug abuse before dying in 2012 at age 48.
“Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” a new book by Gerrick Kennedy, seeks to recontextualize Houston‘s life, looking with compassion rather than scorn.
The concept at New York’s latest fine dining restaurant could not be further from that of the building’s past incarnations — or of pretty much any other upscale restaurant in New York, for that matter, but Justice and Lindsley share Chang’s desire to turn the concept of fine dining on its head. “We would have been so sad to just open another [restaurant],” Justice says. “But at the end of the day, we’re opening a little boutique, fine dining restaurant in Manhattan.” So what is HAGS, if not just another costly culinary experience in a cramped dining room? It is a space, as Lindsley and Justice see it (and hope you will, too) where queerness comes first, and all else comes second.
But nothing should overshadow Tokarczuk’s literary presence in the United States now. “The Books of Jacob” is finally available here in a wondrous English translation by Jennifer Croft, and it’s just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed when they praised Tokarczuk for showing “the supreme capacity of the novel to represent a case almost beyond human understanding.” In terms of its scope and ambition, “The Books of Jacob” is beyond anything else I’ve ever read. Even its voluminous subtitle is a witty expression of Tokarczuk’s irrepressible, omnivorous reach. Deep breath: “A Fantastic Journey Across Seven Borders, Five Languages, and Three Major Religions, Not Counting the Minor Sects. Told by the Dead, Supplemented by the Author, Drawing From a Range of Books, and Aided by Imagination, the Which Being the Greatest Natural Gift of Any Person. That the Wise Might Have It for a Record, That My Compatriots Reflect, Laypersons Gain Some Understanding, and Melancholy Souls Obtain Some Slight Enjoyment.”
When I opened Brendan Slocumb’s debut novel, “The Violin Conspiracy,” I was immediately transported to a place I’d never been, surrounded by characters I’d never met. In the crowded world of fiction, that’s no small accomplishment. Taking inspiration from his day job as a music teacher, Slocumb has orchestrated an engaging and suspenseful story about an aspiring musician and his great-great-grandfather’s violin.
But this is a deceptively expansive novel, filled with idiosyncratic characters and a distinctive flavor of the times. Beyond the confines of Phyllis's suburban house and Nicky's one-room flat, Hadley gives us sweeping descriptions of London in the Swinging '60s, where old fashioned elegance, is giving way to crushed velvets and "Indian silver" jewelry. A domestic novel of manners, erotic abandon and cultural change, Free Love is as eclectic and alive as the times it captures.