Nowadays, the Little Orphan Annie comics that Harold Gray drew from Aug. 5, 1924, through his death in 1968 are less well-known than the 1977 musical that adapted the spunky orphan’s story for the Broadway stage, and the 1982 movie that adapted that Tony Award–winning musical for the big screen. But no matter the permutation, Annie has long represented orphanhood—and how to overcome it—in the American cultural imagination. Her rags-to-riches story arc has by now inculcated several generations of children with the values of grit, bootstrapping, and optimism, encouraging a vision of the American Dream that has always been impossible. I really wish that we’d reassess Annie’s iconic status, and not just because it gets orphanhood all wrong. When you really look closely at it, her narrative is plain weird.
Writers are often cautioned not to work out of the heat of the moment, as if what gives their work its focus is a bit of space. The brilliance and beauty of “Bluff” is how effectively Smith does away with that idea. For them, art is not a sanctuary but a battleground, by turns necessary and useless, and never safe and clean. The writing here pulses and pops and fills us with discomfort, exploring the ruptures we all recognize. And why not? Why else bother? Why else put in the work?
On city walks, wherever I happen to be, it strikes me again and again how much passion it takes to survive in hospitality – and yet, how often such passion seems either to have gone awol, or to have sent owners in the wrong direction entirely. So many paradoxes, so many confusions. From the outside, quick fixes are obvious, even to the amateur eye. Shorten your menu! Paint over that maroon wall immediately. But it’s also indubitably the case that some very bad restaurants are packed, and some very good ones heartbreakingly empty.
No wonder, then, that I jumped on Simonetta Wenkert’s memoir, Ida at My Table, as if on The Key to All Mythologies. I’ve been waiting to read something like it: a book that speaks, minus any macho nonsense, about the experience of running a small restaurant, through good times and bad.
Structured through a combination of chronology and theme, Friss moves from era to era, starting with Benjamin Franklin’s various shops, which combined publishing, printing and bookselling under one roof. As Friss tells us, the word “bookstore” didn’t even exist, and books were primarily luxury goods. It is clear from the outset that Friss’ research is deep, but he keeps it accessible, frequently flavoring the history with interesting morsels, such as Thomas Jefferson purchasing a “sumptuous two-volume history of Italy” that was the same price as 14 hogs.
“Out of the Dark” is a story of trust, self-knowledge, and healing. The journey with Jeanne/Elliott satisfies not only as a road trip marked by the kindnesses of strangers; readers will delight in the company of a woman traveler who grows into the self she’s in fact happy to recognize.