From Publishers Weekly
The nonfiction equivalent of light verse, this delightful set of characterological inquiries into the real life origins of the likes of Jay Gatsby, Holly Golightly and Godot finds a serious reader sleuthing after gossipy backstories. The trade publisher of Harcourt and a regular columnist for the American Scholar, Bernard is no stranger to the literary life, or, as his Rotten Rejections: Literary Short Takes has already shown, to making light of it. In a series of brief essays arranged alphabetically by the character under discussion, he here finds that Scarlett O'Hara was called Pansy by Margaret Mitchell until her publisher protested against "unhappy associations"; that Shandy (as in Tristram) is Yorkshire dialect for unsteady or addled; that the real Miss Lonelyhearts was actually female (unlike Nathanael West's character) and wrote a column for a Brooklyn newspaper. Readers will find many of their most beloved literary companions here, along with 30 line drawings of items relating to some of the characters, from a martini glass (for Holly Golightly of Breakfast at Tiffany's) to a bat (Dracula, of course). And Bernard takes great care not to spoil one's illusions about Huck Finn, Jack Torrance or Winnie-the-Pooh, leaving their fictional extensions from life fully intact. Sidebars and italicized quotations ("There is no such thing as a 'minor' character in Dostoevski," said F. Scott Fitzgerald) add to the fun.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The very literary Bernard, publisher at Harcourt and columnist at the
American Scholar, presents choice anecdotes about how fiction writers came up with the names of their characters, their backgrounds, and their physiques and habits--all the quirky and unforgettable details that snare a reader's attention. The result is a marvelously engaging compendium of literary trivia replete with elegant writing, invaluable quotes, intriguing sidebars, and delectable inside information. Here are the backstories for the creation of P. D. James' Auden-quoting detective Adam Dalgliesh, the spontaneous creation of J. R. R. Tolkien's hobbits, Stephen King's Carrie, Nabokov's Lolita, Truman Capote's Holly Golightly, and so on through the likes of Herman Melville and Dashiell Hammett, Edith Wharton and Patricia Highsmith, William Styron and John le Carre. Each entry is an enticing and suave minicritique of the work in question, and each discussion makes the reader want to drop whatever she's doing and hunt down a copy of
All the King's Men or
Rebecca or
A Is for Alibi.
Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
