"The Death of Bunny Munro should carry an EXPLICIT warning too, but the provocative cover art may similarly protect readers from being too surprised. Ironically, it's the depth - not the in-your-face shallowness - of the book that is the real jack in the box."
"The present volume celebrates Dana's age — in all its meanings — with simple reminiscences delivered with gravity and grace, the poems' speakers conversationally guiding us through recollections when on the beach, in the mountains, abroad in Europe and, his favorite setting, around his Iowa home...."
There are tissue paper-thin ideas of meaning in the poem, and all the poems; Phillips is so infinitesimal in his perceptive thought, we see how he embodies the talents that make him an excellent translator of poems and essayist on the art of poetry. The poet divides back onto himself, revising and adding, often through non-essential clauses, the most essential ideas.
"The thematic questions of the book are what make it beat with life, but the complexity of the story - with comic books within comics, three time periods (or none if you're Dr. Manhattan) and multiple settings - makes it truly postmodern in its ability to deconstruct both time and space while still holding a single, primary storyline..."
"A heady analyst of the world around him, [Rothwell is] overly fond of flashing his intelligence forward in the odd word certain to send you to a dictionary. His sense of other people's voices also jars, as if everyone is gifted with the Queen's English and a perfect philosophical riposte."
"Friedman has never really been interested in well-adjusted winners, but rather those on the way up or down, or even better, those going nowhere fast. The neurotic, the unhappy, the malcontent, the put-upon, the outsider, that's patented Friedman territory, and we're the better for it."
"A heady analyst of the world around him, [Rothwell is] overly fond of flashing his intelligence forward in the odd word certain to send you to a dictionary. His sense of other people's voices also jars, as if everyone is gifted with the Queen's English and a perfect philosophical riposte."
"There is a lot of fear embedded in some of these stories. Men and women fear spending their lives alone, but also fear the possibility of spending their lives with one another. Often there is potential for companionship within reach, but the character, burdened with the baggage of insecurity, isn't capable of overcoming her fear of closeness."
"...This tendency to slide between the past and present, to place events inside an historical echo chamber, to draw us into a world where fact and myth are entwined and time becomes `timeless', is classic `Kapuscinskian' territory."
...Forthright and insightful throughout, this assessment of how writers and their writing are perceived in retrospect is woven throughout New York in the Fifties, the end result being a memoir that situates personal experience in a broader historical context, remaining engaging and enjoyable all the while.