Liars and Saints

  It's hard to read an Alice McDermott book--if little kids are in your house--because her plots jump around and jump backwards, and the cast of characters isn't small. If you're reading a murder mystery, you have the template in your head, and you can find your footing even if one or two pages have skipped past you. "Absolution" is about a woman in the early sixties who has received an education. She is smart, but she can also be foolish; she lets friends think that her father is a high school teacher, when, in fact, "works at a school" means "sweeps the hallways." (The sin of omission becomes a problem, later on.) The narrator marries a guy who assists the CIA; soon enough, the newlyweds find themselves in Vietnam. The narrator has one great wish--to start a family--and her efforts lead to folly. Her catastrophic miscalculations cause her to lie even now, in 2023, because she can't quite accept what a mess she once was. McDermott's na...

  Bowen Yang had an opportunity to write a sequel to his great skit, "The Actress," but he said no. He bluntly said that SNL "sequel" skits offer diminishing returns; he wouldn't chip away at his own achievement. Here's "The Actress." A woman is frustrated with her career, playing "stick figures with shallow lives." Then: "Life comes knocking--with a challenge." This woman is hired to play "Wife Who Gets Cheated On During Gay Porn Film." She struggles with her elusive director, her eccentric props manager ("the bits and pieces of a life, the single Ugg boot, the pack of batteries")....She slips on spilled lube. Through it all, her tenaciousness is a guiding light. She keeps asking questions, proposing rewrites, and finally, against all odds, she triumphs. Yang writes so well, it's not fair. I especially like the K-Y on the steering wheel, the attempt to "brighten up our kitchen," and the referen...

 On Friday, my husband and I took the train to New York, without kids, and we returned to the Angelika NYC, for "All of Us Strangers."  The movie was challenging and weird, but it had thrilling sections. For example, the protagonist (in the shape of Andrew Scott), has to stop kissing his neighbor, because, he says, he forgot to "take a breath first." When Scott tells his mother he is gay, she can't stay in the conversation, so she aggressively criticizes (then dumps out) the cup of tea that she herself has just prepared. Also, Scott's eyes leak tears, in an unshowy way, scene after scene after scene; he breaks your heart. He could be up for an Oscar this year; unbelievably, this would be the first time since the turn of the century that an openly gay male actor would be in the running. (You have to go all the way back to Ian McKellen, in one of his "wizard" movies.) Afterward, Marc and I went to McNally Jackson, another great wonder of the SoHo nei...

 Toward the start of Marsha Norman's musical version of "The Color Purple," Celie makes her "I Want" declaration, and her audience is her sister, Nettie: I want to sit and do nothing-- Fix you a new dress. Hope my babies are happy-- Some place God will bless. This seems like a small wish--if you compare it with "Wicked," or "Evita," or "Children of Eden"--but it's not small. It's not small because many people in Celie's world want her dead. She is raped by a man who claims he is her father; she is separated from her children; she is sent to live with a man who never bothers to disclose his own first name. She is beaten and abandoned (repeatedly). So it's sort of stunning that she does, ultimately, find a life where she can do professional sewing and spend time with a family. It's like conquering Argentina and launching a Rainbow Tour. In her various battles, Celie enlists help from two main allies. One--a friend ...

  One of my favorite picture books is "Yoko," by Rosemary Wells. I'm not alone; this ranks high with Judy Blume, and with Dwight Garner, the critic for the Times. Wells understands the concept of high stakes. This is a thriller for children. It's immediately riveting. A little cat brings sushi to school--and her entire class mocks and rejects her. Who, among child-readers, wouldn't immediately relate to (and start worrying about) this cat? The cat's well-intentioned teacher believes that she can create a "teachable moment" with an International Food Day. Everyone will have to try each dish. But, like so many adult efforts, this one backfires. The dogs and woodland creatures simply continue to avoid the sushi platter. Here is where things get subversive. If the cat isn't going to convert all the pedestrian minds in her classroom, then how can she find something like a happy ending? The answer is surprising, and it "works"; it feels like ...

 In the first episode of "The Simpsons," Homer attends Lisa's Christmas pageant, at Springfield Elementary. It's a sloppy play--and Homer is relieved to reach the end. Then he realizes that every single grade has a performance to offer, and he groans audibly. "Come on. How many grades do they have in this school?" My daughter didn't really make any noise during her first Hanukkah concert. She stood in the group and stuck a finger in her mouth. Later, I talked with a stranger, who revealed that her son had been up late, practicing. "This is EVERYTHING," she said, mysteriously. "It's EVERYTHING." One girl--in particular--seemed to be a star. She knew all the words, and she performed with gusto. She made me think of Kristin Chenoweth--who, at the age of five, agreed to appear live with the Broken Arrow Ballet. She played a bunny, and, at one point, a fake branch fell from a plastic tree. Chenoweth asked herself: "What would a bu...

 The NYT has been publishing wonderful essays on nuttiness: Yiyun Li on suicide, a corporate lawyer on family dysfunction, a cartoonist on despair. This last one--the cartoonist--has a great gift. She starts with a doozy: "I had just been released from a two-week hospitalization in a psych ward, after my diagnosis, at 36, of advanced ovarian cancer...." What follows is triumphant: The tone avoids self-pity and glib humor. It's just honest and direct. The writer describes group therapy with "the tired and the wired," the CEO who "shakes too much to eat." The writer takes us to board-game sessions: "We needed to have fun. Also, we needed to stay active. In group, activeness was next to godliness...." But you eventually have to leave a psych ward. You have to take care of yourself. It's this change that forces the crisis in the story--which is so surprising and odd (and relatable). There is understated panic all the way through the climax, w...

  Maury Yeston is a gifted composer and a mediocre writer. His score for "Titanic" is ravishing--not just because of the opening choral piece, but also because of a memorable marriage proposal, an anthem for the third class, and a climactic number in which families are torn apart. These are overwhelming melodies. But Yeston's sentences are thudding, redundant, sometimes desperately groping for a rhyme. We did not attempt to make with mammoth blocks of stone a giant pyramid-- No, not a pyramid.... And here I cringe: Be thee well! May the Lord who watches all watch over thee. May God's heaven be your blanket as you softly sleep. Thank goodness we know she is *softly* sleeping! "Titanic" is profoundly weird for a few reasons. It's a musical without a protagonist. It speeds gracefully through several days in Act One, then trains its focus on one single hour in Act Two. It features song-and-dance numbers about people who actually lived on this planet, people ...

 My thoughts and prayers are with my career coach, who has no idea what she has taken on. I really like this person. She writes in a sunny and thoughtful way, and her insights are useful to me. For example, she thinks you should check out the maximum number of books from the library, even if you read only one. And she thinks you should double the suggested travel time, when you're running errands, so you aren't pulling out your own hair, in response to stress. She thinks, if you're tired at parties, you should just stop performing. Just drop the act. What I'm not learning is: how to identify the career I ought to pursue. The coach says she has two kinds of clients; one has infrastructure without ideas, the other has ideas without infrastructure. I'm afraid I belong to the first group. Reading about Harvey Fierstein, I'm in awe; the world has a "Newsies" musical because Fierstein said, "It seems advisable to create a 'Newsies' musical....

  It's been a major year for Lisa Kron, a writer on the series "Somebody Somewhere." The Washington Post put this show toward the top of its list of the year's best TV options; I think it should be number one. My great admiration for Kron is tied up with "Fun Home," the first time a lesbian protagonist appeared in a Broadway musical. Kron has a way of writing about gay lives that resists cliche, uses humor, and tells the truth. For example, she notices a little girl who doesn't want to wear a barrette; this seems like a small thing, but the pink plastic makes the girl want to vomit. It stirs up a kind of wordless fury. Unmoored, the girl retreats to a fantasy world; she drafts a love letter to a butch lesbian far off in a crowd. "I thought it was s'posed to be wrong....but you seem okay with being strong...I feel...You're so...." Kron's characters are lost, searching, doing their best. Her girl-protagonist imagines asking the butch ...

  My son makes choices that are sometimes exasperating to me; he can hit, can throw things across the room, and can race toward the street without looking both ways (really, without looking anywhere). So I'm moved by Marge Simpson, in "Marge Be Not Proud." This is the second "Simpsons" Christmas special; writers waited approximately six years, after the first one, because they were intimidated. In MBNP, Bart is determined to make his own mistakes. He is drawn to a particular video game--"Bonestorm"--and, though Marge understands this is just a flashy piece of junk, Bart won't listen. He must have the game. He willfully misinterprets a sign at a GameStop, then tries to cope with a broken heart. He attempts to "borrow" the game from his friend Milhouse. (Lazily groping for an expedient solution, Milhouse encourages his own mother to send Bart back to Evergreen Terrace. "He's swearing again....") It's surprising and inevita...

  The last three major Richard Rodgers musicals have one plot: A fish spills out of the water and tries to make it on land. Racist Nellie attempts to understand Emile's cosmopolitan lifestyle. Anna argues (and dances) with the King. Maria struggles with the codes and rituals of Captain von Trapp. Rodgers and Hammerstein gave themselves godlike power; no one seemed to wring hands about cultural appropriation. An islander could chirp: "Happy talk! Keep talking! Happy talk! Talk about things you like to do! Talk about the birds...." Sure thing! The spouse of the King of Siam could offer a wide-eyed apologia for being a battered wife: "Now and then he'll do....something wonderful!" It's in this context that we can see (and admire) "The Book of Mormon." White missionaries travel to Uganda to spread the word of Joseph Smith. The Ugandan villagers have very little time for religion; they cheerfully sing, "Fuck you, God!" One man believes tha...

 People say it's more fun to consider bad manners than good manners, and so we have the film "Eileen." In this script, Eileen works at a boys' detention center and masturbates in the evening. She parks her car near a lovers' lane, brings herself close to climax, then stuffs snow between her legs, as a kind of punishment. Back at the office, she mixes up forms and, too often, she daydreams. She has dropped out of school--but she thinks, even with a college diploma, she would have become a secretary. "I think I'm just meant to be a secretary." But a stranger comes to town; it's Rebecca, a rebel doctor from Harvard, and Rebecca doesn't like passivity. She is perhaps too empathetic with the patients at the detention center; she sides with the boys, all the time, and she "forgets" about certain disciplinary protocols. She wants Eileen to leave her job and maybe map out a bohemian life; she says, "I bet you have wonderful dreams....

  Chris Van Dusen is an overrated writer, and one of his recent books highlights some of his problems. "Big Truck, Little Island" was labeled a standout book of 2022--but the critic must have been brain-dead. This book is inane and patronizing. Here's what happens. A truck travels to Maine, but it attempts an awkward turn, and it gets wedged between rocks; it's wedged in the middle of a narrow road. People need to get past to attend their trumpet lessons, cake tasting sessions, etc. That's the crisis. In the resolution, people trade cars. If I'm on the north portion of the road, and I need to be south, I borrow your car; in turn, you take mine so you can reach your swim meet on the north side of town. The End.  It's startling to me that no editor pointed out the obvious; there is no real conflict, there is nothing at stake, and there are no characters. I believe Van Dusen has persuaded himself that he is telling a bold tale about altruism, but there isn...

 At times, my house seems to be a malevolent character, and I feel that I'm in a Shirley Jackson novel. Several weeks ago, my spouse went outside to wash the dog--and, within minutes, he was pounding on a window, screaming in distress. This was so startling and unusual, it made me think of "Cloverfield"; I imagined an alien invasion. I wasn't far off the mark; while searching for a hose, my husband had stirred up a nest of yellowjackets, and several had then performed a coordinated attack. A large tree began shedding substantial limbs; the adults in the house imagined various scenarios in which we might simply die, having been felled by a rotting tree-tentacle. (And this made me think of "The Evil Dead.") Finally, the heat seems erratic; at times, we are living in equatorial, tropical splendor, and at times, we seem to be part of Shackleton's sailing crew. Although all rooms apparently have working heaters, each heater has its own brain and mood--so that...

 I resisted Harvey Fierstein's memoir because I didn't know much about HF. I hadn't liked the Michael Urie revival of "Torch Song," and I thought the book for "Newsies" was OK and not spectacular. But the critic Adam Feldman said Fierstein's memoir is not to be missed--and, with those instructions, I went to the bookstore. I think it's useful to compare Fierstein's book with another recent memoir, "Wandering through Life," by Donna Leon. Like Fierstein, Leon is a world-famous writer. But Leon's book is a flop. It's sort of charming, but it's coy. It reveals nothing about Leon--and it doesn't even address "professional highs," the things it would be (ostensibly) fun to talk about. We learn basically nothing about Leon's writing career. By contrast, Fierstein delivers. He speaks candidly about his alcoholism and his suicide attempt. He is pitiless and funny; when recalling a breakup, he says, "This w...

 It seems fine to give a Kander/Ebb role to Jennifer Lopez: The part of Aurora doesn't require much beyond charisma and dancing skill, and J-Lo can deliver. To me, "Spider-Woman" is really about Molina; I learned last week that, back in 2015, Alan Cumming was in talks to do the part, and this seems like a missed opportunity. Molina is caught in a triangle. He misses his mother, who is dying, but to see her, he may need to betray his crush, his fellow inmate, Valentin. "Spider-Woman" becomes a deeply strange love story; Molina understands that a hospital visit may involve torture, so he spares Valentin from the ministrations of nurses. (A nurse could slip drugs into Valentin's system, causing Valentin to cough up political info he'd rather not disclose.) As he plays doctor, Molina shares his history and his hopes, and he makes a friend. Additionally, he risks his life by placing Marxist "plotting" calls, on Valentin's behalf, out in the real...

  Another staple of my Christmas is a re-re-re-viewing of one of the worst films ever made, "The Family Stone." I can't get enough of this one. In "The Family Stone," everyone is upset because film icon Sara Jessica Parker clears her throat too much. She is about to marry into a particular family, but the throat-clearing is just a bridge too far. Also, she doesn't want to share a premarital bed with her fiance, and her bohemian in-laws-to-be respond by making fun of her. Finally, she doesn't know--or doesn't recall--that her "guy" has an allergy to mushrooms. Because of her various missteps, SJP finds herself relentlessly bullied. Oscar winner Diane Keaton actually rolls her eyes at SJP--several times--although Diane Keaton is, by various indicators, an adult. Oscar nominee Rachel McAdams speaks to SJP in grunts. McAdams also has a tantrum when SJP seems to point toward a Black man--unconsciously--while trying to play charades (her little p...

 Donna Leon has said that there is one main reason people turn to detective fiction: It's a great pleasure to see someone smart trying to solve a problem. If you read about a detective, you're simply reading about someone going to work, day after day, until a particular project is completed. Detective stories are conservative stories: You know that there will be a solution, and you know justice, or something like justice, will triumph in the end. (This is a nice break from actual life, where solutions are scarce, and so many issues involve a murky compromise.) Jane Harper's "Exiles," one of the standout crime novels of 2023, features a decent guy, Falk, with a problem. Someone he knows--a mom--has gone missing. She attended a local fair, in Australia, left her infant in a carriage, and disappeared. Why on Earth? Falk is driven to find a solution because he knows the missing woman's teenaged daughter; this kid is suffering, and she can't imagine that her mo...

 I think Bowen Yang is brilliant, and I think one of his great tricks is to have fallen in love with George Santos. Sure, there is contempt in his depiction of Santos, but you can also sense tremendous fondness for this lunatic. The subtext of Yang's performance seems to be: "Doesn't one small part of you wish, at times, that you could be as outrageous as Mr. Santos?" And so we have wonderful moments. Santos (Yang) writes a tribute to himself, to the tune of "Candle in the Wind," and he recalls a heated exchange: "They crawled out of the woodwork....Said I used their donations for Botox....And I said, it was FILLERS, slut...." Also, Santos (Yang) mourns having been cut down in the prime of life; he is a victim, a proud seventeen-year-old Latina queen. Finally, Santos (Yang) pulls a swaddled root vegetable from the innards of a piano, and says that he will now be focusing on the tasks of fatherhood. An actor is a fabulist; there isn't much dista...

 At two-and-a-half, my daughter is playful, imperious, addicted to narrative, overly sensitive, generous, and occasionally tempted by the siren songs of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. In all these ways, she reminds me of me. Still, she is her own person, driven by a profound love for the film "Sing" (a love I do not share with her). Susie also feels affection for Quentin Blake's "Three Little Monkeys"--a sense of enthusiasm that I cannot explain or endorse. And her interest in the world is such that she often resists naptime; the wish to have more experiences, at the expense of rest, is a wish that seems entirely foreign to me. We read a fair amount, and here are some books we like, if you're on the hunt: *"Tom," by Tomie dePaola. This doesn't seem as famous as "Nana Upstairs"--but I think it is the equal to that book, in terms of detail, pacing, and mastery of a shifting tone. I'm a fan. *"Two Dogs," by Ian Falconer. A ...

  There are things I'd change in "Fellow Travelers." The Jelani Alladin story feels generic; also, it seems to have been grafted onto the actual plot, without a compelling reason. (I'm only three hours in. Maybe I'll change my mind.) Also, when Roy Cohn addresses the ghost of his mother--as a way of cramming in information about his disfigured nose--I feel like I'm watching a thesis video for an undergraduate "film studies" class. All that aside, I'm happy to spend a few hours with Matt Bomer's "Hawk." This guy seems to be Thomas Mallon's response to "Don," from "Mad Men." It's a gay Don Draper! Hawk has decided that love isn't an option; the best choice is to marry the boss's daughter, then fuck young men on the side. In Joseph McCarthy's climate of terror, it isn't possible to be idealistic. Hawk will toss people under the bus to survive; he sacrifices one young man to HUAC trials (or ...

  As my kids get older, I think about words; the work of parenting seems to be centered on words. Attaching nouns to verbs. Giving explanations, but also modeling how a sentence is built--so that a child can build her own sentences, with ease, sooner rather than later. The musical "Fun Home" looks at words--how they can be weapons or tools. In one scene, young Alison pulls out a sketch for her father. She clearly has talent, and she wants some recognition. Her father is mentally ill, and he tends to destroy anything in his path. He begins to lecture Alison on shading and scale; eventually, he becomes flustered, and he suggests that the current draft will be a source of embarrassment. Alison will take the draft to school, and the other kids will laugh at her. It's a brutal scene. Later in the evening, Alison confronts her mother. She wants to know how Mom has survived decades of emotional terrorism. There is a complicated accusation within this question: "You have bee...

 Once, my neighbor gave me advice; this was like handing down wisdom through oral storytelling, as in the days of ancient Athens. "I had my first child, and I was drowning," she said, "and I had a friend with a career and a large family. And I said to her,  How do you manage ? And she said:  It's just about being half-assed, in everything you do.... " My neighbor seared me with her eyes; I thought that heavenly choirs might start to sing. And she walked away. I remember an essay Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote; she was recalling the drafting of her first novel. "I sat on the couch with my child, as he watched Elmo. My warm body seemed to be enough for him; he thought that this was family time. And I pulled out my journal and wrote my novel." If you hire a teen sitter, you have to do some on-site training. There is a world of difference between calm competence and nervous energy. My new sitter has never yet written a seamless five-paragraph essay, and here ...

  In "Cabaret," Fraulein Schneider tells three stories--and their central theme is the "virtue" of passivity. When I was a child, My summers were spent by the sea. So what? And I had a maid doing all of the housework-- Not me. So what? Now I scrub all the floors-- And I wash down the walls-- And I empty the chamber pot. If it ended that way-- Then it ended that way. And I shrug and I say: So what? Life has fucked with Schneider. Expectations were set in childhood--and hopes were then dashed. The sea gives way to other liquids--the suds in the bucket, the piss in the chamber pot. When I had a man, my figure was dumpy and fat. So what? Through all of our years, He was so disappointed in that. So what? Now I have what he missed And my figure is trim-- But he lies in a churchyard plot. If it wasn't to be That he ever would see The uncorseted me-- So what? Here, again, a dream is (fatally) deferred. Like the sea, the "vision of thinness" is just out of reac...

 My husband and I like to make fun of the TV adaptation of "Parenthood"--the difficult conversations, the swelling melodies, the weird mustache that someone selected for Jason Ritter. (If, anywhere on Earth, there is a "good" mustache, it's not the one that Jason Ritter is wearing.) Still, I think "Parenthood" is a fine showcase for (the writer) Jason Katims's special talent, and mainly I think this because the scripts center on a functional marriage. Katims made his name by looking at a sturdy pairing--the bond between Coach Taylor and Tami Taylor, in "Friday Night Lights"--and the "Taylor" scenes were so electrifying, they inspired at least one lengthy essay in the NY Review of Books. In "Parenthood," Katims basically takes the Taylors and gives them new names--Adam and Kristina Braverman. Often, TV dramas have a hard time with marriage. Benson, on SVU, is perpetually single; Dick Wolf seems to think that a romantic ...