Search Results for: Los Angeles Review of Books

The evolution of Charlie Chaplin’s most famous character—and the woman who helped shape it. On actress-director Mabel Normand and her effect on Chaplin’s work: 

When Chaplin became the Tramp on Normand’s watch, he also learned to be a movie actor. As Sennett put it, Normand, ‘the greatest motion-picture comedienne of any day, was as deft in pantomime as Chaplin was… She worked in slapstick, but her stage business and her gestures were subtle, not broad.’ Normand, the first movie star actress who wasn’t stage trained, hadn’t been taught the comic conventions of the theater, or to project to the back of the house. She had a movie-bred patience for living in the moment. She was a movie star because while she was beautiful, she let you see inside, and people liked what they saw. Movies are supremely intimate, and Normand was consummate at drawing people in, and holding them. We can watch Chaplin learning Normand’s delicate skills.

“Who Invented Chaplin’s Tramp?” — Jon Boorstin, Los Angeles Review of Books

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A review of Tom Bissell’s new book of essays, Magic Hours:

The best thing about Tom Bissell: He is fun. I think of him as “a wild and crazy guy.” I’m by turns entertained and completely aghast at his antics. He is totally obsessive. He’s watched that appalling movie The Room a bajillion times. I loved the idea of him and David Foster Wallace negotiating gravely about whether or not they ought to dip tobacco together (they did). Bissell, apparently, travels all over the place with a hardcover copy of Infinite Jest, which is surely the most inconvenient thing outside of, like, a chihuahua, to have to pack in a suitcase. And I don’t know if he’s given it up by now (I hope so) but he used to drink 10 Diet Cokes every day. Ten! That is terrible, Tom Bissell! I worry about him.

“Abnegation.” — Maria Bustillos, Los Angeles Review of Books

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Featured: Eric Steingold’s #longreads page. See his story picks from The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, plus more.

The killing of three sisters shocks a country where the past decade has seen a rise in violence toward women: 

Since the turn of the millennium, over 5,000 women have been murdered in Guatemala. To give a better idea of what this figure means, consider that if Guatemala, with its population of 14 million, were the size of the United States, this would add up to 110,000 women murdered in a decade. And conditions are only worsening with the passage of time. In 2000, 213 women met violent deaths in Guatemala, compared to 720 in 2009 and 675 in 2010. Worse still, only an estimated 2 percent of these cases have received legal action. The victims are mostly the ‘nobodies’ of society, poor women, in many cases indigenous, from families lacking resources and education. Their bodies are often found mutilated, with indications of rape. Investigations are routinely botched, if they’re even pursued. ‘She was a prostitute,’ a police investigator might say if the victim has a belly-button ring or is wearing a miniskirt. The investigation is closed before being opened.

“Letter from Guatemala.” — Aaron Shulman, Los Angeles Review of Books

See also: “A Murder Foretold: Unravelling the Ultimate Political Conspiracy.” — David Grann, The New Yorker March 28, 2011

“The most powerful newspaper in Great Britain.” A history of the Daily Mail, founded in 1896 as reading material “by office-boys for office-boys,” as a former prime minister said dismissively. Its daily readership is now four and a half million, and its website recently surpassed the New York Times in traffic, with 52 million unique visitors per month: 

On January 25th, the model Kate Moss went to some parties in Paris. The next morning’s Mail read, ‘The Croydon beauty had very obvious crow’s feet and lines beneath her eyes as well as blemished skin from years of smoking and drinking.’ Another journalist, interviewing her that day, asked why she thought the Mail was so focussed on her aging.

‘I don’t know. ’Cause it’s the Daily Mail ?’ Moss replied. ‘They just get on everyone’s tits, don’t they?’

“Mail Supremacy.” — Lauren Collins, New Yorker

See also: “Zell to L.A. Times: Drop Dead.” — Laurie Winer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Nov. 9 2011

The story of Dan Marlowe, a pulp writer who suffered from amnesia, befriended an ex-con, and later inspired writers like Stephen King:

Physicians thought the amnesia was psychosomatic, brought on by stress and money troubles, but there were hints of physical problems too. Before his brain emptied out, Marlowe had been laid low by crushing migraines, and there was evidence he’d had similar problems during his youth. In time, Marlowe would tell people the memory loss resulted from a stroke, and the symptoms he described (weakness on his left side, for instance) seemed to bear that out.

In any case, his creative-writing ability vanished, and his life fast-reversed 20 years. He was trapped in a noir plot eerily similar to that of Never Live Twice, the 1964 Marlowe thriller in which amnesia blanks out the mind of government operative Jackrabbit Smith, who has to fight his way back to his old life, blasting bad guys and spanking a woman psychologist along the way.

“The Wrong Marlowe.” — Charles Kelly, Los Angeles Review of Books

See also: “Writers in Hollywood.” — Raymond Chandler, The Atlantic, Nov. 1, 1945

Featured: The Days of Yore. See some of their interviews with writers and creators like Jo Ann Beard and Shawn Ryan, plus picks from The Los Angeles Review of Books, FSG’s Work in Progress, plus more on their #longreads page.

Featured Longreader: Emily Keeler, books editor at The New Inquiry. See her story picks from The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB), The New York Review of Books, plus more on her #longreads page.

Another perspective on the city’s struggles, and the attempts to revive it:

A recent New York Times article lauded Detroit as a ‘Midwestern Tribeca’ of socially aware folk; but off of its bustling main drag, Corktown is surrounded by Detroit’s burned-out industrial structures and houses, weedy lots, and subsidized housing. For every white entrepreneur in an inner-city neighborhood, a score of young, college-educated kids live in dense, hip suburbs like Royal Oak and Ferndale. The Detroit perceived by artists like Catie and Marianne — often from privileged, suburban backgrounds — is radically different from the city visible to EMS workers. I have doubts about the city’s oft-vaunted creative scene, which I was part of for much of the year: to what extent were we dancing to electro-pop while Detroit burned?

“Letter from Detroit.” — Ingrid Norton, Los Angeles Review of Books

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Before Wonder Woman there was Miss Fury, the first female superhero, introduced in 1941:

Miss Fury was created, written, and drawn by a woman, June Tarpé Mills, who published under the more sexually ambiguous Tarpé Mills. Had Miss Fury entered an enduring canon like DC’s, it’s possible that the template for female superheroes, as well as for superhero comic readership, would have depended more on the influence and perspective of actual women.

“Heroine Chic.” — Evie Nagy, Los Angeles Review of Books

See also: “Lynda Barry Will Make You Believe in Yourself.” — Dan Kois, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 27, 2011