Kentucky's Bobbie Ann Mason Looks At Life

Bobbie Ann Mason, author of such fiction as In Country and Midnight Magic, deservedly has achieved a high ranking among the nation's book critics. Writing about her native Kentucky with sure-footed authenticity, Mason currently ranks high in the estimation of readers and her fellow writers.

Her memoir, Clear Springs (Harper Perennial, $14), was one of the best reviewed books of 1999 and now has been released in a quality paperback edition. Those familiar with Mason's fiction should be fascinated with the story of her growing up in Kentucky, raised by parents on a small dairy farm.

However, looking for clues into what turned Mason into a writer may prove difficult. She writes lovingly of her parents and grandparents, describes with clarity and feeling about her childhood, but displays an agonizing caution about giving details of her own life. However, my disappointment with Mason's sense of decorum apparently didn't bother the critics who gave the book high praise.

While Clear Springs sparkles with details about her family, although it seldom paints a clear portrait of its author.

Manhattan Memories

Ten years ago, writer Jeff Kisseloff published a wonderful book called You Must Remember This. This mesmerizing collection of interviews covers the island of Manhattan, New York City, from the 1890s through World War II.

The book has been reissued, with a new introduction, in a quality paperback edition by Johns Hopkins University Press. It's a magnificent book, priced now at $19.95.

Kisseloff interviewed 137 New Yorkers who witnessed daily life on the island of Manhattan. These stories, recounted in the voices of their tellers, show the diversity of this delightful but often vexing city.

People call a particularly stirring mystery thriller as a "page turner." This book of interviews has been assembled with care and quickly becomes something that demands to be read. Don't blame me if you buy a copy and find it impossible to put down.

Therapy Time

Anyone reading Mockingbird Years: A Life In and Out of Therapy (Basic Books, $24) should be forgiven for having a terrible urge to smash this book against a wall.

Author Emily Fox Gordon has won prizes for her essays. This book, which recounts her years under the care of several therapists, contains the bleatings of a self-centered young woman whose problems seem more in need of a good spanking than the psychiatrist's fabled couch.

The book seems to have been assembled from pieces of several essays. It seldom moves in any logical progression of time. And Gordon seems just as much of a spoiled brat at the conclusion as she did in the book's introductory pages.

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