THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410040602
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
BUNNY BUNNY, GILDA RADNER
A Sort of Love Story
ALAN ZWEIBEL
Villard Books. 189 pp. $14.95
Alan Zweibel, one of the original writers on ``Saturday Night Live,'' has written a humorous and touching tribute to his dear friend Gilda Radner, one of the show's talented founding cast members.
Bunny Bunny, Gilda Radner: A Sort of Love Story opens with Zweibel and Radner's first meeting on the job. He is a nervous neophyte, and she quickly charms and befriends him. They will remain close until her death in 1989 at age 42 from ovarian cancer.
The slim volume is a quick read, breezing along from conversation to conversation in the bittersweet lives of Zweibel and Radner. The dialogue, culled from Zweibel's memories, captures the wit and playfulness of their quirky relationship.
Fans of the late comedienne will get a peek inside the private Gilda. Beneath the warmth and humor of her exterior lies more of the same. In one vignette, Radner generously orders carry-out food for a man selling pencils in the street; in another, she writes an apology to an old woman who lost on ``The $25,000 Pyramid'' because she'd never heard of Gilda Radner.
Bunny Bunny (the words Gilda said for good luck at the beginning of each month) is a good companion to It's Always Something, Radner's moving autobiography that details her personal life, career development and fight against cancer. Not so much a reminiscence as an introduction to an extraordinary, caring and compassionate person, Bunny Bunny makes clear that the world is a little worse off without Gilda.
- BRITT RENO
LOST IN THE TAIGA
One Russian Family's Fifty-Year Struggle For Survival and Religious Freedom in the Siberian Wildnerness
VASILY PESKOV
Doubleday. 254 pp. $26.95
This remarkable story of a Russian family Robinson's isolated survival over four decades in a remote forest just north of Mongolia reveals the ironic twist that Siberia, the vast, cold, dreaded gulag during times of both czars and commissars, was also a haven for those who sought to escape the tentacles of either tyranny.
Russian newspaper reporter Vasily Peskov recounts the saga of Karp Osipovich Lykov, an ``Old Believer'' who considered heresy all Orthodox Church reforms since Peter the Great. He and his family took to the unworldly subarctic wilderness, or taiga, when Red Army recruiters came around during World War II. They lived alone in a crude cabin for years until they were discovered by geologists in 1978.
Peskov's account of the Lykovs, whom he visited regularly to update his readers, is a fascinating though superficial glimpse into that deep Russian soul that can endure so much suffering. Unfortunately, the book sounds like a string of newspaper features. The author needed somebody - an agent, an editor, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - to tell him how to write a book.
- BROWN H. CARPENTER
DOWN IN THE ZERO
ANDREW VACHSS
Alfred A. Knopf. 259 pp. $21.
Burke was an urban outlaw: hard, cold, untouchable. Or so he thought.
Then he killed a child.
It was an accident, but that didn't change anything. When that child died, a bit of Burke died too. Recovery seemed impossible.
Then came the phone call. It was from a teen named Randy, and he was scared, sure that something unnatural was forcing his friends to commit suicide, equally sure he would be next.
Agreeing to help, Burke travels to Randy's home in the plush suburbs of Connecticut where his investigation into the suicides uncovers everything from an S&M sex-for-sale ring to blackmail to a sociopath who likes to experiment with kids.
Over six previous Burke books, lawyer-novelist Andrew Vachss has developed a gritty narrative style so lean, so razor-sharp that it borders on poetic. And as each is written in the first person, this style not only defines Burke, it's what makes him - and the books - so special.
In Down in the Zero, Vachss has abandoned his cutting-edge style for one that at best is ordinary. This turns Burke from a hard-edged anti-hero into a rather mundane fellow who simply seems wearied by the whole affair. And that's not special in anyone's book.
It's been three years since Burke's last appearance. The wait continues.
- GREGORY N. KROLCZYK by CNB