THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504180540
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
BAD MANNERS
MARNE DAVIS KELLOGG
Warner Books. 258 pp. $21.95.
``I WOULDN'T have minded so much being filmed if I had been thinner.'' So says Lilly Bennett, after a photographer films her in flagrante delicto with a judge. Lilly is the saucy heroine of Bad Manners, a rollicking mystery by part-time Norfolk resident Marne Davis Kellogg.
After the incident, Lilly quits her job as chief of detectives in a California city and returns to her family's ranch in Roundup, Wyo. She immediately finds employment when someone shoots wealthy neighbor Walter Butterfield during his birthday party.
Although one of Walter's twin daughters confesses to the crime, the other twin is caught with the smoking gun. Writes Kellogg: ``Across from her, behind his desk, was Walter Butterfield from the neck down. Neck up was mostly missing.''
The twins are not the only suspects, though. Kellogg conjures an engaging bunch of other possible killers, including the victim's 6-foot-tall mistress, a rodeo trick rider who used to be a man. Walter's widow has countless lovers, among them one who may be blackmailing her. And a character named Roland, slated to take over Walter's business, is a decadent Englishman with suspicious credentials.
Kellogg takes the reader on a lighthearted romp through the ranching West in her first novel. Especially refreshing is her joyful attitude toward love and sex. Although she occasionally reaches for humor, most of Kellogg's writing is smart and delightfully offbeat.
- SHIRLEY PRESBERG
THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL
The Definitive Edition
ANNE FRANK
EDITED BY OTTO FRANK AND MIRJAM
F irst published in 1947, Anne Frank's diary, written between June 12, 1942, and Aug. 1, 1944, has become a beloved and respected classic. It remains an immortal witness to the tragedy of the World War II Holocaust.
Anne spent the ages of 13 to 15 hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam with her Jewish family and four others. All eight refugees, except Anne's father, Otto Frank, died after their discovery and incarceration.
Anne and her younger sister Margot were moved from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in October 1944; both sisters died in a typhus epidemic, within a few days of each other, in late February or early March 1945. The British liberated the camp on April 12, 1945.
This new ``definitive'' edition of Anne's diary contains 30 percent more material than the previous one, including notes dealing with her budding sexuality. Anne proves to be, despite her youth, an astute and intuitive observer of the human condition, venting emotions with a sense of humor while studying her own maturation and the complex interactions among the people in the cramped hideout. Deprived of the free world, Anne created a rich world within herself, testimony to the dignity and durability of the human spirit.
``It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering, and death,'' she writes. ``I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them!''
- RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN
(John Quarstein, director of the War Memorial Museum of Virginia, will speak on ``Remembering the Lessons of the Holocaust: What Have We Learned?'', and Kitty Saks will talk about her family's experience in hiding during the Holocaust, next Sunday, 2 p.m., at Barnes & Noble in Virginia Beach. Call 671-2331.)
THE GENERALS' WAR
The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf
MICHAEL R. GORDON AND GEN. BERNARD E. TRAINOR
Little, Brown. 551 pp. $27.95.
The Generals' War, by military journalist Michael R. Gordon and retired three-star Marine Corps Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, provides a knowledgeable and detailed look at how the Persian Gulf war came about, how the U.S. military hierarchy reacted and how decisions were made and plans created that led to more than 400,000 troops being sent to Saudi Arabia to defeat the Iraqis and drive them out of Kuwait.
During their extensive research for this book, the authors were able to examine many documents previously unavailable because of their secret nature, as well as a vast number of official and unofficial war-related reports. They also interviewed most of those who had important roles in the war, including President Bush and his key advisers. Their interpretation of events, examined in the light of their own experience, presents the most thorough analysis of the war to date.
- COL. WENDELL N. VEST ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Anne Frank
by CNB