Name    : 
E-Mail  : 
Subject : 

Comments:
: Reviewed in the Baltimore Sun:

: Stapinski's 'Baby Plays Around': A memoir of truth, rock and roll

: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
: By Michael Pakenham
: Book Editor
: Originally published January 4, 2004

: Helene Stapinski, who grew up in Jersey City among people and practices that either defy or define the core values of American life, has wanted two things, most of all, out of life: To write and to play drums. I have never heard her play. But this I know: She writes with the power and promise of a master, a developing virtuoso.

: I must confess, insist, that I am not a contemporary memoir fan. There is a movement, especially in writing schools and courses, to encourage self-referential exhibitionist onanism. This turns up both in memoirs and in "life-based fiction," which often amounts to penciling up a series of daily-journal entries and changing names and maybe a place or two. Most of it is thoroughly bad. There are few Prousts in history and I know of none today.

: So I am particularly joyful, redeemed, when I discover a memoir of artfulness, purpose and substance.

: Such a book is Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair with Music, by Helene Stapinski (Villard, 304 pages, $23.95). I am not surprised. Her previous book, Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History (Random House, 288 pages, $23.95), published in early 2001, was a saga of growing up amid the graft and grime of industrial suburban New Jersey, where theft, violence and family solidarity were a way of life. I loved it, and wrote about it here with high praise and enthusiasm, one of my favorite books of that year.

: This memoir follows the first. It is about her life from her first job in a newspaper newsroom, straight out of graduate school, through marriage and several years of free-lance writing interwoven with intensely playing drums in a four-person rock band that ultimately did not make it. It ends with the birth of the first of her two sons. 

: . . .

: See the Link for the complete review.


Optional Link URL:  
Link Title:         
Optional Image URL: 

 

Hoboken Guide

Featured Link Featured Listing Advertising Program Business name, Web Site Link and a brief description or motto – runs for one month in the Page (or Pages) of your choice. Sales Associates Wanted! GET NJ seeks sales associates to market ads on a commission basis. For more information, e-mail your resume and contact information to sales@getnj.com – Be sure to mention the area of New Jersey and/or the market segment that you plan to serve. GRAVE ROBBER Jersey City Computer Repair 297 Griffith Street, Jersey City, NJ - 201-798-2292 - In the Heights just off of Kennedy Blvd. - Very close to Journal Square and Union City, just five minutes away from Hoboken, Downtown Jersey City, Newport, the Waterfront, Secaucus, North Bergen and Weehawken - Tech support for The Jersey City Mayor's Office during the administration of Bret Schundler - PC repair - Tivos, too!, upgrade, hardware install, software install, data recovery, spyware removal, virus removal, replace hard drive, replace motherboard, copy files from notebooks, backup information from dead laptops Wanted! Used Computers! Used computers bought and sold. Located in Jersey City, NJ - convenient to the Hoboken 2nd Street Light Rail stations and the Journal Square PATH subway station. E-mail graverobber@verizon.net with an itemized list (description) of what you have for sale and the price. Pickup in the New York City Metro area -- minimum 10 units. Secure, guaranteed data removal is available.

For All Sorts of Unique New York City Information, Visit GET NY!