Books & Literature

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the final novel by Stanley Elkin, Mrs. Ted Bliss (Hyperion).

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem, by Carolyn Heilbrun (Dial Publishing).

Four-star General, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. He has a new autobiography My American Journey (Random House, written with Joseph E. Persico), and an anxious audience, waiting to see if he will declare his candidacy for President of the United States. Powell first came to the attention of the American public during the Gulf War, officiating at the televised gulf war briefings. Powell retired from the military in 1993, after 35 years in uniform.

Novelist Kaye Gibbons. She's the author of several acclaimed novels: Ellen Foster and Charms for the Easy Life. One reviewer says "Gibbon's brilliance lies in examining with unsentimental tenderness a family poised on the brink of disaster." Gibbons has a new novel, Sights Unseen (Putnam) about a girl's life with her manic-depressive mother. Gibbons herself has the illness, and she'll talk with Terry about that.

Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison is an authority on manic-depression, and the author of the 1993 book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, (Free Press/MacMillan). Recently Jamison disclosed her own 30-year battle with manic-depression in the new memoir, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Knopf). Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Stand up comic Ellen DeGeneres, the star of the sitcom "Ellen." The show airs on Wednesday nights on ABC. Last year DeGeneres co-hosted the 1994 Emmy awards and received a People's Choice Award for Favorite Female in a New Television series. She now has a new book, My Point. . . And I Do Have One. (Bantam News).

ABC News political and media analyst Jeff Greenfield. He appears regularly on Nightline and World News Tonight. He also has a weekly column on World News Sunday. He's just written his first novel about presidential politics and the electoral college, The People's Choice: A Cautionary Tale, (G.P. Putnam).

Newspaper publisher Cynthia Brown of American Police Beat. The newspaper's motto is to be "The Voice of the Nation's Police Officers." The tabloid-style paper is written for and by cops and caters to their concerns. (The paper's address is P.O. BOX 382702, Cambridge, MA 02238-2702; Tel: 617-491-8878; FAX: 617-354-6515)

Dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones. He founded the acclaimed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with his partner and lover, Arnie Zane. Their partnership lasted 17 years until Zane's death in 1988 from AIDS-related complications. Jones has been a recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award. His recent work, "Still/Here" is what he terms a "poem" about death. It's based on a series of "survival workshops" he conducted with people across the country who are dealing with illness and death.

Independent film director Robert Rodriguez. At the age of 23 he made the Spanish-language action film, "El Mariachi" for $7,000. His techniques for keeping the budget down included, shooting before lunch so he wouldn't have to buy the actors lunch, and using a wheelchair that he'd borrowed from the local hospital for a dolly. Rodriguez's film won the Sundance Audience Award in 1993, and went on to be distributed nationally. He's just completed the sequel "Desperado" starring Antonio Banderas.

Psychologist and Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education Howard Gardner. He's written a new book, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, (Basic Books) in which he profiles a number of leaders, exploring the link between creativity and leadership. Gardner has written thirteen books, and is also a recipient of the MacArthur Prize Fellowship. He'll talk with Terry about his theory of multiple intelligence which was the subject of his 1983 book Frames of Mind.

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Bonfire of the Humanities: Television, Subliteracy, and Long-Term Memory Loss, by television critic David Marc. Marc's latest book looks at the diminishing role books are playing in our lives in the new electronic information age. Bonfire of the Humanities is published by Syracuse University Press July 1995.

Eric Lomax was captured by the Japanese during World War II. He was used as forced labor to help build the Burma-Siam railroad. He was also tortured by the Japanese. He has reconciled with the Japanese interpreter present during his beatings. His book The Railway Man: A P.O.W.'s Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness (W.W. Norton & Company 1995) chronicles his story from WWII and his life 50 years later.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Intersection of Law and Desire, (Norton) which debuts the feminist lesbian private investigator, Micky Knight by J.M. Redmann. And a collection of lesbian pulp romances, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Quality Paperback Book Club) by Ann Bannon which has just been republished.

Professor of American Studies and History at the Univ. of Minnesota Elaine Tyler May. Her new book Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness (Basic) is said to be the first book to examine the history of childlessness in America in all its complexities, from infertility to forced sterilization to childfree by choice." MAY is the author three previous books including Great Expectations, and Homeward Bound. She has also written widely in the scholarly and popular press, including articles in The New York Times, and Los Angeles Times.

Neurologist William Langston. His work plunged him into a medical mystery, and a hot political controversy about the ethics of medicine. In 1982 Langston was called in to examine a number of "frozen" patients, young men and women in the San Francisco Bay Area who suddenly could neither move or speak, though conscious. Langston recognized the signs of Parkinson's disease, and determined that these patients had all used the same batch of tainted heroin. Langston prescribed L-dopa, a treatment for Parkinson's which only provided short-term relief.

Former longshoreman and Vice President of the Union local, Reg Theriault . For over 30 years he worked on the piers in San Francisco, where he watched automation take over the industry, and break up the gangs who worked together. Before that Theriault worked as a "fruit tramp" with his family. He has written a new book about work, How to Tell When You're Tired (Norton).

Lonny Shavelson writes about five people who were considering assisted suicide. His book A Chosen Death: The Dying Confront Assisted Suicide explores the agonizing dilemma that family and friends must face in deciding whether to assist. Shavelson argues in favor of legalized Physician-assisted suicide. Shavelson is a writer, photojournalist and emergency-room physician living in Berkeley, California. A Chosen Death is published by Simon and Shuster 1995.

Novelist Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Her new novel is The Fatigue Artist, (Scribner) about a 40 year old woman who comes down with chronic fatigue syndrome. One reviewer calls it "witty and hopeful and fierce." Schwartz is also the author of Disturbances in the Field, and Leaving Brooklyn.

Monologist, actor and writer Spalding Gray. He's written and performed several monologues including, "Monster in a Box" about all the distractions that prevented him from completing his novel, Impossible Vacation, and Swimming to Cambodia about filming a movie in Cambodia. Now Gray has a new monologue and book about his eye problems, and his adventures in the mainstream and alternative health care industries. It's called Gray's Anatomy. (Vintage Books).