![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/41dzC2DetnL._SY445_QL70_ML2_.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nMade Men: The Story of Goodfellas<\/a> Glenn is a friend of mine and I’ve been looking forward to reading his book on the making-of Goodfellas<\/i>. Glenn is an amazing writer (he blogs at Some Came Running<\/a>: he doesn’t post often but whatever he posts is always thought-provoking. I love his style). Coinciding with the 30-year anniversary of Goodfellas<\/i>, Glenn set out to tell the story, from conception to completion. He interviewed everyone involved, everyone he possibly could, from Scorsese to Thelma Schoonmaker, to De Niro, to people who had one scene. It’s fantastically rich material. I particularly loved Glenn’s chapter on the music in the film, one of its distinguishing characteristics – it’s practically a “jukebox movie”, a la American Graffiti<\/i>, there are sometimes 3-4 songs included in one scene<\/i>. Glenn knows a lot about music – he’s been in a band, he has a music background, I always love talking with him about music – and so he doesn’t just list the songs and how they are used, but provides backstories for each of the songs (and the musicians), so you get a sense of the surrounding context. By doing so, by digging into these backstories, you find deeper connecting threads than you might otherwise, if you just stayed in the realm of “this song works well in this scene and here’s why.” In this Day and Age, when pure uneducated “opinion” rules the day – it’s so nice to get some facts, some knowledge. It’s beautifully written, and I tore through it in three days. It’ll be a book I go back to again and again. I also had fun re-watching the movie, so the moments Glenn discussed were fresh in my mind.<\/p>\n \n \nKaputt<\/a> In 2018 I read his Kremlin Ball<\/a><\/i>, translated into English for the first time (via the indispensable New York Review Books Classics imprint). I couldn’t even believe the book existed. A first-hand glimpse of Moscow in the 20s? Of the hierarchy of toadies, glittering parties, how this supposedly proletariat leadership immediately re-arranged itself into a corrupt elite with all the perks? All written by someone who was there<\/i>? Malaparte, born Curt Erich Suckert, was an Italian writer, diplomat, war correspondent. He played both sides in WWII, which makes some of his stuff sketchy, to say the least, but indispensable BECAUSE of that. How often do you get first-person accounts of the Axis point of view?? It’s grotesque. But it glitters, too. So I’m finally getting to Kaputt<\/i>, which is basically a novel (wink wink) about a correspondent traveling around through Axis countries during the war. I’m only three chapters in but all I can say is: this is a book like no other. He’s an incredible writer (I suppose I should say – this is an amazing translation), and the images he pulls up – horrors – horses frozen in the lake in Finland, the empty landscape filled with smoking burning machinery … and also … the lack of moral outrage. Total lack. It’s a tough pill to swallow. But important! FASCINATING. <\/p>\n \n \nSay Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland<\/a> I’ll just repeat what I said, more or less, on Instagram: I am finally getting to Say Nothing<\/i>, so get off my back everyone who keeps asking me if I’ve read it yet. I\u2019m one-degree removed from this horrible story: two friends of mine, married, play a major part in this story. Both were interviewed extensively for the book, and one of them knew all the major IRA players, since he was IRA himself. He was in Long Kesh prison for 18 years and participated in the \u201cblanket protest<\/a>.\u201d My friends are journalists and passionately dedicated to their work. I am proud to call them my friends. We stayed with them when we went to Belfast<\/a>. We went to Bobby Sands\u2019 grave – Milltown Cemetery is something else, man – and it was somehow perfect that I would visit with someone who actually knew him, considered him a friend. (Weirdly, back during the hunger strikes era, my family was in Ireland. I was a kid but I remember absorbing the tension. It’s just strange to think that up north a future friend of mine was in prison with all of those hunger strikers I was so worried about.) On one of our walks in Belfast we walked by the Sinn Fein offices with the mural of Bobby Sands on the side along with his famous quote about the laughter of children. \u201cOh shit, look.\u201d one of my friends said, pointing. \u201cThat\u2019s Gerry\u2019s car.\u201d Gerry. No last name necessary. Then we went home and had Bloody Marys and watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition, because that\u2019s what you do when you visit your former-IRA friends. (Accentuate the \u201cformer\u201d. This is why they\u2019ve had so much trouble.) If you have been paying attention to the story told in Say Nothing<\/i> (and it made recent international headlines), and the role Boston College played in the long overdue murder investigation – then you will have heard my friends’ names. They were central figures – THE voices, really – in the situation. (Side note: the library involved is the same library that took my dad\u2019s valuable Irish book collection after he died. BC was his Alma mater). Much of this I had heard first hand from my friends – it was a years-long battle. I am finally getting to the book. I am gonna tear through it. I already can’t put it down. <\/p>\n \n \nJourney into the Whirlwind<\/a> I had been meaning to read this memoir for years. Ginzburg was a Communist, a proud Party member. A true-believer. Then Kirov was killed in 1934<\/a>. And her world fell apart, as did the worlds of millions of others, caught up in the vice of “conspiracy” surrounding his murder, which was really just the pretext for Stalin to launch his Terror. Ginzburg was arrested in 1937 for … no reason. For lack of political orthodoxy – and she was a strict and devoted Marxist. She was “lacking in vigilance” – she DIDN’T criticize the people she should have criticized, or she didn’t criticize them enough, or in the right way. I can’t help it, I think of this when I watch these waves of scandals playing out on social media today. “Why didn’t you act the perfect way 20 years ago even though nobody knew the truth of the matter then? You were insufficiently vigilant. Your apologies are insufficient because you didn’t use the exact right words.” Listen. There’s historical precedent for how dangerous these views are, when exaggerated to their end point. I’m only 9 chapters in, but I literally gasped at one sentence, tossed into the middle of an action-packed chapter when she gets arrested: “I never saw him again.” She’s talking about her little son. She’s headed down to secret police headquarters for an interview, supposedly so she can clear up her “incorrect” attitudes towards a former colleague … and she has a casual moment with her son playing on the floor before walking out the door. “I never saw him again.” The book is brutal. You want to know why I distrust orthodoxy in any form it takes? It’s because of books like this. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas, by Glenn Kenny Glenn is a friend of mine and I’ve been looking forward to reading his book on the making-of Goodfellas. Glenn is an amazing writer (he blogs at Some Came Running: he … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1335016503\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/81F1Q8wH1sL-e1602253307801.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1590171470\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/51jWHEYTkOL.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0307279286\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/61MIhp7z-uL-e1602253515682.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0156027518\")