Word: momma
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...NOTHING AWAY TO REVEAL that near the end of Alice McDermott's lyrical novel At Weddings and Wakes, there is a joyous wedding celebration. The bride, an aging ex-nun, allows herself to be swirled by her staid groom, a mailman who unexpectedly proves a sure-footed dancer. Even Momma, the embittered matriarch of the Irish-American Towne clan, permits herself a few sentimental tears. But when the party ends, Momma reminds the Roman Catholic celebrators that they have been "dancing on graves." Four days later, there will be a fresh grave to dig -- that of May, the autumn bride...
With her third novel, McDermott secures her reputation as a mesmerizing and innovative storyteller. In the haunted world that she conjures, dead relatives command greater attention than the living. It is a measure of the author's formidable skills that she vividly evokes the misery of Momma Towne and her four stepdaughters without suffocating the reader in their chronic gloom. While the backdrop is one of complaint, cryptic exchanges -- "That again? Are we rehashing that again?" -- are enough to remind us of the women's litany. Their oppressive unhappiness is artfully offset by the vitality of the three youngest Townes...
...airing on NPR. The network broadcast Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis' novel of Main Street shenanigans, complete with music, sound effects and a cast of 34 readers, including Ed Asner (as George Babbitt), Richard Dreyfuss, Amy Irving and John Lithgow. Among future projects: Arthur Kopit's play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad and muckraking novelist Frank Norris' McTeague. Asner, who was paid a mere $2,300 for his work, which stretched over nine months, finds it satisfying nonetheless. Says he: "I grew up with radio, and I don't remember...
...role models, one 14-year-old cited the cocaine-snorting protagonist of the movie Scarface and Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca. "Lee Iacocca is smooth and he be dissing ((disrespecting, in street lingo)) everybody," the youth explained. In some cases, parents encourage their children's criminal careers. Said one: "My momma talk about how proud she is of me making doughski. She used to dog me and say I wasn't s---, but now she's proud...
...choice: Iowa State. Coach Johnny Orr had flown to Memphis, where, says Lafester's mother Elsie, "he made two promises -- that he would graduate and that he would play pro ball." Lafester did neither. Today Elsie is bitter. She feels Iowa State did not keep its word. "My momma talks about it - every day," says Lafester, who after five years left Iowa State a few credits short of a degree in family and consumer science. He took twelve hours of classes, but often put in 20 hours of practice a week. Ironically, it was his freshman year, when...