BookForum Article on Parker-Hellman History

The first major magazine article on Dorothy Parker and her history with Lillian Hellman is in the April issue of BookForum. The story is by Marion Meade, who goes beyond her 1988 book, "Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?" to shed new light on the dysfunction between the two. I have never been a fan of Hellman, and Meade's piece doesn't do Hellman any favors. The acerbic playwright is painted as mean and spiteful.

It was Meade who found out in time for her book that Parker was never buried after her funeral, and it was Hellman's fault and negligence. The new BookForum article has new information about the whole mess. Meade even talked to Malachy McCourt of all people! Yes, that is Frank's brother, and Malachy apparently saw Parker's ashes in her lawyer's law office.

Meade writes about Parker's funeral service:

The slapdash service lasted about as long as it took a motorist to pass through a car wash. First, a violin solo, Bach's "Air on a G String." Then Hellman duly praised Parker as "a great lady" known for her "independence of mind and spirit." Zero Mostel made some sour remarks about how Parker herself wouldn't be there if she'd had her way. Then another violin selection and it was done. Critiques followed. On the sidewalk outside Campbell's, Sid Perelman complained that the program had been too long. Dottie with her "very short fuse" would have been tapping her foot impatiently. Another mourner, Beatrice Ames, could not help thinking that Parker would have "howled" had she seen how Lilly had run the show.

Be sure to read the whole story, it's a gem.

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Friday, March 24, 2006 at 7:47 AM | Permalink | Comments

Interviews and Stories Added About New Book

We're having the party on the 28th to celebrate the release of "The Portable Dorothy Parker." Today I added interviews I did with Marion Meade, who edited the book and wrote the introduction, and Seth, who is the cartoonist who drew the cover and the jacket design.

In the Meade interview, she says, "I took out all the book reviews that seemed to me to be antiquated and that smelled more like the 19th Century than the 20th. They were of works that were not really up to date." Read the interview here.

Seth, a Canadian artist who is also working on covers and box sets for the Peanuts strips archives, was wonderful to talk to. He says, "I submitted sketches and then surprisingly they didn't make much in the way of fiddling. The one thing they said to me at the beginning was, "Don't make it too depressing." That sort of put me off right away because I thought I'd like it to be a bit depressing; I actually would've liked to have been much more depressing. It seemed hard to me to write about Dorothy Parker without having some element of pathos to it. So I immediately thought that didn't sound good." Read the interview here.

See you at the party:

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Thursday, March 16, 2006 at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments

Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes Reading Series

This was sent to us by Dorothy Parker Society member Carol Novack, who is doing a readin in Greenwich Village on 3/25. She also runs Mad Hatters' Review: Edgy and Enlightened Literature, Art and Music in the Age of Dementia

Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes Reading Series
Curated by Publisher/Editor Carol Novack
Inaugural Reading: Friday, April 7th, 7 – 9 pm, at the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, NYC. Features:

Paul Beckman, contributor of three darkly witty flash fictions in Mad Hatters' Review, Issue 3, received an MFA from Bennington in 1999. Paul lives just over the border in Connecticut. He's the father of poet Joshua Beckman. Paul has writings in The Connecticut Review, Other Voices, Playboy, Northeast Magazine, 5 Trope, Exquisite Corpse, Del Sol Review, and many other journals. His stories have been published in Germany, New Zealand & Ireland. Paul's also a four time nominee for a Pushcart Prize.

Amy King, a future Mad Hatter contributor, is the author of the poetry collection, Antidotes for an Alibi (Blazevox Books), a Lambda Book Award finalist, and the chapbook, The People Instruments (Pavement Saw Press Chapbook Award 2002). She currently teaches Creative Writing and English at Nassau Community College and a workshop of her own design, "Making the Urban Poetic," at Poets' House in Manhattan. Amy King's poems have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, TheMississippi Review, Tarpaulin Sky, Milk Magazine, and No Tell Motel, among others. She is the managing editor for the journal, MiPOesias. Please visit www.amyking.org for more.

Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media studies at NYU, where he directs the Project on Media Ownership. A well-known media watchdog and frequent contributor to The Nation, he's the author of Boxed in: The Culture of TV, The Bush Dyslexicon: Obervations on a National Disorder, and Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order. Most recently, Miller wrote Fooled Again, a call to election reform, in which he argues that it wasn't moral values that swung the last election -- it was theft. Miller wrote and performed in "A Patriot Act," a chilling indictment of the movement to subvert the US Constitution and replace American democracy with religious values. Mad Hatters' Review will be publishing a review of Fooled Again in our fifth issue. See www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com.

Also ---- LIVE MUSIC by MHR Musician/Composer Ben Tyree

& limited edition Homeland Security Posters (our next issue cover artwork) by MHR artist & writer contributor Marty Ison (wait'll you see this!) will be on sale.

For further info, email: madhattersreview@gmail.com
(type READINGS in the subject line )
Edgy & enlightened writers interested in being featured in the series should show upon April 7th bearing a couple of writing samples

PLUS ---
I'LL BE A FEATURE IN THE FREQUENCY READING SERIES
Saturday, March 25th at 2:30 PM
at the Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th St. (212) 366-0608
A,C,E,F, or V to West 4th
FREE
(details to be posted on the mad hatters' review events page
at least a week before the reading)

MAD HATTERS' REVIEW: Edgy & Enlightened Literature, Art & Music in the Age of Dementia:
New Pages article
Carol Novack
web del sol.com

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 at 1:07 AM | Permalink | Comments

DVD in the Works

About once or twice a year, someone asks when Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is coming out on DVD. The movie is now 12 years old. We just learned that you only have to wait until September 5. The release news here says the DVD is packed with extras, including a director's commentary and two featurettes. They are also throwing in the TV spots and the original theatricl trailer.

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Thursday, March 02, 2006 at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

The Party You Won't Want to Miss (As the Cliche Goes)

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Wednesday, March 01, 2006 at 1:26 AM | Permalink | Comments