The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup

Last updated

The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People is a collection of essays by Susan Orlean published in 2001 by Random House. It was her first book after her 1998 work The Orchid Thief .

Reception

Kirkus Reviews wrote "some essays work better than others, but in general the collection is marred only by a few too many run-on sentences and the occasional quick ending, giving the impression that the author was writing to hit a certain word-count". [1] The New York Times offered a more favorable assessment, noting that such collections of journalistic essays must "be timeless,...remarkable and the voice so consistently engaging that it triumphs over lack of plot and sprawl of subject," but that Orlean "clears the bar with ease." [2] Emiliana Sandoval, reviewing the work for Knight Ridder, noted that the older stories in the collection could "seem stale", but that the "gems" of the collection -- "The American Man, Age Ten" and "Her Town"—made the work well worth reading. [3] Time Magazine asserted that the profiles rarely miss, and were as much about place as person, noting the supporting role that Clackamas County, Oregon played in the Tonya Harding piece. [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>Adaptation</i> (film) 2002 American semi-autobiographical film by Spike Jonze

Adaptation. is a 2002 American comedy-drama film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman. It stars Nicolas Cage as Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald, Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean, and Chris Cooper as John Laroche, with Cara Seymour, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston, and Maggie Gyllenhaal in supporting roles.

Susan Sontag American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist (1933-2004)

Susan Sontag was an American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works Against Interpretation (1966), Styles of Radical Will (1968), On Photography (1977), and Illness as Metaphor (1978), as well as the fictional works The Way We Live Now (1986), The Volcano Lover (1992), and In America (1999).

Pauline Kael

Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Kael was known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, her opinions often contrary to those of her contemporaries. She was one of the most influential American film critics of her era.

Carolyn Gold Heilbrun

Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was an American academic at Columbia University, the first woman to receive tenure in the English department, and a prolific feminist author of academic studies. In addition, beginning in the 1960s, she published numerous popular mystery novels with a woman protagonist, under the pen name of Amanda Cross. These have been translated into numerous languages and in total sold nearly one million copies worldwide.

Louis Auchincloss

Louis Stanton Auchincloss was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a novelist who parlayed his experiences into books exploring the experiences and psychology of American polite society and old money. His dry, ironic works of fiction continue the tradition of Henry James and Edith Wharton. He wrote his novels initially under the name Andrew Lee, the name of an ancestor who cursed any descendant who drank or smoked.

Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean is a journalist and bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed articles to many magazines including Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside.

John Avlon American journalist

John Phillips Avlon is an American journalist and political commentator. He is a Senior Political Analyst and anchor at CNN and was the editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast from 2013 to 2018. Avlon was previously a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun and chief speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

<i>Slouching Towards Bethlehem</i>

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a 1968 collection of essays by Joan Didion that mainly describes her experiences in California during the 1960s. It takes its title from the poem "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats. The contents of this book are reprinted in Didion's We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction (2006).

<i>The Orchid Thief</i>

The Orchid Thief is a 1998 non-fiction book by American journalist Susan Orlean.

Kenji Jasper is an American writer.

Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit is an American writer. She has written on a variety of subjects, including feminism, the environment, politics, place, and art.

Laura Pedersen

Laura Pedersen is an American author and playwright. She worked at American Stock Exchange before writing her first book, Play Money.

Roger Rosenblatt American writer (born 1940)

Roger Rosenblatt is an American memoirist, essayist, and novelist. He was a long-time essayist for Time magazine and PBS NewsHour. He is currently the Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at Stony Brook University.

Helen Schulman is an American novelist, short story, non-fiction, and screenwriter. Her fifth novel, This Beautiful Life, was an international bestseller, and was chosen in the 100 Notable Books of 2011 by the New York Times Book Review.

Jill Kargman

Jill Kargman is an American author, writer and actress, based in New York City's Upper East Side. A common theme in her works is critical examination of the lives of wealthy women in her city. Her 2007 Momzillas was adapted into the Bravo television show Odd Mom Out, which premiered June 8, 2015.

Hanif Abdurraqib American poet and essayist

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic. He is the author of 2016 poetry collection The Crown Ain't Worth Much, the 2017 essay collection They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, the 2019 non-fiction book, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes on A Tribe Called Quest on the American hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, and the 2019 poetry collection A Fortune for Your Disaster.

<i>Figures in a Landscape: People and Places</i>

Figures in a Landscape, subtitled: People and Places; Essays: 2001-2016, is a collection of thirty essays, profiles, articles and book introductions all by Paul Theroux. The thirty pieces cover a wide variety of topics including authors, artists, celebrities, Africa, travel experiences, reading and the craft of writing.

The Millerton News is an American weekly newspaper in Millerton, New York, serving Millerton and surrounding Dutchess County. It is owned by the Lakeville Journal Company.

<i>Thick: And Other Essays</i>

Thick: And Other Essays is a 2019 collection of essays by the American sociologist, professor, and writer Tressie McMillan Cottom. The book explores a range of topics including, Black womanhood, body image, and McMillan Cottom's experience as a Southern Black woman academic. Thick was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award.

Morgan Jerkins is an American writer and editor. Her debut book, This Will Be My Undoing (2018), a collection of nonfiction essays, was a New York Times bestseller. Her second book, Wandering in Strange Lands, was released in August 2020. Jerkins is currently a senior editor for Zora, a Medium publication written by and for women of color.

References

  1. Kirkus Reviews , 1 November 2001
  2. Harden, Blaine (28 January 2001). "Cape Work". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
  3. Sandoval, Emiliana (20 January 2001). "New Yorker Spins Tales of Ordinary People". Pensacola News Journal. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
  4. Orecklin, Michelle (21 February 2001). "Books: The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup". TIME.