Key Grip
A Memoir of Endless Consequences
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- 19,99 лв.
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- 19,99 лв.
Publisher Description
An award-winning memoir of an adventurous and winding journey through life: “A nonstop pleasure” (Susan Isaacs).
A key grip, Dustin Beall Smith explains, is the person on a film set who supervises the rigging of lights, set wall construction, dolly shots, stunt preparation, and more. Smith worked in the film industry throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. But for him, “fame by association”—with iconic stars including Sylvester Stallone, Susan Sarandon, and Robert De Niro—was just one of the seductive drugs fueling his high-octane days on the set.
The intertwined reminiscences in Key Grip reveal Smith’s long, reckless journey to manhood—in reaction to his father’s impossibly ordered life. Its trajectory includes an early stint as a sport-parachuting instructor—a job that taught Smith how to hide sheer animal fear behind male bravado. Much later, as an unredeemed seeker in his fifties, Smith lights out cross-country for what turns out to be a brave, existentially failed—and very funny—attempt at a Lakota vision quest.
Winner of a Bakeless Prize for nonfiction, Key Grip is a fascinating record of the fault lines of one man’s life.
“A forthright, rueful voice.” —Publishers Weekly
“Smith’s tale of coming of age two or three decades after most people do is filled with wit, scathing introspection, brilliant social observation, and compassion.” —Susan Isaacs, New York Times–bestselling author of the Judith Singer series
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his uneven first book, Smith presents the reader with scenes from his life, covering his career in the film industry, alcoholism, ego issues and a quest for meaning. Smith provides plenty of flashbacks from his years as a misguided, sky-diving 20-something and also tackles his existential battle at the age of 57 (in the opening chapter, which takes up a full third of the book, Smith treks up a hill to perform Native American meditation practices). Occasionally using vivid, descriptive language and other times passing over important topics in summary (the death of his first child, his second marriage), the author searches for a central theme, and despite the book's title, being a key grip isn't it; Smith doesn't address that topic directly until he's two-thirds of the way through his story. Other chapters, such as brief entries about snapping turtles, are more tangential than metaphorical. At times, Smith jumps from first to second person, with two chapters written from one version of himself to another. This lack of focus leads to patchwork reading, though some will doubtless be seduced by Smith's forthright, rueful voice.