I agree, it's mostly entertaining, except when she goes on about learning
how to scuba dive. Her ruminations on the neurotic aspects of collecting
make up most of the book. She gets close to Chris King and that makes for
interesting reading, but many of her other stories of 78 collecting come
from other sources. Petrusich quotes and summarizes repeatedly from
Marybeth Hamilton's* In Search of the Blues*, to take one example. At least
she seems to actually listen to and love the music.
May be coincidence, but Petrusich wrote for Oxford American, as does
Caitlin Love who was the person who befriended Robert McCormick and then
without his permission took his interview with L.V. Thomas to use for John
Jeremiah Sullivan's piece on Geeshie Wiley in the NY Times a few months
back. Sullivan's justification: “You’re not allowed to sit on these things
for half a century, not when the culture has decided they matter.”
Petrusich does not cross any ethical boundaries like that.
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 8:29 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Public-Programming/Calendar/Detail?id=26751
>
> I am reading Amanda Petrusich's book right now, and plan to attend this.
> So far, I have mixed opinions about the book, but it is usually
> entertaining.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
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