Lies: A Diary 1986-1999 [Hardcover]

Ned Rorem (Author), Edmund White (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2000

The long-awaited new book from "one of the great diarists in our language...[His works] delight, amuse, and enlarge our understanding of music and of life. "-Richard Dyer, Boston Globe . . Ned Rorem's new diary opens in 1986, when the author is sixty-two, and closes in 1999, when he is seventy-five. Though Rorem remains as energetic as ever during these years-new books written, new songs composed-the tone of this diary is autumnal: his life, and his world, are winding down. He mourns the passing of old friends and mentors (Virgil Thomson, Jean Genet), endures the indignities of old age (dental calamity, prostate trouble), and notes with bitterness the collapse of taste and standards that once defined his artistic circle. In the most moving pages here, he describes in compassionate but unsentimental detail the decline of his longtime companion, Jim Holmes, and, in the book's closing pages, his death. Like the previous volumes of the diary, Lies is an anthology of forms and modes, each entry a carefully chosen, brightly colored tile in a literary mosaic. It features all the elements readers have come to expect from the diary: indiscretions, aphorisms, fantasies, slights, program notes, word games, eulogies, and more. In short, Lies is vintage Rorem, by turns catty, silly, outrageous, and insightful, profound, elegiac. It will only enlarge the diary's reputation as both an incomparably dishy read and a distinguished literary achievement.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For 40 years, the diaries of Ned Rorem have been ideal bedtime reading for musicians. This first installment of the new century, covering 1986 to 1999, parades a few of Rorem's familiar themes: insomnia, self-contradictions, letters to the editor (some never sent, some never published), and, of course, notes on his own music (including an especially lovely commentary on the English Horn Concerto). There are some unexpected anecdotes as well, including one about dinner with Nancy Reagan, an appreciation of Frank O'Hara, and the chronicle of a long-running dispute with neighbor Itzhak Perlman's air conditioner (the air conditioner wins). Rorem appraises new music, slamming Boulez, Schnittke, and Bruce Springsteen (who share good company with Beethoven and Mother Teresa), but there is a sudden about-face on Rorem's former bête noire, Elliott Carter. This time, however, the tone is darker than before because death is all around. Rorem's parents, in separate wings of a nursing home, die within months of each other. And above all, the diary covers the long decline and death of partner Jim Holmes, who suffers from Crohn's disease, cancer, and HIV (he withholds his discovery that he's been carrying the virus from Rorem for several months).

The final third of the diary, when Holmes's pills alone are described as costing $15,000 a year, is achingly sad, but somehow, Rorem avers, "the purpose of a diary is to evade real life." He thinks that "nobody sings my songs anymore," so it is to be hoped that he was heartened by Susan Graham's sensational Rorem anthology released in 2000, as well as his 2001 Grammy nomination for "best contemporary classical composition" for the song cycle Evidence of Things Not Seen. Rorem's prose, as ever, is delightful and instantly recognizable as his alone: "there never was a Great Man in America, except maybe Martha Graham." --William R. Braun

From The New Yorker

"...no other book has his quiet skill at memorializing the rounds of daily life been so welcome or so needed."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint Press; First edition (November 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582430578
• ISBN-13: 978-1582430577
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,935,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For the uninitiated, not so bad..., May 22, 2001

By 

Rich Urbani (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lies: A Diary 1986-1999 (Hardcover)

This was my first exposure to the writing of Ned Rorem and perhaps because of this, I found "Lies" to be thoroughly readable. Yes, there are moments when he does come across as a sort of whining name-dropper; but there are also times when he sheds light on dying, relationships, music, composing and the like that make it a worthwhile read.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Necessary, October 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Lies: A Diary: 1986-1999 (Paperback)

Ned Rorem is our best diarist. Is there another one at present? I find myself dipping into this latest diary all the time. I love the gossip as much as the next fella, but it's the mini essays on any number of topics that I truly love. Elucidates the sad state of the composer and the song right now.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Planet Earth's greatest diarist, June 30, 2004

By 

Gooch McCracken (c/o your haunted slab of Velveeta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lies: A Diary: 1986-1999 (Paperback)

I bitterly begrudge Ned for being one of those self-congratulatory artsy-fartsy types who are constantly blathering about Art with a capital "A". I hate that mentality. But that doesn't prevent me from being a Nedhead. My other complaint about Ned's prose is his refusal to provide English translations for the French quotes. For the benefit of us non-francophones.

Ned's self-righteous proselytory pacifism is another thing that drives me up the goddam wall. It's a big fat boring blindspot and he excretes smugness whenever the subject of war comes up. Pacifism is a form of simplistic absolutism. And it's just as wrong-headed as any other form of absolutism. Including aesthetic absolutism. Which Ned has himself addressed: "Until an Absolute is established as to what defines 'good music', I will retain my right to call trash certain works of Beethoven: the Emperor, the Appassionata, the end of the Ninth."

Let me commend Ned's heroic stoicism in regard to the illness & death of Jim Holmes. I was depressed to find out that Jim was every bit the atheist that Ned is. As usual, I blame God.