Arts & Life

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It's been 40 years since Joel Grey won an Academy Award for his role as master of ceremonies in Bob Fosse's movie musical "Cabaret." Grey visited us at NPR this past week. He was in town to deliver his famous top hat, the one he wore in the movie, to the Smithsonian museum. The award-winning actor is surprisingly down to earth. Well, Mr. Grey, thank you so much.

JOEL GREY: Joel.

MARTIN: Joel. Thank you very much. Even so, he brought along a small entourage to our studio, which included a long-haired Chihuahua.

Open the cover of Domenica Ruta's new memoir, With or Without You, and you'll find a quotation from Kurt Vonnegut: "You were sick, but now you're well, and there's work to do." His quotation foreshadows the woman at the end of this memoir — the one who emerges after a couple-hundred beautifully written, harrowing pages.

Gerbrand Bakker's new international best-seller, Ten White Geese, opens with a mysterious woman alone on a Welsh farm. Humiliated by an affair with a student, she turns up alone at the farm, looking for nothing and no one. She answers to the name Emily, but that is actually the first name of the American poet about whom she is writing her doctoral dissertation. Her husband has no idea where she is.