Profusely Illustrated

June 1, 2021

Illustrator/caricaturist Sorel, whose work is familiar to readers of Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, and The New Yorker, tracks his life from the Depression-era Bronx and New York's celebrated High School of Music & Art to his founding in the hot Sixties atelier Push Pin Studios with Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast and ascent to New York's top art and literary circles. With 169 four-color illustrations throughout.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2021
A memoir from the celebrated political satirist, caricaturist, and illustrator. Sorel (b. 1929), widely known for his left-leaning artistic lampooning of prominent political and entertainment figures, charts his life story beginning with his childhood in the Bronx. Raised by Jewish immigrants, he established an early love of movies and drawing while recuperating from lingering pneumonia. Sorel's artistry blossomed alongside an unusually keen political awareness, which proliferated throughout his school years. Following his crisp, youthful analysis of Harry Truman's presidency, he scrutinized the numerous scandals of later administrations. Early jobs at Esquire and CBS gave Sorel the opportunity to co-develop and promote his comic self-publication business Push Pin Studios. A psychologically damaging failed marriage was assuaged by a burgeoning career and a fulfilling second marriage. As his acclaim grew, his singular artwork and satirical wit garnered him numerous awards. Throughout, the author examines the many ways in which politics has influenced his work, propelling him to astutely express his perspectives through brilliant (and often scathing) works of pen-and-ink art. He also weaves in engaging discussions of his sharp-witted, biting commentary on a succession of more controversial, "unconstitutional" American presidents, from Nixon to Trump. "Tricky Dick had a face born for caricature," he writes. "We had a field day." Sorel also expanded his artistic reach to include other aspects of popular culture, including organized religion and, more specifically, religious zealotry. Sorel notes that his book serves as an "attempt to save a few of my drawings from the oblivion that is the usual fate of ephemeral magazine art. It's also a way to convince myself that spending a lifetime making funny pictures was not an entirely worthless endeavor." As a sharp cultural observer and an enticing raconteur, the author shines throughout his entertaining anecdotes and unique artwork. Fans of Sorel's storied artistry will welcome this generously illustrated centerpiece. A colorfully entertaining self-portrait conveyed through pithy prose and vital artwork.

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Starred review from November 1, 2021
Sorel offered glimpses into his life as a prolific "lefty" illustrator, political cartoonist, and caricaturist in the irresistible Mary Astor's Purple Diary (2016). Now the celebrated artist and satirist tells the full tale of how a Jewish kid raised by Romanian immigrants in the Bronx during the era of the Great Depression and WWII discovered his zest for drawing, endured art classes that seemed designed to thwart his calling, and crawled his way to resounding success after developing his signature "scribbly" style, gaining a following for his drawings, cartoons, and cover art for the New Yorker, the Nation, Vanity Fair, and many more. Breezy, funny, and self-deprecating, Sorel tells tales of starting the Push Pin Studios with Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, getting jobs and getting fired, living on a shoe string, attending Quaker meetings, falling in love, and committing himself to political dissent. So entwined for him are his experiences and the state of the nation, he offers arresting assessments of the covert abominations of each of the presidential administrations he zapped with his pen. Sorel has also created an exuberant on-the-page retrospective exhibition of his imaginative, vital, mischievous, and daring magazine work. Sorel is refreshingly candid about his amazement over and gratitude for his happy, productive life combating greed, corruption, lies, hubris, and crimes against humanity with wit and artistic vigor, righteous outrage and ebullient creativity.

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