John Powers

In Corey Stockwell's fine translation, live fast takes what could seem like an intellectual exercise, a strange sort of catechism, and slowly, touchingly infuses it with emotion. we start feeling Giraud's enduring love for her husband, a soulmate who becomes more real the more she writes.

She knows him so well, adoring both the elegant, refined, discreet, modest Claude and his dark side, his B-side, who enjoyed bombing along on a motorbike. Of course, there's a slightly nutty side to Giroux's obsessive attempts to rewrite the past. Yet, I think every single reader will understand her. It's a desire we've all felt.

She knows him so well, adoring both the elegant, refined, discreet, modest Claude and his dark side, his B-side, who enjoyed bombing along on a motorbike. Of course, there's a slightly nutty side to Giroux's obsessive attempts to rewrite the past. Yet, I think every single reader will understand her. It's a desire we've all felt.

She knows him so well, adoring both the elegant, refined, discreet, modest Claude and his dark side, his B-side, who enjoyed bombing along on a motorbike. Of course, there's a slightly nutty side to Giroux's obsessive attempts to rewrite the past. Yet, I think every single reader will understand her. It's a desire we've all felt.

A desire that's inspired everything from Greek ideas of the fates to cheesy episodes of Star Trek to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Giroux understands that we can't roll back time and have a do-over. There's no such thing as if-only, she says. But thinking about such things offers a form of distraction, if not consolation.

A desire that's inspired everything from Greek ideas of the fates to cheesy episodes of Star Trek to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Giroux understands that we can't roll back time and have a do-over. There's no such thing as if-only, she says. But thinking about such things offers a form of distraction, if not consolation.

A desire that's inspired everything from Greek ideas of the fates to cheesy episodes of Star Trek to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Giroux understands that we can't roll back time and have a do-over. There's no such thing as if-only, she says. But thinking about such things offers a form of distraction, if not consolation.

We gain a saving illusion of control over losses that feel less random when we can weave them into a kind of story that seems to explain them. Such weaving helps fight a crushing sense of meaninglessness until we're able to move on. which is how Giroux comes off the other side of her grief and why Live Fast is not a downer.

We gain a saving illusion of control over losses that feel less random when we can weave them into a kind of story that seems to explain them. Such weaving helps fight a crushing sense of meaninglessness until we're able to move on. which is how Giroux comes off the other side of her grief and why Live Fast is not a downer.

We gain a saving illusion of control over losses that feel less random when we can weave them into a kind of story that seems to explain them. Such weaving helps fight a crushing sense of meaninglessness until we're able to move on. which is how Giroux comes off the other side of her grief and why Live Fast is not a downer.

Clocking in at a snappy 159 pages, this is one of those rare books that works in two directions. It pulls you completely into its reality. Believe me, it's a page-turner, but also sends you back out into the mystery of living. It gets you pondering your own losses and how you deal with all those what-ifs that rise up in every life.

Clocking in at a snappy 159 pages, this is one of those rare books that works in two directions. It pulls you completely into its reality. Believe me, it's a page-turner, but also sends you back out into the mystery of living. It gets you pondering your own losses and how you deal with all those what-ifs that rise up in every life.

Clocking in at a snappy 159 pages, this is one of those rare books that works in two directions. It pulls you completely into its reality. Believe me, it's a page-turner, but also sends you back out into the mystery of living. It gets you pondering your own losses and how you deal with all those what-ifs that rise up in every life.

It's one measure of Latin America's arduous history that it spawns so many books and movies about dictatorship. Over the years, I've been through scads of them, from novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa to the landmark documentaries of Patricio Guzman to Hollywood thrillers like Missing and Under Fire. What they share is the awareness that history hurts.

It's one measure of Latin America's arduous history that it spawns so many books and movies about dictatorship. Over the years, I've been through scads of them, from novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa to the landmark documentaries of Patricio Guzman to Hollywood thrillers like Missing and Under Fire. What they share is the awareness that history hurts.

It's one measure of Latin America's arduous history that it spawns so many books and movies about dictatorship. Over the years, I've been through scads of them, from novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa to the landmark documentaries of Patricio Guzman to Hollywood thrillers like Missing and Under Fire. What they share is the awareness that history hurts.

Few films have shown this with more delicate intelligence than I'm Still Here, a moving new drama set during Brazil's military dictatorship that began with an American-backed coup in 1964 and ended in 1985. Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salas's movie is no political tract or manipulative tearjerker, although it may make you cry.

Few films have shown this with more delicate intelligence than I'm Still Here, a moving new drama set during Brazil's military dictatorship that began with an American-backed coup in 1964 and ended in 1985. Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salas's movie is no political tract or manipulative tearjerker, although it may make you cry.

Few films have shown this with more delicate intelligence than I'm Still Here, a moving new drama set during Brazil's military dictatorship that began with an American-backed coup in 1964 and ended in 1985. Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salas's movie is no political tract or manipulative tearjerker, although it may make you cry.

Exploring the dictatorship indirectly, I'm Still Here tells the heroic true story of a wife and mother who steers her family through the rapids of tyranny. The story begins idyllically on Ipanema Beach in 1970, when we first meet the Paiva family. The father is Rubens, played with easy charm by Sultan Melo, a warm-hearted man who was a congressman before the coup.