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Milking the Moon by Eugene Walter, as told to Katherine Clark
Imagine the most charming dinner companion you've ever met, multiply the charm tenfold, add heaping handfuls of anecdotes about the famous and talented and then be sure to make the racounteur a Southerner (if he isn't already) -- and you've got Eugene Walter. Born and raised in Mobile, Ala., Walter cavorted through a series of bohemian enclaves, including Greenwich Village, Paris and Rome, where he befriended Fellini and played a minor role in "8 1/2" (as well as countless other Italian films of the time). Clark, an English professor, has gracefully compiled Walter's oral autobiography. Walter's memories include childhood encounters with Truman Capote, being given three pubic hairs by Tallulah Bankhead and, perhaps most fantastically, a stint as a cryptographer in World War II, when he was stationed at an Arctic base for years and kept a caribou calf as a pet. This is a book to pick up and browse in whenever you need a quick lesson on how to live life to the fullest.
-- Laura Miller
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