WINNER OF THE 2018 JG-WINGATE PRIZE A psychologically acute memoir about an unusual Hollywood family by Michael Frank, who "brings Proustian acuity and razor-sharp prose to family dramas as primal, and eccentrically insular, as they come" (The Atlantic) “My feeling for Mike is something out of the ordi - nary,” Michael Frank overhears his aunt telling his mother when he is a boy of eight. “It’s stronger than I am. I cannot explain it . . . I love him beyond life itself.” With this indelible bit of eavesdropping, we fall into the spellbinding world of The Mighty Franks. The family is uncommonly close: Michael’s childless Auntie Hankie and Uncle Irving, glamorous Hollywood screenwriters, are doubly related— Hankie is his father’s sister, and Irving is his mother’s brother. The two families live near each other in Laurel Canyon. In this strangely intertwined world, even the author’s grandmothers—who dislike each other—share a nearby apartment. Strangest of all is the way Auntie Hankie, with her extravagant personality, comes to bend the wider family to her will. Talented, mercurial, and lavish with her love, she divides Michael from his parents and his two younger brothers as she takes charge of his education, guiding him to the right books to read (Proust, not Zola), the right painters to admire (Matisse, not Pollock), the right architectural styles to embrace (period, not modern—or mo-derne, as she pronounces the word, with palpable disdain). She trains his mind and his eye—until that eye begins to see on its own. When this “son” Hankie longs for grows up and begins to turn away from her, her moods darken, and a series of shattering scenes compel Michael to reconstruct both himself and his family narrative as he tries to reconcile the woman he once adored with the troubled figure he discovers her to be. In its portrayal of this fascinating, singularly polarizing figure, the boy in her thrall, and the man that boy becomes, The Mighty Franks will speak to any reader who has ever struggled to find an independent voice amid the turbulence of family life.

"A wise and necessary book, one I’ve been recommending ardently to everyone I know. " —Julie Orringer, author of The Flight Portfolio Suspenseful and gripping, award-winning author Michael Frank’s What is Missing is a psychological family drama about a father, a son, and the woman they both love. Costanza Ansaldo, a half-Italian and half-American translator, is convinced that she has made peace with her childlessness. A year after the death of her husband, an eminent writer, she returns to the pensione in Florence where she spent many happy times in her youth, and there she meets, first, Andrew Weissman, an acutely sensitive seventeen-year-old, and, soon afterward, his father, Henry Weissman, a charismatic New York physician who specializes in—as it happens—reproductive medicine. With three lives each marked by heartbreak and absence—of a child, a parent, a partner, or a clear sense of identity—What is Missing offers Costanza, Andrew, and Henry the opportunity to make themselves whole when the triangle resumes three months later in New York, where the relationships among them turn and tighten with combustive effects that cut to the core of what it means to be a father, a son, and—for Costanza—a potential mother.

The boundaries of family life are upended in this memoir of the author’s lifelong relationship with his enthralling yet deeply possessive aunt, a powerhouse Hollywood screenwriter whose turbulent nature slowly reveals itself All his life, Michael Frank was fawned over by his aunt, who was a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1970s. She loved him more than life itself. At first, when he was a young boy, this was a very good thing; he took refuge in her adoration and attention. But things soon turned bad, and her hold on the entire family began to spiral out of control in increasingly unpredictable and volatile ways.

Every one of us have watched television shows, movies and listened to our favorite songs but how many of us have wondered how theyve affected and influenced us? Do we still have a fondness for the mediums we enjoyed as a child or do we outgrow the past? As an adult, is it easier or harder to accept the past or embrace the future?

"The remarkable story of ninety-nine-year-old Stella Levi whose conversations with the writer Michael Frank over the course of six years bring to life the vibrant world of Jewish Rhodes, the deportation to Auschwitz that extinguished ninety percent of her community, and the resilience and wisdom of the woman who lived to tell the tale."--Amazon.

"A photographic collection of more than seventy pieces of master artwork, including artistic commentary, from the permanent collection of the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) in Boston, Massachusetts"--Provided by publisher.

The hydrogen car has been proposed as the solution to our oil problems, but how would it work, and what potential problems associated with it? This book addresses these questions and provides specifics about current developments toward a hydrogen-based energy infrastructure. It offers the reader an informed look at the current state of fuel cell power and transportation technology, and where it's headed.

First published in 2002. This book examines the full scope of technologies available to address the electricity supply crisis. The author details the tools and technologies available for incorporating smaller, cleaner, more efficient energy into energy management plans. He examines the role of new technologies in reducing operating costs and developing more innovative and practical approaches to energy management. Topics include implementation of alternative energy programs, management of power quality, cost-effective power generation solutions, cost-effective energy services, information monitoring and diagnostic systems, energy storage options, integration of lighting and cooling systems, and more.