MixedLos Angeles TimesAll memoirs are, by definition, collections of the past, but few interrogate it quite like Kathryn Harrison\'s On Sunset. What sets Harrison apart is that the past was her native land, even as she was living it. Raised by a pair of deeply eccentric old-world grandparents in a sprawling house on Sunset Boulevard, Harrison existed in a childhood out of time and place, seemingly unbound from her era ... The family history is undeniably rich, and there are moments of great vibrance, but the passages sometimes slip into tedium, like being asked to flip through someone else\'s heirloom photo album for the second or third time. The incantation of names and places grows old, and the reader can feel a bit like a ping-pong ball, pulled through time and space without any particular sense of overarching narrative motion. But Harrison is nothing if not a magnificent writer, and there is something deeply satisfying about her sentences.
