A broader view of the ground Wallis covered in Oil Man (1988) and Pretty Boy (1992): the history and lore of Oklahoma and its inhabitants, from the earliest days to the present. One of Wallis's strong suits is his ability to convey the collision between Oklahoma's frontier origins and its role in the modern world. There's plenty of solid material here: Topics run the gamut from the rowdy 1889 land rush to the quiet modern influx of Mennonite farmers; from a visit to the sleepy panhandle town of Texoma to a survey of Tulsa's numerous art-deco buildings. The author is at his best in affectionate sketches of such Oklahoma originals as maverick football-star Joe Don Looney, Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller, and cowboy Jim Jordan. Most of the chapters originally appeared as magazine pieces (in Oklahoma Today, American West, etc.), and three are reprinted from the author's previous books—so the approach is inconsistent from one chapter to the next. Some, such as the one on the ``Thunderbirds,'' the 45th Infantry Division of WW II, effectively combine history, personal observation, and color, but others, such as a guide to popular barbecue joints, are puff pieces of little lasting value—especially since there's no evidence that the article has been revised or updated in the 11 years since its magazine appearance. And while Wallis's upbeat attitude and aggressively folksy style are probably perfect for Oklahoma Today, they don't wear well at book length. Well-researched and sympathetic view of the American heartland—but best read the way it was originally written, in chapter-size bites.
Pub Date: June 23, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09410-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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