An in-depth biography of 20th-century journalists Joseph and Stewart Alsop from historical writer Merry (A Country of Vast Designs, 2009, etc.).
Born into a wealthy Connecticut family in the early 1900s, the Alsop brothers followed a trajectory of American aristocracy from private school (Groton) to the Ivy League (Harvard for Joe, Yale for Stewart) to the top tier of Washington, D.C., society. With help from family connections (they were relatives of the Roosevelts) and their own tenacity, the brothers developed close relationships with many of the movers and shakers of 20th-century American history. The Alsops gained national attention for their syndicated column, “Matter of Fact,” and both continued their careers as journalists once the column ended. The list of government officials the brothers met with under settings both formal (on the record interviews) and somewhat less formal (dinner parties) reads like an answer sheet to a U.S. History 101 exam: John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, etc. Reading about the personal and professional lives of two well-connected journalists can at times seem like one long parade of champagne and expensive suits. At their most domesticated, the brothers interviewed sources, formed their opinions and made sure their column was complete before cocktails were served. The story of the Alsops fascinates when the brothers are working well beyond their comfortable homes in Washington (or a friend’s comfortable home in Paris or elsewhere). Joe’s time spent with the French Foreign Legion in Vietnam provides a haunting look at the struggle the U.S. would come to face following the French defeat. Stewart’s reporting on the Watts Riot in Los Angeles shows an almost comical view of the challenges facing America in the 1960s. Merry’s handling of the Alsops’ story, though at times sluggish with their blue-blooded excess, creates a multidimensional understanding of their lives, work and country. While portions of the book—such as coverage of Robert A. Taft’s primary results—may appeal only to select political junkies, the range of historical topics the Alsop brothers traversed offers something for anyone interested in the time period and the people who helped to shape it. Dawdles occasionally, but ultimately a satisfying tour of 20th-century American politics via the life of two D.C. insiders.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1467901840
Page Count: 688
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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