A rowdy journey to success recollected with humor and poignancy.
Celebrity trial attorney Golub reflects upon his madcap formative years in Worcester, Massachusetts.
On a snowy fall night in 1953, 11-year-old Golub joined his friend on a hayride. It would turn out to be a propitious event. There, sitting in the hay, was 10-year-old Linda Paul, the precocious little girl who would toy with Golub’s emotions for the next decade: “She was thin, her hair had small brown curls, and her skin was translucent. I thought I could see through it, all the way to her heart.” Fortunately, Golub, born into a middle-class Jewish family, had other concerns that helped distract his young mind. He was determined to make enough money to ease his family’s financial struggles. He writes, “Slowly I became convinced that I wanted to be a lawyer. Lawyers were respected, and they were paid for their words.” Worcester was a rough town. In public school, Golub faced bullying by the tough kids. In fifth grade, he avenged himself by urinating out the school bathroom window, targeting his stream at his tormentor. He was suspended for three days, the first of a series of suspensions and expulsions that “distinguished” his school years. In his tender, frequently hair-raising memoir, Golub recalls his rebellious, troubled path from prankster and petty criminal to prominent New York City attorney. A masterful storyteller, he captures the zeitgeist of the 1950s and early ’60s, including memories of antisemitism in Worcester and frightening racism in North Carolina, where he went to law school. Squeamish readers should be forewarned that his amiable, conversational prose abounds with four-letter expletives and graphic sexual exploits (and disappointments); however, his sarcastic, self-deprecating asides reveal an endearing fragility beneath the brashness. His most reckless, riveting escapades unfold over several chapters that bring readers along on his 1963 cross-country road trip to Los Angeles with his friend Alan Golden.
A rowdy journey to success recollected with humor and poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9798988070306
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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