bookshelf

IN THE LAND OF MEN

Name: IN THE LAND OF MEN
Author: Adrienne Miller
ISBN: 978-0-06-268241-3

A MEMOIR

by Adrienne Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2020

A scattershot glimpse into the American magazine scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

bookshelf

A former Esquire fiction editor recounts her time at the magazine and her working relationship and romance with David Foster Wallace.

Miller (The Coast of Akron, 2005) was 25 with three years’ experience in editorial assistant roles at GQ when her boss became editor-in-chief at Esquire in 1997 and hired her to be the latter’s fiction editor. During her tenure, which ended in 2006, she edited four stories by Wallace, “the fiction writer with whom I’d work the most frequently at the magazine.” For a time, they were a couple. In her debut memoir, Miller recounts her years at Esquire, her struggle to grapple with working for a men’s publication in which the “representation of women was problematic at best,” and her relationship with Wallace. Many passages movingly recount the sexism she endured, such as when, after she got the job, a male literary agent told her, “You don’t have any authority to do this job, you know”; or when she discovered that then-unknown Dave Eggers, an Esquire colleague, received twice her salary for similar work. Unfortunately, much of the narrative is unfocused and suffers from weak prose—e.g., “He obviously didn’t exactly hold me in terribly high regard”; “my grandfather, who had died six years before, was still dead.” Many passages read like lines from a romance novel: “His hand was firm, and soft, and warm”; “David promised he’d call. I hoped he’d call. I needed him to call.” Despite her focus on Wallace, we never get a satisfying sense of what made him a unique writer. For the most complete and insightful portrait of Wallace, readers should turn to D.T. Max’s Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story. Miller’s experience as a woman at a male-dominated magazine is unique, but her rendering is flawed.

A scattershot glimpse into the American magazine scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-06-268241-3

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

bookshelf

HARD CHOICES

by Hillary Rodham Clinton ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 10, 2014

Unsurprising but perfectly competent and seamlessly of a piece with her Living History (2003). And will Hillary run? The...

bookshelf

Former Secretary of State Clinton tells—well, if not all, at least what she and her “book team” think we ought to know.

If this memoir of diplomatic service lacks the preening self-regard of Henry Kissinger’s and the technocratic certainty of Dean Acheson’s, it has all the requisite evenhandedness: Readers have the sense that there’s not a sentence in it that hasn’t been vetted, measured and adjusted for maximal blandness. The news that has thus far made the rounds has concerned the author’s revelation that the Clintons were cash-strapped on leaving the White House, probably since there’s not enough hanging rope about Benghazi for anyone to get worked up about. (On that current hot-button topic, the index says, mildly, “See Libya.”) The requisite encomia are there, of course: “Losing these fearless public servants in the line of duty was a crushing blow.” So are the crises and Clinton’s careful qualifying: Her memories of the Benghazi affair, she writes, are a blend of her own experience and information gathered in the course of the investigations that followed, “especially the work of the independent review board charged with determining the facts and pulling no punches.” When controversy appears, it is similarly cushioned: Tinhorn dictators are valuable allies, and everyone along the way is described with the usual honorifics and flattering descriptions: “Benazir [Bhutto] wore a shalwar kameez, the national dress of Pakistan, a long, flowing tunic over loose pants that was both practical and attractive, and she covered her hair with lovely scarves.” In short, this is a standard-issue political memoir, with its nods to “adorable students,” “important partners,” the “rich history and culture” of every nation on the planet, and the difficulty of eating and exercising sensibly while logging thousands of hours in flight and in conference rooms.

Unsurprising but perfectly competent and seamlessly of a piece with her Living History (2003). And will Hillary run? The guiding metaphor of the book is the relay race, and there’s a sense that if the torch is handed to her, well….

Pub Date: June 10, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4767-5144-3

Page Count: 656

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: June 13, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
SOMETHING LOST, SOMETHING GAINED
by Hillary Rodham Clinton

- BOOK REVIEW
STATE OF TERROR
by Hillary Rodham Clinton & Louise Penny

- BOOK REVIEW
GRANDMA'S GARDENS
by Hillary Rodham Clinton & Chelsea Clinton ; illustrated by Carme Lemniscates

bookshelf

MY OWN WORDS

by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett & Wendy Williams ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2016

Only the most dedicated Ginsburg fans, and there are many, will devour everything here, but most readers will find items of...

bookshelf

From the second woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, a collection of writings ranging from the slight to the serious.

Now 83, women’s rights icon Ginsburg nears the close of her distinguished career as a law professor, appellate advocate, judge, and justice, arguably having done more to move our law in the direction of gender equality than any living person. Now, as two Georgetown Law professors, Hartnett and Williams (emerita) prepare her official biography, they have collected Ginsburg’s speeches, lectures, articles, and opinions, some on offer here. They preface most of this material with explanatory, wholly complimentary notes and begin with a chapter of juvenilia, demonstrating Ginsburg’s early interest in human rights and in preserving individual liberties. Passages devoted to “the lighter side” of life at the Supreme Court include, for example, Ginsburg’s musings on lawyers depicted in opera, not least her own “starring” role in Scalia/Ginsburg. There follows a section on “waypavers” and “pathmarkers,” Ginsburg’s tributes to, among others, Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court Bar, Gloria Steinem, “the face of feminism,” and Sandra Day O’Connor, the court’s first woman justice. Especially good are the author’s observations on the court’s “Jewish seat” and her charming lecture on four notable Supreme Court wives. These, and many other agreeable selections, are characterized as “remarks,” delivered and often recycled for various audiences. The collection also contains numerous bench announcements, summaries of some of Ginsburg’s most consequential opinions and dissents, and a few revealing essays that offer keys to her jurisprudence: for example, her perspective on the role of dissents, the value of consulting foreign law, and the wisdom of “measured motions” by the judiciary, wherein she mildly criticizes Roe v. Wade for provoking a backlash and halting “a political process that was moving in a reform direction.”

Only the most dedicated Ginsburg fans, and there are many, will devour everything here, but most readers will find items of interest from this icon of women’s rights.