A cogent and well-argued case for an oft-maligned politician.
Gruenenfelder makes the case for West Virginia senator Joe Manchin in this debut nonfiction book.
Dismayed by attacks on Joe Manchin from fellow progressives, the author, a Democratic Party organizer, wrote this book in support of the moderate West Virginia senator, whose stances on coal and his “folksy reputation for compromise and working across the aisle” have made him a target of the left. Hoping to dissuade prominent Democratic fundraisers and politicians from primarying the blue senator from a deeply red state in his upcoming reelection, Gruenenfelder asserts in his central argument that future progressive victories are “impossible if we don’t actually control the levers of government.” After beginning with a brief biography of Manchin, the grandchild of impoverished Czech and Italian immigrants, the book presents chapters divided thematically by issues that range from the Affordable Care Act to minimum wage. Emphasizing the fact that Manchin has voted with President Joe Biden’s agenda “nearly 90% of the time,” the author convincingly makes the case for Manchin’s liberal record protecting Planned Parenthood, safeguarding funding for health care, advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, and pushing back against Donald Trump’s Covid-19 rhetoric. Indeed, as the book highlights, Manchin votes with his party at more reliable rates than progressive standard-bearers such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And while certainly eccentric (the senator lives on a houseboat docked in Washington, D.C., that he bought from liquidators), Manchin, per the book, is a savvy, soft-spoken politician whose pragmatic approach is essential to his ability to maintain electoral support. A political organizer born and raised in Los Angeles who’s led student protests against gun violence, Gruenenfelder allows that Manchin’s views do not “represent the future of our party” while making a strong case for the senator’s political value. Written explicitly for fellow Democrats, the book’s overt partisanship may not appeal to all readers, though its engaging narrative offers a comprehensive overview of an influential politician’s career, supported by sound research and more than 1,200 endnotes. The author’s accessible writing style will appeal to policy wonks and casual observers of U.S. politics alike.
A cogent and well-argued case for an oft-maligned politician.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781735580517
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Geoghegan & Burke Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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