Marvelous fun, though the abundance of in-jokes and private language makes the book most enjoyable for readers already...
More than 800 pages of letters provide an engrossing, deeply personal group portrait of six idiosyncratic sisters whose political views varied as much as the trajectories of their famous—often notorious—lives.
Daughters of the loopy Lord and Lady Redesdale, the Mitford girls first burst onto the English social scene as “bright young things” in the 1920s. Nancy, the eldest, was the family wit; she wrote a series of bestselling novels that captured their rarified milieu, among them The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949). Dazzling beauty Diana left her society marriage for Sir Oswald Mosley, a notorious rake who also happened to be leader of the British Fascist Union. Unity, too, embraced fascism while living abroad in Germany, becoming a friend and confidante of Hitler and Goebbels. She attempted suicide at the news of the outbreak of war and later died of complications from the bullet wound. Jessica, whose political leanings swung to the left, saved up her pocket money for years so she could elope with her communist cousin Esmond Romilly to Spain and fight the good fight in the Civil War; she became a bestselling author in her own right with Hons and Rebels (1960). Quiet, private Pamela was the “horsey” sister. Deborah, known as “Debo,” became Duchess of Devonshire and keeper of the family flame. Debo’s compelling flair for anecdote shines to particular advantage in this exhaustive collection, lovingly edited by Diana’s daughter-in-law, but each letter is a thrilling gem unto itself, thanks to the sisters’ individual cleverness.
Marvelous fun, though the abundance of in-jokes and private language makes the book most enjoyable for readers already familiar with the Mitford legend.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-137364-0
Page Count: 832
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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