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GHOSTS OF THE ORPHANAGE

Name: GHOSTS OF THE ORPHANAGE
Author: Christine Kenneally
ISBN: 9781541758513

A STORY OF MYSTERIOUS DEATHS, A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE, AND A SEARCH FOR JUSTICE

by Christine Kenneally ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

A powerful work of sociological investigation and literary journalism.

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A continent-ranging account of the terrors of a system of warehousing unwanted children.

According to a sobering study in Australia in the early 2000s, writes Kenneally, “the residents of orphanages were overwhelmingly not orphans.” As the author shows, this is a global problem. Though the orphanage system has largely given way to foster care and adoption, to say nothing of imprisonment, for generations, countless children were condemned to orphanages because their parents did not want them or could not care for them. Forgotten there, the children were subject to sexual and physical abuse at the hands of priests, nuns, wardens, and staff members; in numerous instances, they wound up dead at those same hands or, in some instances, murdered by fellow wards. Kenneally examines orphanages in Australia, the U.S., and Canada and delivers a distressing amount of somber news. For example, many “survivors,” as they often call themselves, wind up dying young from drug or alcohol abuse or suicide. By the author’s account, those who died within the system were overwhelmingly Indigenous or Aboriginal children far out of proportion to their numbers. “Many children who died were not named by the schools, nor was their date of death noted, and for almost half of the children, the cause of death was not recorded,” she writes. In one school, Kenneally recounts, 6 of 8 chaplains in charge had been accused of sexual abuse, while one now-elderly nun, with only a touch of remorse, admitted, “We had permission to kick the children.” When these stories first came to light in the 1990s, notes the author, they were too often dismissed as fabrications, but now, says one reporter, “Finally in 2022…people are willing to hear these stories and believe them.” Kenneally makes a strong case for prosecuting still-living monsters and providing reparations for their still-living victims.

A powerful work of sociological investigation and literary journalism.

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 9781541758513

Page Count: 384

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
THE INVISIBLE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE
by Christine Kenneally

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FIRST WORD
by Christine Kenneally

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HOW TO STEAL A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

by Lawrence Lessig & Matthew Seligman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 13, 2024

Welcome reading for anyone concerned with real rigged elections.

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Tired of the lies about the 2020 election? Buckle up: Trump is just warming up, and his allies may be getting craftier.

“This is not a book about January 6, 2021. It is a book about January 6, 2025,” write legal scholars Lessig and Seligman. We are lucky, Lessig suggests, that John Eastman and his fellow plotters “picked the dumbest possible strategy for pursuing what we feared they were trying to accomplish”: namely, trying to convince Mike Pence that he had the constitutional authority to refuse to certify the results by which Joe Biden won the presidency. One might argue that the second dumbest strategy was to send an army of fascist goons to the Capitol to try to enforce Eastman’s argument. However, Lessig and Seligman argue, there are holes in the Constitution wide enough to drive a burning dumpster through, and they might allow an interested party to falsely claim victory in a closely contested race and win the election. The authors presume that any such gaming-the-system effort will come from MAGA Republicans, though they add that a Democrat could easily use the same tactics. Readers may need a law degree to follow some of the arguments, but others are quite accessible. One argument that Lessig has been mounting for some time, for instance, is that the winner-take-all method employed by most states for electoral votes needs to be replaced with an apportionment system so that the Electoral College count will align with the popular vote. On that score, the authors warn, the prospect of rogue electors—or more, rogue governors who control those electors—is very real, and numerous other threats could enable someone smarter than the last bunch to mount “a cataclysmic attack on our democracy.”

Welcome reading for anyone concerned with real rigged elections.

Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024

ISBN: 9780300270792

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
THEY DON'T REPRESENT US
by Lawrence Lessig

- BOOK REVIEW
AMERICA, COMPROMISED
by Lawrence Lessig

- BOOK REVIEW
REPUBLIC, LOST
by Lawrence Lessig

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RAGE

by Bob Woodward ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2020

An essential account of a chaotic administration that, Woodward makes painfully clear, is incapable of governing.

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That thing in the air that is deadlier than even your “strenuous flus”? Trump knew—and did nothing about it.

The big news from veteran reporter Woodward’s follow-up to Fear has been widely reported: Trump was fully aware at the beginning of 2020 that a pandemic loomed and chose to downplay it, causing an untold number of deaths and crippling the economy. His excuse that he didn’t want to cause a panic doesn’t fly given that he trades in fear and division. The underlying news, however, is that Trump participated in this book, unlike in the first, convinced by Lindsey Graham that Woodward would give him a fair shake. Seventeen interviews with the sitting president inform this book, as well as extensive digging that yields not so much news as confirmation: Trump has survived his ineptitude because the majority of Congressional Republicans go along with the madness because they “had made a political survival decision” to do so—and surrendered their party to him. The narrative often requires reading between the lines. Graham, though a byword for toadyism, often reins Trump in; Jared Kushner emerges as the real power in the West Wing, “highly competent but often shockingly misguided in his assessments”; Trump admires tyrants, longs for their unbridled power, resents the law and those who enforce it, and is quick to betray even his closest advisers; and, of course, Trump is beholden to Putin. Trump occasionally emerges as modestly self-aware, but throughout the narrative, he is in a rage. Though he participated, he said that he suspected this to be “a lousy book.” It’s not—though readers may wish Woodward had aired some of this information earlier, when more could have been done to stem the pandemic. When promoting Fear, the author was asked for his assessment of Trump. His reply: “Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis.” Multiple crises later, Woodward concludes, as many observers have, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

An essential account of a chaotic administration that, Woodward makes painfully clear, is incapable of governing.