A harrowing firsthand account of inhumane immigration policies with which we all must come to terms.
A powerful mix of human rights memoir and examination of America’s flawed immigration policies.
In summer 2018, the Trump administration instituted a heavily restrictive zero tolerance policy that resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their parents, regardless of their rights as asylum seekers. For Olivares, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project and an immigrant from Mexico, this story struck home—literally. The author lives in the Rio Grande Valley, an area saturated with Mexican culture, where the realities of immigration have never been far away. A mixture of poignant legal insight, vivid hometown familiarity, and personal struggle, his account includes interviews with immigrants alongside analyses of complicated legal processes and a history of the southern border. Zero tolerance, Olivares reminds us, is only part of a broader history. While widespread family detention began under Barack Obama, the author traces its origins further back, to racially discriminatory immigration policies as old as the nation itself. As we follow Olivares through his many visits to the U.S. District Court in McAllen, Texas, and conversations with migrant parents, we see the countless shameful obstacles put in their way. In touching and often heartbreaking sections, the author introduces us to a Guatemalan man of Mayan descent who was separated from his daughter and accused of human trafficking for not speaking Spanish well enough; a father who, with instinctive foresight, told his daughter to prepare to be taken away to a "summer camp"; officials from private prison companies MTC and GEO Group, both of which have reaped huge profits from the drama and suffering of migrants; and government officials who mock the cries of separated children, some despite being children of immigrants themselves. Regarding one agent, Olivares writes, “Did he not see himself, or his family, his ancestors who came to this country before he did, in the faces and the cries of these children?”
A harrowing firsthand account of inhumane immigration policies with which we all must come to terms.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-306-84728-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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