Human-interest stories of privacy invaded, plus a smattering of legal concepts for the uninitiated. Alderman and Kennedy (In Our Defense, 1991) reprise their bestselling formula to explore that most nebulous of constitutional guarantees, the right to privacy, which, while not explicitly stated in the Constitution, has been judicially determined to be ``implied'' by it. As in their first book, the authors explore the parameters of the law by focusing on real-life dramas: the women strip-searched by the Chicago police for minor parking violations; the high school girl videotaped in the act of sex with her boyfriend; the female animal trainer whose photo appeared in a porno magazine without her permission. Most of the stories here involve women, a fact that the authors don't acknowledge. (Do women run into privacy issues more often? Do they just make better copy?) Some of the incidents we've read about in the newspaper, such as the attorney whose lesbian marriage ceremony led to her being fired from the Georgia attorney general's office, or the case of the divorced Tennessee couple battling over rights to frozen embryos. One story stands out: the case of the hospital struggling to decide whether to perform an emergency cesarean on a dying cancer patient in order to save her 26-week-old fetus. Here the authors tell a wrenching tale and fully explore the competing legal, ethical, and medical issues introduced at the emergency judicial hearing. But too much here is superficial: The authors recite the facts, describe the privacy issues involved, mention competing interests (such as freedom of the press), and cite related cases without comment. Alderman and Kennedy don't seem to have a take, legal or moral, on the right to privacy, and so ironically, their book offers little more than titillation. (First printing of 100,000; Book-of-the-Month Club selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 10, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-41986-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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