A compelling, if disjointed, survey of contemporary Texas politics.
A veteran Texas journalist and political commentator compiles his recent columns and editorials in this excoriating anthology.
“Texas is now a joke,” writes Bills, who laments that the Lone Star State has become “synonymous with shameless cretins, imbeciles, sexist morons, or chauvinist losers.” As a once-proud Texan, the author recalls that it was not so long ago that the state “used to be the exception” in the South, having elected a liberal Democratic governor (Ann Richards) and the nation’s first Black congresswoman from the South (Barbara Jordan). As long ago as 1925, Texas boasted the first state Supreme Court composed entirely of women. But the state that produced national treasures from Willie Nelson and Janis Joplin to Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather is now, per Bills, “a laughingstock,” best known for its reactionary politicians like Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and Greg Abbott. A seasoned freelance journalist, the author has dedicated much of his recent writing career to speaking out against the direction his state has taken through editorials and columns published in the Fort Worth Weekly and other local periodicals. In this collection of 25 pieces, mostly written since 2021, he tackles Texas’ “despicable and dangerous” political climate, which, he observes, has led the nation in policies that include government-mandated censorship of libraries, a statewide ban on abortion (even for victims of sexual assault), and a xenophobic immigration policy. As the author of multiple books on Texas history and politics, Bills is a keen observer of state government and supports his well-argued editorials with more than 50 research endnotes. Taken individually, each chapter is consistently thought provoking, providing a concise, effective, and alarming introduction to Texas politics—but the work could have used a more thoughtful structure. While loosely organized by theme, the chapters often jump timelines and topics. Bills’ engaging writing style blends accessibility with learned analysis, and his text is accompanied by full-color photographs, historical paintings, and other images. An appendix featuring the manifesto of El Paso mass shooter Patrick Crusius offers a frightening reflection on the link between rhetorical and physical violence.
A compelling, if disjointed, survey of contemporary Texas politics.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9798218342722
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For fans only.
The hoodie-and-shorts-clad Pennsylvania senator blends the political and personal, and often not nicely.
Fetterman’s memoir addresses three major themes. The first—and the one he leads with—is depression and mental illness, which, combined with a stroke and heart trouble, brought him to a standstill and led him to contemplate suicide. The second is his rise to national-level politics from a Rust Belt town; as he writes, he’s carved a path as a contentious player with a populist streak and a dislike for elites. There are affecting moments in his personal reminiscences, especially when he writes of the lives of his working-class neighbors in impoverished southwestern Pennsylvania, its once-prosperous Monongahela River Valley “the most heartbreaking drive in the United States.” It’s the third element that’s problematic, and that’s his in-the-trenches account of daily politics. One frequent complaint is the media, as when he writes of one incident, “I am not the first public figure to get fucked by a reporter, and I won’t be the last. What was eye-opening was the window it gave into how people with disabilities navigate a world that doesn’t give a shit.” He reserves special disdain for his Senate race opponent Mehmet Oz, about whom he wonders, “If I had run against any other candidate…would I have lost? He got beaten by a guy recovering from a stroke.” Perhaps so, and Democratic stalwarts will likely be dismayed at his apparent warmish feelings for Donald Trump and dislike of his own party’s “performative protests.” If Fetterman’s book convinces a troubled soul to seek help, it will have done some good, but it’s hard to imagine that it will make much of an impression in the self-help literature. One wonders, meanwhile, at sentiments such as this: “If men are forced to choose between picking their party or keeping their balls, most men are going to choose their balls.”
For fans only.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593799826
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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
PERSPECTIVES
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