Nearly 70 columns from the New York Post’s late editorial page editor raise a conservative voice against perceived excesses of the progressive left. Podhoretz (Hell of a Ride, 1993), who succeeded Breindel at the Post, selected the essays, wrote the preface, and added commentary to each chapter. The book also contains tributes to Breindel, who died at 42 from Hodgkin’s disease in 1997, by political notables such as Henry Kissinger and New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Breindel actually worked for Moynihan, a Democrat, and we learn that this Harvard graduate and friend of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., began as a Democrat with neoconservative leanings. Breindel’s move further right in the mid-’80s was prompted by a variety of indignations on display here: the Soviet Union’s campaigns against Jews and Israel, and the alleged leftist coddling of Communists (masked as “liberals” ), criminals (treated as victims), and minority racists (like Louis Farrakhan). The columns” titles alone recall the combative tone favored during Breindel’s 11 years at the editorial page helm: “Nazis of the Left,” “Smearing Clarence Thomas,” “The Rosenbergs and Their Apologists,” “Kristallnacht in Brooklyn,” “White Guilt,” “Filling a Quota,” “The Shame of the United Nations,” and “What Jesse Jackson Didn—t Say.” Podhoretz sees Breindel’s obsessions as fitting for the child of Holocaust survivors who saw the totalitarian Soviets and their American apologists as the new Nazis and feared a progressive world where (white) victims (like the Central Park jogger) are blamed, and victimizers (like the shot mugger who successfully sued for $4.3 million) are lionized. One needn—t accept overstatements like “McCathyism is practiced most enthusiastically, and most efficiently, by those who dwell in the precincts of the Left” to agree with Podhoretz that Breindel offers a bracing counterpoint to the PC police. The collection ends with a tribute from New Republic editor Martin Peretz. Whether one finds Breindel’s pervasive anti-Communism neurotically obsessive or fiercely patriotic, his editorials make for powerful, historic reading.
Pub Date: March 2, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-019327-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York.
When advertising executive Schroff answered a child’s request for spare change by inviting him for lunch, she did not expect the encounter to grow into a friendship that would endure into his adulthood. The author recounts how she and Maurice, a promising boy from a drug-addicted family, learned to trust each other. Schroff acknowledges risks—including the possibility of her actions being misconstrued and the tension of crossing socio-economic divides—but does not dwell on the complexities of homelessness or the philosophical problems of altruism. She does not question whether public recognition is beneficial, or whether it is sufficient for the recipient to realize the extent of what has been done. With the assistance of People human-interest writer Tresniowski (Tiger Virtues, 2005, etc.), Schroff adheres to a personal narrative that traces her troubled relationship with her father, her meetings with Maurice and his background, all while avoiding direct parallels, noting that their childhoods differed in severity even if they shared similar emotional voids. With feel-good dramatizations, the story seldom transcends the message that reaching out makes a difference. It is framed in simple terms, from attributing the first meeting to “two people with complicated pasts and fragile dreams” that were “somehow meant to be friends” to the conclusion that love is a driving force. Admirably, Schroff notes that she did not seek a role as a “substitute parent,” and she does not judge Maurice’s mother for her lifestyle. That both main figures experience a few setbacks yet eventually survive is never in question; the story fittingly concludes with an epilogue by Maurice. For readers seeking an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4251-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
As with nearly all of Lewis’ books, this one succeeds on so many levels, including as a well-written primer on how the...
Lewis (The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds, 2016, etc.) turns timely political reporting he published in Vanity Fair into a book about federal government bureaucracies during the first year of the Donald Trump presidency.
At first, the author’s curiosity about the relationship between individual citizens and massive federal agencies supported by taxpayer dollars did not lead him to believe the book would become a searing indictment of Trump. However, Lewis wisely allowed the evidence to dictate the narrative, resulting in a book-length indictment of Trump’s disastrous administration. The leading charge of the indictment is what Lewis terms “willful ignorance.” Neither Trump nor his appointees to head government agencies have demonstrated even the slightest curiosity about how those agencies actually function. After Trump’s election in November 2016, nobody from his soon-to-be-inaugurated administration visited federal agencies despite thorough preparation within those agencies to assist in a traditionally nonpartisan transition. Lewis primarily focuses on the Energy Department, the Agriculture Department, and the Commerce Department. To provide context, he contrasts the competent transition teams assembled after the previous elections of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Displaying his usual meticulous research and fluid prose, the author makes the federal bureaucracy come alive by focusing on a few individuals within each agency with fascinating—and sometimes heartwarming—backstories. In addition, Lewis explains why each of those individuals is important to the citizenry due to their sometimes-arcane but always crucial roles within the government. Throughout the book, unforgettable tidbits emerge, such as the disclosure by a Forbes magazine compiler of the world’s wealthiest individuals list that only three tycoons have intentionally misled the list’s compilers—one of the three is Trump, and another is Wilbur Ross, appointed by Trump as Commerce Secretary.
As with nearly all of Lewis’ books, this one succeeds on so many levels, including as a well-written primer on how the government serves citizens in underappreciated ways.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-324-00264-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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