Compulsively readable true crime provoking questions about policing, poverty, and the ritualized brutality of the rural...
Grisly account of unsolved murders in a small Louisiana town.
New Orleans–based investigative reporter Brown (Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder that Rocked New Orleans, 2009, etc.) spent two years unraveling the stories behind the impoverished, addicted sex workers murdered in hardscrabble Jennings, Louisiana. While media and police inflated fears of a serial killer, the author argues the murders resulted from collusion between corrupt law enforcement and drug dealers, seeking to punish the women for informing. “It should have been obvious all along,” he writes, “that the Jeff Davis 8 killings were not the handiwork of a serial killer…[since they] all knew one another intimately.” Brown focuses on Frankie Richard, an aging pimp whom the author interviewed extensively; although Richard proclaims his innocence, Brown documents connections among him, the victims, and cops who conveniently mishandled evidence against him. His portrait of law enforcement is damning, identifying powerful officials “who were accustomed to maintaining inappropriately intimate connections with those on the wrong side of the law.” Although a task force was launched in response to public anger, Brown accuses them of ineptitude and misconduct; in one startling example, an investigator bought, cleaned, and resold a truck that may have been used in one murder. The author views these seamy details as congruent with a culture of police violence and a regional underground of drugs and criminality that treats such women as disposable; distressingly, the victims themselves seemed to concur, with the mother of one noting, “I think she could feel that they were closing in on her.” Brown’s writing is clear and approachable, and his research is meticulous, even as locals grew hostile toward his investigation (his final chapters argue connections to political figures beyond Jennings). Although he presents few concrete answers to these mysteries, readers will be shaken by the unpleasant implications of a narrative bearing similarities to the first season of True Detective.
Compulsively readable true crime provoking questions about policing, poverty, and the ritualized brutality of the rural South.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-9325-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2016
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
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.
An analysis of our emotions and the skills required to understand them.
We all have emotions, but how many of us have the vocabulary to accurately describe our experiences or to understand how our emotions affect the way we act? In this guide to help readers with their emotions, Brackett, the founding director of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a five-step method he calls R.U.L.E.R.: We need to recognize our emotions, understand what has caused them, be able to label them with precise terms and descriptions, know how to safely and effectively express them, and be able to regulate them in productive ways. The author walks readers through each step and provides an intriguing tool to use to help identify a specific emotion. Brackett introduces a four-square grid called a Mood Meter, which allows one to define where an emotion falls based on pleasantness and energy. He also uses four colors for each quadrant: yellow for high pleasantness and high energy, red for low pleasantness and high energy, green for high pleasantness and low energy, and blue for low pleasantness and low energy. The idea is to identify where an emotion lies in this grid in order to put the R.U.L.E.R. method to good use. The author’s research is wide-ranging, and his interweaving of his personal story with the data helps make the book less academic and more accessible to general readers. It’s particularly useful for parents and teachers who want to help children learn to handle difficult emotions so that they can thrive rather than be overwhelmed by them. The author’s system will also find use in the workplace. “Emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor,” writes Brackett. “They influence everything from leadership effectiveness to building and maintaining complex relationships, from innovation to customer relations.”
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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