The author is not much of a prose stylist, but he gives enough historical evidence to back the theory that political and...
Thoughts on how “alternative institutions” could revamp American society.
Using his own experience of starting a car-sharing program as a leaping-off point, Metcalf takes readers back to the years prior to the American Revolution to begin his analysis of how and why alternative institutions are once again needed in the United States. Although the narrative is textbook-dry—he outlines what he plans to examine, covers that material in depth, and then sums it all up—Metcalf does offer solid examples of cycles of change in this country. From the early days of the country, he studies worker co-ops, analyzes “mission-driven investments and progressive consumer demand,” and discusses companies that demonstrate his points. The author looks at the pros and cons of land trusts, particularly the Champlain Housing Trust in Vermont, and explores other housing situations. Metcalf notes that money is usually the limiting factor in community and conservation land trusts, but they also require like-minded people who are more interested in maintaining the land for generations rather than generating short-term profit through privately owned property. The author also features agricultural cooperatives and provides a short history of sharecropping as well as a study of the emergence of the Farmers’ Alliance in 1879, the Seattle General Strike of 1919, and the advent of the sustainable food movement. Metcalf uses these historical markers to illustrate some of the key components of alternative institutions: they should solve the immediate problems people face in their daily lives; they should provide a direct route for political organizing; and they should network with one another, creating a larger pool of similarly minded members. Although alternative institutions can’t fix everything, Metcalf believes they can help transform society, and many readers may agree.
The author is not much of a prose stylist, but he gives enough historical evidence to back the theory that political and social change are in the hands of activists willing to make a stand against conventional practices.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-137-27967-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.
Based on eight years of reporting and thousands of hours of interaction, a journalist chronicles the inner worlds of three women’s erotic desires.
In her dramatic debut about “what longing in America looks like,” Taddeo, who has contributed to Esquire, Elle, and other publications, follows the sex lives of three American women. On the surface, each woman’s story could be a soap opera. There’s Maggie, a teenager engaged in a secret relationship with her high school teacher; Lina, a housewife consumed by a torrid affair with an old flame; and Sloane, a wealthy restaurateur encouraged by her husband to sleep with other people while he watches. Instead of sensationalizing, the author illuminates Maggie’s, Lina’s, and Sloane’s erotic experiences in the context of their human complexities and personal histories, revealing deeper wounds and emotional yearnings. Lina’s infidelity was driven by a decade of her husband’s romantic and sexual refusal despite marriage counseling and Lina's pleading. Sloane’s Fifty Shades of Grey–like lifestyle seems far less exotic when readers learn that she has felt pressured to perform for her husband's pleasure. Taddeo’s coverage is at its most nuanced when she chronicles Maggie’s decision to go to the authorities a few years after her traumatic tryst. Recounting the subsequent trial against Maggie’s abuser, the author honors the triumph of Maggie’s courageous vulnerability as well as the devastating ramifications of her community’s disbelief. Unfortunately, this book on “female desire” conspicuously omits any meaningful discussion of social identities beyond gender and class; only in the epilogue does Taddeo mention race and its impacts on women's experiences with sex and longing. Such oversight brings a palpable white gaze to the narrative. Compounded by the author’s occasionally lackluster prose, the book’s flaws compete with its meaningful contribution to #MeToo–era reporting.
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4229-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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