A gripping glimpse into 20th-century Hollywood.
In this memoir, a Hollywood writer, director, and producer reminisces about his career and pays tribute to his legendary father.
Few are as closely associated with Hollywood’s golden age as George Stevens, the Academy Award–winning director and producer of iconic films like A Place in the Sun, Shane, and Giant. In this work, George Stevens Jr. both celebrates the life of his acclaimed father and recalls his own distinguished career. The book begins with his father’s upbringing in California as the son of silent film star Landers Stevens, and it delights readers with behind-the-scenes anecdotes about Hollywood stars from the 1940s through 2000s. The volume recounts, for instance, how James Stewart rejected a leading part in a film about racial violence in Georgia because the role supposedly did not “align with Jimmy’s conservative views.” The author also devotes significant space to interactions with politicians, in particular his close relationship with American presidents that spanned his early involvement with the Lyndon B. Johnson administration in creating the National Endowment for the Arts through his tenure as co-chair of Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. As founder of the American Film Institute (which received initial financial support from Johnson) and co-founder of the Kennedy Center Honors, the author provides a rare glimpse into the intersection of Hollywood and Washington, D.C., and their occasionally conflicting agendas. The author recalls, for instance, John F. Kennedy supposedly relaying an obscenity-laden remark to Jack Warner of Warner Brothers after shutting down a screening of the movie Marines, Let’s Go in disgust. The book also relates a subsequent tense conversation between Kennedy confidant Pierre Salinger and Warner about the would-be director of the film PT 109. And while at times self-indulgent, the volume is written by a born storyteller who is at his best when regaling readers with intimate stories from his heyday as a central figure in Hollywood and representative of the film industry in Washington. In addition to ample name-dropping, the work includes myriad historical photographs, newspaper clippings, handwritten letters from celebrities and presidents, and other visual aids, making for an engaging read that will intrigue any fan of classic cinema.
A gripping glimpse into 20th-century Hollywood.Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8131-9524-7
Page Count: 536
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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