An awesomely aggrieved tract on the perceived problem of gratuitously swinish superiors, which reveals far more about its author (A Knight in Shining Armor, 1991, etc.) than about the amorphous wrongs he purports to address. Offering only anecdotal evidence drawn largely from the work of other scholars and the business press, Hornstein (Psychology/Teachers College, Columbia Univ.) reaches the seemingly obvious conclusion that bosses who mistreat subordinates are a menace both to their victims and to a socioeconomic order whose vigor depends on productivity. In a format featuring checklists like the ``Eight Daily Sins'' (including coercion, cruelty, deceit), he attempts to put errant executives in a variety of pigeonholes, e.g., blamers, dehumanizers, manipulators, and rationalizers. With but passing acknowledgment of the fact that the workplace has become a more demanding venue as corporate America faces up to global competition, the author examines the many ways in which employees may be oppressed (or imagine themselves to be). Cases in point range from public scoldings through do-better lectures dispatched via E-mail, intimidation, electronic surveillance, and sexual harassment. Reviewed as well are the possible consequences of abuse: on-the-job violence, sub-par performance, and error-inducing anxiety. Toward the close of his whiny screed, Hornstein discloses that at age 14 he worked as a delivery boy for a shopkeeper who persisted in referring to him as ``dreck'' (Yiddish for trash). Earlier, the author recalled that his mother-in-law had been persecuted, probably on religious grounds, by a large communications company during the 1930s. In this personally pained context, he closes by offering innocuous tips for dealing with insufferable superiors and encouraging community sanctions to discourage, even outlaw, barbarous behavior within organizations. An us-against-them exercise in pop anti-authoritarian sociology that, for all its lack of analytic depth and other deficiencies, could strike responsive chords among latter-day malcontents.
Pub Date: March 5, 1996
ISBN: 1-57322-020-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.
A British novelist turns to autobiography to report the manifold symptoms and management of his debilitating disease, depression.
Clever author Haig (The Humans, 2013, etc.) writes brief, episodic vignettes, not of a tranquil life but of an existence of unbearable, unsustainable melancholy. Throughout his story, presented in bits frequently less than a page long (e.g., “Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack”), the author considers phases he describes in turn as Falling, Landing, Rising, Living, and, finally, simply Being with spells of depression. Haig lists markers of his unseen disease, including adolescent angst, pain, continual dread, inability to speak, hypochondria, and insomnia. He describes his frequent panic attacks and near-constant anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Haig also assesses the efficacy of neuroscience, yoga, St. John’s wort, exercise, pharmaceuticals, silence, talking, walking, running, staying put, and working up the courage to do even the most seemingly mundane of tasks, like visiting the village store. Best for the author were reading, writing, and the frequent dispensing of kindnesses and love. He acknowledges particularly his debt to his then-girlfriend, now-wife. After nearly 15 years, Haig is doing better. He appreciates being alive and savors the miracle of existence. His writing is infectious though sometimes facile—and grammarians may be upset with the writer’s occasional confusion of the nominative and objective cases of personal pronouns. Less tidy and more eclectic than William Styron’s equally brief, iconic Darkness Visible, Haig’s book provides unobjectionable advice that will offer some help and succor to those who experience depression and other related illnesses. For families and friends of the afflicted, Haig’s book, like Styron’s, will provide understanding and support.
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312872-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Readers Donate Depression Book After Star Suicide
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