A worthwhile addition to Holocaust literature focused on young artists navigating occupied Paris.
A novelistic nonfiction account of romance amid the terror of the Holocaust.
In this intimate story of love and loss, Dune Macadam, author of 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Transport to Auschwitz, and Worrall, author of The Poet and the Murderer, tell the tale of 19-year-old Annette Zelman, who arrived with her family in Paris as refugees from the provinces shortly after the Germans invaded in 1940. Set to begin school at the Beaux-Arts, “the most famous art school in all of France,” in January 1941, she anticipated a glorious artistic career within the booming surrealist and Dadaist movements. She befriended a circle of young activist artists and poets—Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and other members of “the in-crowd”—who frequented the Café de Flore. Zelman fell in love with the poet and explorer Jean Jausion, known for his work with Les Réverbères, an artistic group that “produced both Surrealist and Dada theater—events a bit like the Happenings of the 1960s—as well as beautifully designed graphic magazines.” As the Nazis began to restrict Jewish movement and participation in society, the Zelman family, well-known Jewish clothiers, had to flee in secret to Limoges. Annette stayed in Paris and moved in with Jausion, making plans for their wedding without realizing the extent of the Jausion family’s antisemitism and collaboration with the Germans. Arrested for the political crime of planning to marry a gentile, she was sent to Auschwitz with many of her young artist friends. The authors re-create this poignant story from more than 80 letters and works of art that Annette’s sister inherited. Though the prose is occasionally overheated, the tale of Zelman and Jausion deserves to be preserved. An interesting postscript, “A Biographical Roundup of Some People Mentioned in the Book,” concludes the text.
A worthwhile addition to Holocaust literature focused on young artists navigating occupied Paris.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9780806541440
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Citadel/Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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