Not everyone will agree with Harrison’s political take, but his entertaining re-creation of the campaign makes for an...
The 2016 presidential election campaign was a firestorm of partisan vitriol and crazed Trumpery, according to this energetic, opinionated recap.
Journalist Harrison (NOW They Make It Legal: Reflections of an Aging Baby Boomer, 2015) delivers a week-by-week, tweet-by-tweet narrative of the campaign from the first ominous rumblings in the summer of 2015 through Election Day 2016 and its denouement of competing fraud and conspiracy allegations. His main theme is the anatomy of a body politic, split by innumerable fissures: between Republican candidates; between Trump and Fox News broadcaster Megyn Kelly; between the Republican establishment and the Trump-ian base; and between Hillary Clinton’s Democratic establishment and the Bernie Sanders insurgency. He also looks at the conflicts between minorities and resentful white people; between cops and protesters; between Trump and women, Trump and the press, Trump and the Pope, Trump and Trump; and ultimately between the Republicans and Democrats, the only division that really counts in the author’s telling. His account is lucid, well-paced and evocative. For example, Trump, in a debate, is described as being “like an angry bear with a permanent scowl on a pronounced pouty face.” Harrison’s focus is on campaign ephemera—name-calling, publicity stunts, ill-advised statements, and grudging retractions—and he covers them all adroitly, from Mexican-bashing to the climactic revelation of an Access Hollywood recording. But he also fills in background news developments, such as intermittent terrorist attacks, and does cogent deep-dives into central issues, such as immigration and gun control, to try to separate fact from rhetoric. An avowed liberal Democrat, Harrison wears his own politics on his sleeve, soap-boxing for a single-payer national health system and against religion—which he calls “the biggest fraud ever perpetrated by mankind”—and he makes no secret of his chagrin at Trump’s success. (He dings Clinton for missteps, as well, but generally is softer on her.) Still, he manages to get the facts straight while charting a clear path through the chaos.
Not everyone will agree with Harrison’s political take, but his entertaining re-creation of the campaign makes for an absorbing read.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4575-5403-2
Page Count: 410
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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