As the author writes in a passage that easily describes his book, “the news here is never boring. Tragic and disturbing?...
Every state has its peculiarities, but Florida has an abundance like no other.
On the surface, the Sunshine State evokes images of Disney World, retirement communities, and palm-studded beaches. But as St. Pete Beach resident Wright (Sociology/Univ. of Central Florida) notes in his first book, “in Florida, nothing is ever quite as it seems. Every story has a back story, every point a counterpoint, every ugliness a contrary scene of sublime beauty. Whenever Florida purports to be one thing, it turns out to be another.” Divided into four parts—history, economy, people/politics, and environment—the book amply demonstrates that the last place to find the truth is in the brochures and mass media. Consider Florida’s prominent retirement community, the Villages. Overwhelmingly white and conservative, the area is billed as a sedate pocket to retire and play golf, but the author dispels the myths, fleshing out an entirely different picture: a wild underside featuring “rampant sexual conquest,” a thriving black market in Viagra, golf cart DUIs, and senior bar brawls. “A local gynecologist said that she treated more cases of herpes and HPV in The Villages than she ever did during her stint in Miami,” writes the author. In a state highlighted by its prized orange orchards, good luck finding a Florida-grown orange at the stores, which sell only California imports. Why? Because Florida’s oranges are harvested strictly for its lucrative orange juice industry. And if you think that jug of OJ is fresh-squeezed as advertised, think again; as part of its manufacture, the juice sits in massive tanks for up to a year before bottling. Studded with “factoids, oddments, stories, and back stories,” Wright’s book chronicles his travels throughout this odd state uncovering everything from the truth behind the infamous “hanging chads” of the 2000 election to wild pig attacks and notorious con men.
As the author writes in a passage that easily describes his book, “the news here is never boring. Tragic and disturbing? Often. Zany and funny? Regularly. Just plain weird? Most of the time. But boring? Never.”Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-18565-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2019
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
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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