A debut memoir about a soldier’s stint in the U.S. Air Force from 1965 to ’69.
Randers, a Vietnam veteran from Minnesota, takes a melancholic tack while recounting the time he spent stateside at the end of the tumultuous ’60s—a tone that recalls Tim O’Brien’s work in the 1990 short story collection The Things They Carried. Randers never encountered the carnage of combat (“I was lucky, no more can be said”), but death still seemed just around the corner throughout his enlistment. The pages are filled with adventures that emerged from this existential pressure, generally calling to mind accounts by his mentioned literary forebears—John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, and, especially, Jack Kerouac. However, Randers’ prose, with some exceptions, has fewer distinguishing lyrical or rhythmic features than those authors’; when it drags, it feels as if one is reading a hastily composed diary. Its plain style is sometimes clear and fresh, though, with occasional moments of crystalline retrospection: “We were trapped in a changing world between our civilian belief and our military commitment, and that nasty little war in Southeast Asia.” Overall, the book offers an account of military work and life but also focuses on a group of young people and the art they consumed, the drugs they took, the love they made, the cars they owned, the travel they managed, the music they heard, the books they read, the theater they witnessed, and the food they ate—as in a delightfully sensual description of a meal hunted, cooked, and enjoyed in the rugged Alaskan backcountry: “…and voilá! Fresh duck and vegetables perfectly done. It was scrumptious, especially in that pristine wilderness, and how entrancing that aroma was, freshly cooked duck co-mingled with the sweet smell of the tundra by the rushing, clear, cold waters of the Yukon River.” Included at the conclusion of each section is a “Songs of the times” list followed by an epigraph postscript—an intriguing structural quirk.
An often valuable primary account of the Vietnam War from a self-described “attitude-challenged” author.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68201-099-0
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Polaris Publications
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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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. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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