A thoughtful exploration of religious conviction that’s often marred by political stridency.
The evolution of a veep’s views.
Ten years ago, a little-known venture capitalist wrote a book about, in his words, “the upbringing of a redneck who worked in Silicon Valley.” The memoir had a modest initial print run of 10,000 copies. Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller, and its author, for those who haven’t kept up with the news, is now the second-highest ranking official in the U.S. government. A sequel of sorts, Vance’s new book revisits old terrain and journeys to the present day. For a political memoir, it’s an uncommonly introspective work, well-paced and infused with touches of humor—much of it at the author’s expense. As a fearful new father, he enumerates a host of “worst-case scenarios” during a car ride—his wife, Usha, “nodded knowingly….I’m sure she thought, What a psycho I married.” Most of the book delves into his religious beliefs. Once an atheist, the Marine veteran makes a convincing case that he devoted a lot of thought to his conversion to Catholicism. As an example, he cites the influence of the French philosopher René Girard (who had taught Peter Thiel, Vance’s political patron, at Stanford). Less appealing is some of what Vance says about politics. He admits to a “boneheaded” error in infamously stating that “childless cat ladies” in the Democratic Party “were running our country into the ground,” but he sees a moral failing in societies that “suppress the biological urge to fall in love and have babies”—all while condemning “mass migration.” Elsewhere, he makes generalizations about “conformism” and “groupthink” and argues, fatuously, that “we replaced real diversity of thought with superficial diversity.” And, for a man who espouses Christian values, the presumptive 2028 presidential candidate says nothing—not surprisingly—about how his boss, whom he has defended for years, professes a love of the Bible yet routinely sows hatred. As the author writes in a line that could unwittingly address his own situation: “Politics is a dirty business sometimes, one where you have to make compromises.”
A thoughtful exploration of religious conviction that’s often marred by political stridency.Pub Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN: 9780063575011
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An essential account of a chaotic administration that, Woodward makes painfully clear, is incapable of governing.
That thing in the air that is deadlier than even your “strenuous flus”? Trump knew—and did nothing about it.
The big news from veteran reporter Woodward’s follow-up to Fear has been widely reported: Trump was fully aware at the beginning of 2020 that a pandemic loomed and chose to downplay it, causing an untold number of deaths and crippling the economy. His excuse that he didn’t want to cause a panic doesn’t fly given that he trades in fear and division. The underlying news, however, is that Trump participated in this book, unlike in the first, convinced by Lindsey Graham that Woodward would give him a fair shake. Seventeen interviews with the sitting president inform this book, as well as extensive digging that yields not so much news as confirmation: Trump has survived his ineptitude because the majority of Congressional Republicans go along with the madness because they “had made a political survival decision” to do so—and surrendered their party to him. The narrative often requires reading between the lines. Graham, though a byword for toadyism, often reins Trump in; Jared Kushner emerges as the real power in the West Wing, “highly competent but often shockingly misguided in his assessments”; Trump admires tyrants, longs for their unbridled power, resents the law and those who enforce it, and is quick to betray even his closest advisers; and, of course, Trump is beholden to Putin. Trump occasionally emerges as modestly self-aware, but throughout the narrative, he is in a rage. Though he participated, he said that he suspected this to be “a lousy book.” It’s not—though readers may wish Woodward had aired some of this information earlier, when more could have been done to stem the pandemic. When promoting Fear, the author was asked for his assessment of Trump. His reply: “Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis.” Multiple crises later, Woodward concludes, as many observers have, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”
An essential account of a chaotic administration that, Woodward makes painfully clear, is incapable of governing.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982131-73-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
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