A poignant and highly informative account of life in a North Carolina valley.
A nonfiction book explores the history of a small Appalachian community.
Inspired by the writings of her uncle, Monroe Thomas, and her father, Walter Thomas, and various family stories, Croom has produced a meticulous compendium of life in the Toe River Valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina during the first half of the 20th century. A.H. Thomas and Maggie Silver Thomas, the author’s grandparents, married in 1895 and moved into a one-room cabin in Lunday, North Carolina, near the Thomas homestead. Over the next 20 years, Maggie gave birth to seven children—six boys and one girl. Gradually, the family acquired a small acreage and built its own house, maintaining a critical-to-survival subsistence farm. The hardscrabble life in this isolated, rugged country set the stage for a lifestyle of never-ending work and rigid frugality that would define the siblings’ upbringings. When the railroad arrived in the valley in 1900, it sparked upheaval and transformation, ending the area’s isolation, bringing paying—and often dangerous—jobs, the pollution of the mining industry, and a general store, which changed the standard of commerce, gradually ending the barter system. The account of this step-by-step, cataclysmic move away from a land-based, self-sufficient economy is told through three voices—Monroe’s, Walter’s, and the author’s. Croom shares her memories of visiting “Down Home” (the family term of endearment for the Thomas homestead) and her commentary from the perspective of the current era. The brothers’ lengthy vignettes and descriptions of both the major and mundane aspects of mountain life paint a vivid, moving portrait of each of the Thomas siblings. Although these are specific family tales, they serve as a guide for understanding the community during this period of transition. Casual readers may occasionally find themselves skipping over the exhaustive enumerations of every activity and chore. And with three speakers telling the story, there is frequent repetition. But history buffs should relish the plethora of information here, all presented articulately and with a touch of the local vernacular.
A poignant and highly informative account of life in a North Carolina valley.Pub Date: June 1, 2022
ISBN: 9780997526936
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dykeman Legacy Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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