A deeply reported look at how the president who promised to “drain the swamp” has been operating from the sewer.
A report on the hush-money scandals that have threatened the presidency of Donald Trump.
Palazzolo and Rothfeld led a Wall Street Journal team that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series of stories on Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s shady payments to Stormy Daniels. The reporters tied these efforts directly to Trump and also connected that effort to an earlier deal with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate of the Year with whom Trump had relations, and an agreement with the publisher of the National Enquirer to silence her. “The Journal had little interest,” write the authors, “in a story about Trump having had consensual affairs”—his philandering was well-known—“…but hush money was indisputably newsworthy.” The authors clearly demonstrate how the stories the reporters broke had larger ramifications and continue to reverberate, as they connect through Cohen to dealings with Russia investigated as part of the Mueller Report and show that the president’s tendencies to lie and bluff and distance himself from his enablers long predate his entry into politics. This sordid tale extends from the early influence of Roy Cohn through the more recent efforts of Rudy Giuliani as Trump’s “fixer.” Yet the heart of the book is the relationship and subsequent estrangement between Trump and Cohen, who was loyal to a fault and felt his loyalty had been betrayed. The authors detail how Cohen claimed he had never requested a pardon from Trump, though he had, repeatedly; and how Cohen’s numerous gambits to enrich himself hurt his attempts to cut his prison time. Nearly everyone in this book is some sort of double dealer or worse; the narrative doesn’t pit good guys against bad guys but rather bad guys battling worse guys.
A deeply reported look at how the president who promised to “drain the swamp” has been operating from the sewer.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13239-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An amiably ungrandiose, entertaining memoir of TV's Batman by the Caped Crusader himself. Aided by thriller writer Rovin (co-author of The Red Arrow, 1990), West devotes the first quarter of the book to his youth in Walla Walla, Wash., his eclectic early acting career in the thespian un-center of Honolulu, and his move into Hollywood westerns, at which time he jettisoned his birth name of Billy West Anderson. Selected in 1965 to play Batman, the actor prepared by reading novels whose heroes had dual identities, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel, and by scouring 1940s ``Batman'' comic books, trying to make his character ``as plausible as a superhero can be.'' West recalls how producers saved money by using sound-effects cards—``POW''—in place of transition shots, how he improvised the ``Batusi'' into a dance craze, and how difficult it was to shed his tight-fitting outfit on the way to the ``Batroom.'' He repeats his defense of the show as hard-working farce to critics who disparaged it as camp and his response to watchdog groups who suggested the crime-fighting team was gay (``Aunt Harriet wouldn't allow it''). He also offers thumbnail sketches of the actors who played show's villains, including the tormentingly sexy Julie Newmar as Catwoman, the distinguished Cesar Romero as the Joker, and the good-natured Liberace, miscast as an evil twin. After the show went off the air in 1968, West retreated into smaller roles and ``Batman'' nostalgia. While the actor hints that his Bat-fame gained him a good deal of recreational sex, he modestly leaves out the salacious details. Of the 1989 film version starring Michael Keaton, he observes that it showed ``an emotionally scarred Batman'' and regrets he wasn't offered the role. It won't make anyone cry ``Holy Publishing Event,'' but there's good fun for Batfans.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-425-14370-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
A ramshackle biography of the legendary jazz innovator. Gourse (Madame Jazz, 1995, etc.) has researched Monk's life thoroughly, interviewing his surviving family members and musical cohorts, as well as combing the archives for contemporary profiles and reviews of his work. Sadly, however, there's insufficient narrative thread here to stitch together Gourse's assemblage of quotes. Monk grew up in New York City; by 1934, when he was 16, he had dropped out of school to devote his full attention to the piano. After touring the country with a gospel group, he returned to New York and began experimenting with his uniquely personal tonal and rhythmic language, often identified as the essential ammunition of the bebop revolution. While Monk profoundly influenced Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, it wasn't until the late '50s that his seminal gigs at Manhattan's Five Spot garnered him full public recognition as a musician and composer. He was equally famous for his eccentricities: Generally late for his performances, he often left the piano and danced around the stage, letting the ever-changing members of his quartet supply the music. In private, Monk was notoriously taciturn, and occasionally he would experience episodes of complete withdrawal that required his hospitalization. Gourse entertains the idle speculations of many nonexpert acquaintances about the causes of his behavior, but the conclusion she seems to support—possible extensive use of unspecified drugs, complicated by genius—is vague. And about Monk's music the author offers silly tautologies like, ``In the aggregate, his songs comprised an oeuvre, each a commentary on his unique universe of sound.'' The book's obvious title, already used for a Monk documentary, is a perfect tipoff that Gourse has little to say about her subject that is imaginative or useful. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-02-864656-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
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