Well-researched but overstuffed.
In Feiss’ (The Formula, 2011, etc.) new novel, a cadet at the prestigious U.S. Air Force Academy dies under mysterious circumstances.
The Air Force Academy is an institution that takes the best of the best, then beats them down and builds them up until they’re something even better. But not everyone can make it through this grueling test of mental and physical strength. When Nick Argento’s battered body turns up one morning in the snow a few stories below his dormitory window, everyone agrees that he wouldn’t have committed suicide and no one would have murdered him. So how did Argento die? Uncovering that mystery is the job assigned to Zach Fields and Mindy Reynolds, veterans of the nearby El Paso Sheriff’s Department. The academy’s commitment to an ironclad code of honor makes it nearly impossible to get straight answers about Argento from anyone, which is further complicated by the fact that the cadet’s father is an ambitious tea party senator. Thanks to the unpublished memoirs of a cadet from the 1960s, Zach discovers that the honor code has been a source of great controversy for decades, and he’ll have to break through the ranks of cadets and officers to find someone truly honorable, who can finally tell him what happened to Argento. The novel offers a great behind-the-scenes view of the academy, its rituals and training regimen. Unfortunately, a lot of time is spent on less interesting minutiae, such as the workout habits of secondary characters or back stories for ancillary characters like Brig. Gen. Leo Barrows, who doesn’t seem to deserve so much attention. Weaving in the memoirs of a 1960s cadet proves to be an intriguing narrative choice, but its voice and perspective are barely differentiated from the rest of the text, making each section feel less authentic. Though the dialogue can be wooden—characters insist on frequently referring to each other by name midconversation—the chapters in which Zach and Mindy actively engage in trying to solve the mystery of Argento’s death are especially enjoyable. Occasionally, however, a few too many plotlines—multiple romantic interests and a secondary shooting outside the academy, to name just two—slow down the action.
Well-researched but overstuffed.Pub Date: May 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481968355
Page Count: 326
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fun if overly flamboyant appreciation of a TV giant.
A biography of American late-night television’s biggest star.
Zehme, author of biographies of Frank Sinatra and Hugh Hefner, had a lifelong love of Tonight Show host Johnny Carson. In 1973, at age 15, Zehme was “already a full-blown Carson fanboy.” As a reporter for Rolling Stone, he tried unsuccessfully to secure an interview to coincide with Carson’s 1992 retirement after a 30-year run. In 2002, Zehme, now with Esquire, “gets extended face time” with the star for a piece to mark 10 years since Carson’s departure. Shortly after Carson’s death in 2005, Zehme began work on a biography. The task was overwhelming—“there was always more to be gleaned”—even before Zehme’s 2013 diagnosis of stage 4 colorectal cancer. He died in 2023, having finished only the first three-quarters of this biography. Thomas, a longtime Chicago arts reporter, has completed the book in time for Carson’s 2025 centenary. The result is an admiring work that nonetheless acknowledges the lows as well as the highs of Carson’s life—he had three divorces—and career, from his ill-fated 1955 variety program The Johnny Carson Show, to his 1957-62 stint as host of the ABC game show Who Do You Trust?, to his taking over The Tonight Show from Jack Paar in 1962. It’s easy to tell where Zehme left off and Thomas took over. The tone changes dramatically, from Zehme’s florid style to Thomas’s drier approach. Those florid passages, which make up most of the book, are baroque in the extreme, with lines like, “And so, like sun and moon and oxygen and ionosphere, Johnny Carson was always there, reliable and steadfast.” Despite the purple prose, the result is an entertaining look at not only a unique figure in 20th-century popular culture but also a bygone era in American television.
A fun if overly flamboyant appreciation of a TV giant.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781451645279
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
An unflinching self-portrait.
The tumultuous life of a bisexual, autistic comic.
In her debut memoir, Scottish comedian Brady recounts the emotional turmoil of living with undiagnosed autism. “The public perception of autistics is so heavily based on the stereotype of men who love trains or science,” she writes, “that many women miss out on diagnosis and are thought of as studious instead.” She was nothing if not studious, obsessively focused on foreign languages, but she found it difficult to converse in her own language. From novels, she tried to gain “knowledge about people, about how they spoke to each other, learning turns of phrase and metaphor” that others found so familiar. Often frustrated and overwhelmed by sensory overload, she erupted in violent meltdowns. Her parents, dealing with behavior they didn’t understand—including self-cutting—sent her to “a high-security mental hospital” as a day patient. Even there, a diagnosis eluded her; she was not accurately diagnosed until she was 34. Although intimate friendships were difficult, she depicts her uninhibited sexuality and sometimes raucous affairs with both men and women. “I grew up confident about my queerness,” she writes, partly because of “autism’s lack of regard for social norms.” While at the University of Edinburgh, she supported herself as a stripper. “I liked that in a strip club men’s contempt of you was out in the open,” she admits. “In the outside world, misogyny was always hovering in your peripheral vision.” When she worked as a reporter for the university newspaper, she was assigned to try a stint as a stand-up comic and write about it; she found it was work she loved. After “about a thousand gigs in grim little pubs across England,” she landed an agent and embarked on a successful career. Although Brady hopes her memoir will “make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl,” her anger is as evident as her compassion.
An unflinching self-portrait.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593582503
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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