Six-shooter justice in a Golden Gate setting. Attorney Boessenecker (Badge and Buckshot: Lawlessness in Old California, 1988) complains that California lawmen are largely unknown outside California because moviemakers located the Wild West in places like Wyoming and Texas. There's no doubt that Harry Morse's exploits could fuel a screenplay or two; as a lawman in Alameda County, just across the bay from San Francisco, Morse had his share of facedowns, shoot-'em-ups, and dry- gulchings. Boessenecker chronicles Morse's life and times, drawing heavily on the lawman's carefully self-serving, sometimes published accounts, which are invariably more interestingly written than his biographer's. Fans of law-enforcement history will enjoy reading about Morse's single-handedly busting up rings of savage desperadoes and ill-tempered banditos, who seemed to be legion in Alameda; some of the details of mass murders and gang killings could be taken from today's headlines. Boessenecker does a good job of separating invention from reality, and he's combed the archives to provide details about the usually forgotten bad guys. He's also careful to maintain that Morse was less racist than the run of Anglo California cops of the time; although Morse usually referred to the Hispanic citizens of Alameda as ``greasers,'' Boessenecker notes that Morse's intervention helped acquit a Mexican-American falsely accused of murder, and that he employed many Mexican-Americans as deputies. That some-of-my-best-friends defense aside, Boessenecker is content to regale his readers with tales of murder and mayhem, the best among them his account of Black Bart, the gentleman-poet stagecoach robber whose intriguing life would make just the movie the author calls for. A modestly interesting addition to the library of Old West lawmen. (55 b&w photos, 3 drawings, 2 maps, not seen)
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8061-3011-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Univ. of Oklahoma
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
The acclaimed author of My Own Country (1996) turns his gaze inward to a pair of crises that hit even closer to home than the AIDS epidemic of which he wrote previously. Verghese took a teaching position at Texas Tech’s medical school, and it’s his arrival in the unfamiliar city of El Paso that triggers the events of his second book (parts of which appeared in the New Yorker). His marriage, already on the rocks in My Own Country, has collapsed utterly and the couple agree to a separation. In a new job in a new city, he finds himself more alone than he has ever been. But he becomes acquainted with a charming fourth-year student on his rotation, David, a former professional tennis player from Australia. Verghese, an ardent amateur himself, begins to play regularly with David and the two become close friends, indeed deeply dependent on each other. Gradually, the younger man begins to confide in his teacher and friend. David has a secret, known to most of the other students and staff at the teaching hospital but not to the recently arrived Verghese; he is a recovering drug addict whose presence at Tech is only possible if he maintains a rigorous schedule of AA meetings and urine tests. When David relapses and his life begins to spiral out of control, Verghese finds himself drawn into the young man’s troubles. As in his previous book, Verghese distinguishes himself by virtue not only of tremendous writing skill—he has a talented diagnostician’s observant eye and a gift for description—but also by his great humanity and humility. Verghese manages to recount the story of the failure of his marriage without recriminations and with a remarkable evenhandedness. Likewise, he tells David’s story honestly and movingly. Although it runs down a little in the last 50 pages or so, this is a compulsively readable and painful book, a work of compassion and intelligence.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-017405-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
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