by Kathryn Kolbert & Julie F. Kay ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 13, 2021
A knowledgeable, essential reframing of an incendiary issue based on common sense, historical fact, and simple decency.
Two legal titans who have been defending abortion rights for decades catch us up on the current disaster and plot the road ahead.
In 1992, Kolbert argued Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the case credited with saving Roe v. Wade, and Kay was instrumental in the legalization of abortion in Ireland. As they note at the beginning, they were motivated to write this book “because we both knew the Supreme Court was not the place to go to protect, never mind expand, abortion rights. We were tired of our movement repeatedly banging its head against the Court's marble walls and sought to strategize an affirmative path forward." Then, as they were writing, the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett made the conservative majority absolute and the demise of Roe more likely. Yet as the authors point out, abortion is a common medical procedure for women: Nearly 1 in 4 has an abortion by age 45. As such, "the abortion debate is an embodiment of the conflict between traditional and more modern concepts of gender roles." By placing abortion in a human rights context—thus connecting it to racial inequality, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny in general—Kolbert and Kay "offer an opportunity to dream bigger and differently and to bring in new allies." They share the firsthand stories of their landmark cases as well as heartbreaking dramas from the front lines. These include the bribing of the original Jane Roe by conservatives to flip her position on abortion; kidnapping charges against a woman who tried to help a pregnant 13-year-old; the senseless death of a young mother who was refused a medically necessary abortion; and the incarceration of a woman who ordered abortion medication for her daughter. In the closing chapters, the authors speak directly to current and potential activists, sharing the "big dreams" mentioned earlier—e.g., the EACH Woman Act (Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance)—and many other practical ideas.
A knowledgeable, essential reframing of an incendiary issue based on common sense, historical fact, and simple decency.Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-306-92562-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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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 Yorker staff 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
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by Tom Clavin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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