An unusually intriguing and poignant memoir.
Neville reflects on her life and mental illness in this memoir.
“Electric Shock Treatments erased years of my linear memory,” writes the author in the book’s opening lines, adding that her unreliable reminiscence is a “chaotic approximation” of an incomplete, “jerry-rigged record” (the mercurial quality of the text reflects her battle with bipolar disorder). While the basic elements of a memoir are present—the narrative covers the author’s evolution from an angsty teenager to a successful writer, professor of English, and Fulbright Scholar—what stands out is Neville’s commentary on and exploration of common human experiences. The opening essay, for instance, grapples with the ephemeral nature of memory itself, blending the author’s own medically assisted efforts to remember the past with neuroscience’s scene construction theory and the broader implications of human autonoetic consciousness. The book’s most powerful sections survey the deeply personal aspects of Neville’s life, from the complicated postpartum relationship with her then-husband (who is simply referred to as “X”) to suicidal ideations to the ways in which “bipolar’s annihilating death grip” affects her self-perception (“A Facebook post on one of my smug feel-good-recovery days,” she notes, reads like “sound-bite profundity” on a down day). Neville has an eclectic, genre-defying writing style—an accomplished poet and short-story writer, she pushes the boundaries and rules of grammar (reflecting on the nature of memory, she writes, “The self becomes erratic and unstable: no I, just iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…”). The memoir eschews chronological organization—the narrative can traverse dozens of topics in just a handful of pages. A trip to Flannery O’Connor’s home, for instance, triggers recollections of the author’s Catholic upbringing, her experiences with exorcisms, and her self-diagnosis of subclinical graphomania in the course of four pages. While sometimes disorienting, this approach (which also interrupts the text with the occasional poem or reproduction of a journal entry) effectively allows readers into Neville’s brilliant, if often tortured, mind.
An unusually intriguing and poignant memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781963695410
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Madville Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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