Familiar pandemic terrain revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.
In this memoir, a New Yorker offers reflections on the year of Covid-19, complete with a look at former President Donald Trump and his administration.
From Covid-19’s first appearance on the West Coast in the beginning of 2020 to the insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Pedersen tracks the local, national, and global progression and consequences of the virus that would change everything during a year of stress, craziness, and an ever increasing death toll. It is hard to imagine anyone being able to make readers laugh—or at least chuckle—with such a narrative. But the author, who has written five plays and 18 books, composes paragraphs rich in sarcasm and irony. Although she is an unabashed progressive, even her beloved New Yorkers and their leaders do not always escape her sharp commentary. It is not long before Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio become “Guv Dad” and “Mayor Mom,” trying to get their millions of kids to behave and stay safe: “Mayor Mom wanted to talk things out and employ more ‘social distancing ambassadors’ for a socially distanced group hug. Guv Dad was having none of it.” “Daft Uncle Donald” was always ready to exacerbate the parental discord with some new revelation: “We’d have very few cases if testing stopped.” Acerbic wit notwithstanding, Pedersen’s edgy memoir is an exhaustive, chronologically organized, and annotated compendium of the multitude of crises that roiled the country—the pandemic, the scarcity of Covid-19 tests, the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, historic hurricanes, an explosion of wildfires, and the dangerous miracle cures that were instantly debunked. Remember Trump pondering injecting disinfectants into the human body? The book is both political and personal—a newsreel of 2020 that viscerally and angrily captures the tragedy, confusion, and communal anxiety of the year from an author who lived in one of the country’s first virus epicenters. At one point, Pedersen describes early June as New York City entered Phase 1 of the reopening: “Finally, we all had toilet paper, but the FDA announced a shortage of the antidepressant Zoloft and its generic equivalents.”
Familiar pandemic terrain revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.Pub Date: March 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-673620-3
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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 Yorkerstaff 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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An old-school Hollywood tell-all with all the trimmings, traumas, and bold-face names.
A great American character claims her double legacy of genius and addiction.
Calling herself “the original nepo-baby,” the daughter of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli offers a raw and revealing look at a life shaped by fame and personal struggle. At the heart of Minnelli’s story is her fraught relationship with her volatile mother. While stressing that “our love was what mattered,” life with Judy was no picnic. The night before her fifth birthday, she accidentally kicked her mother in the head while watching TV, permanently scarred by lesson that “if Mama got angry, she was the most terrifying person in my life.” Garland’s addictions made her unstable and unreliable, forcing her daughter to take on adult responsibilities at a very young age. A veteran performer by the time she was in double digits, she won the first star in her EGOT crown (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards) at age 19 for her role in the musical Flora the Red Menace. This was also her first work with John Kander and Fred Ebb, musical collaborators in her most iconic successes: Cabaret, Liza With a “Z,” and New York, New York. Minnelli describes taking her first Valium in 1969 at the time of her mother’s death from an overdose, unwittingly assuming the mantle of addictions that would mar her public and private life for decades. In and out of the Betty Ford Center, she finally achieved sobriety in 2015, on the eve of her 70th birthday. As the title suggests, she has great stories, and, with the help of her dear friend Feinstein and co-writers Getlin and Evans, she leaves out none of the juice. From her torrid, cocaine-fueled romance with Martin Scorsese (both were married at the time, and she cheated on both husband and lover with Mikhail Baryshnikov) to her falling-out with Lady Gaga at the Oscars in 2022, she spares neither herself nor anyone else and, in the process, reclaims her once very tattered dignity in a moving and remarkable way.
An old-school Hollywood tell-all with all the trimmings, traumas, and bold-face names.Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781538773666
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
