An often engaging and atypical historical biography.
A family history that doubles as an immigration primer.
This biography of Knapp’s grandmother highlights her participation in the illegal liquor trade during the Prohibition era. The author, a community activist, tells the story of a Russian Jewish immigrant family in Boston who later moved out to the country in Wilmington, Massachusetts. The book’s main focus, however, is on the resourcefulness and resilience of the widowed Rebecca Goldberg amid many hardships and obstacles. It highlights her foray into the 1920s liquor market, emphasizing that she only did it for her family’s survival and that her participation lasted only until it became too risky; along the way, she was tried in court for selling liquor to a detective and found not guilty. The work includes family photos, illustrations, as well as reprints of relevant newspaper clippings. Overall, Knapp, the author of A Steadfast Spirit (2017), presents a solid personal history over the course of the text. However, as a microhistory of the Jewish immigration experience in the early 20th century, it’s somewhat limited, although the opening chapter about the journey from pre-revolutionary Russia works well. Other historical information seems extraneous, however, such as an overly lengthy discussion of what Goldberg may have used for the purposes of birth control. Also, the book’s title feels a bit misleading, as this is not a work about the glamorous and risqué speak-easies that most people associate with Prohibition. Despite this, the book remains an important and informative story about Eastern European Jewish immigrants of the era.
An often engaging and atypical historical biography.Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64742-061-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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