Arana has a fascinating, complex, and personal story to tell, and she narrates it with abundant verve and intelligence.
An impressively wide-ranging overview of the turbulent history of Latine people in America.
Arana, the inaugural literary director of the Library of Congress, has always been ambitious in her work, from American Chica to Bolivar to Lima Nights. In her latest book, which ably blends historical research with insightful anecdotes, she sets out to tell the story of the people who have come from the Spanish-speaking countries of Central and South America to the U.S., a project that she, as a person of half American, half Peruvian background, is well placed to undertake. The author admits that this vast history is too much for a single book, so she breaks it into a series of illustrative vignettes and interviews. “The U.S. Bureau of the Census predicts that, by 2060, Americans of Hispanic descent will total 111.2 million—almost 30 percent of the people in this country,” writes Arana. “The great majority of us are American born, speak English as well as any native, are employed, obey the law, work hard.” People from Latin America are a melting pot of nationalities, ethnicities, and skin tones, with strains of European, African, and Asian DNA. There is a dark history of racism against the Latinx population, but it seems to be weakening, with many Latine Americans moving up the economic ladder. In fact, Arana wonders whether it’s still possible to speak of Latine culture in the United States at all. She eventually gives a resounding affirmation, concluding that “the business of identity may be complicated, the political affiliation shifty, but, as contradictory as it sounds, Latino unity is surprisingly hale and strong.” Though the author may not answer all the questions she asks, this book is a significant, engaging read.
Arana has a fascinating, complex, and personal story to tell, and she narrates it with abundant verve and intelligence.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781982184896
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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