A snappy UFO memoir-tapestry from a music journalist-turned-publicist.
A nonfiction account of an unruly, largely civilian-based group of investigators, activists, and misfits who pushed for government disclosure of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences visiting Earth.
In this book’s early sections, public relations specialist Keller describes his background as a journalist covering the Minneapolis music scene (and yes, Prince does make a cameo). In the early 1990s, he decided to change lanes and try to sell a magazine article about advocates urging government officials to reveal “the Truth” about UFOs—one that had been kept hidden ever since the alleged crash of alien craft in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. The effort consumed Keller, who came to believe that he witnessed an alien presence as a boy; he was in a park with a friend and saw a red “cherry bomb”–like sphere, which he later interpreted to have been some kind of diagnostic tool. Keller immersed himself in the UFO–enthusiast underground, connecting with the charismatic Dr. Steven Greer of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence—an organization that believed humans could productively communicate with enigmatic, basically benevolent alien visitors using meditation, lights, and sound. Although Keller’s future wife feared that he might be joining a cult, the writer started working for CSETI in a public relations capacity, which brought him into the orbit of Washington, D.C., insiders, astronauts, shamans, and many other figures. Along the way, mainstream media started taking UFO–sighting claims—and secret government/military involvement in them—seriously, perhaps initially inspired by the popularity of the Fox TV show The X-Files.
In these pages, Keller clearly expresses his anger with both UFO skeptics and overboard conspiracy theorists, noting that many people in the ufology field seem to suspect everyone else of being CIA spies. He also reveals how conferencegoers endlessly promise “disclosure”—someone in the government admitting to the reality of space aliens—but never follow through with providing it. Overall, this enjoyable account free-associates through its colorful narrative in a manner that may, for some readers, call to mind the style of fellow Minnesotan Garrison Keillor (who also makes a cameo in these pages). At the same time, Keller’s narrative voice is effectively reminiscent of the style of the late Hunter S. Thompson—particularly his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), as both books center on smart, savvy individuals grappling intellectually with extraordinary, otherworldly stuff that they just can’t shrug off. Keller’s story is loosely framed by fondly expressed flashbacks of a college Space Pen Club, a jejune campus group known for Dadaist stunts and named for a popular writing gadget. He particularly details his dissatisfaction with mainstream media, especially CBS News, which he asserts is either inept or colluding in UFO coverups; however, he does give props to a 1990s Fox show called Sightings. Early on, Keller also reveals that he initially shunned another key UFO pop-culture touchstone—Whitley Strieber’s popular alien-abduction memoir, Communion (1987)—because he didn’t like the movie version.
A snappy UFO memoir-tapestry from a music journalist-turned-publicist.Pub Date: June 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950743-55-1
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Calumet Editions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
