A gripping chronicle by a daring pilot with an indomitable spirit.
A memoir from an Air National Guard pilot who was shot down on a search-and-rescue mission during her third tour of duty in Afghanistan.
During her service, Hegar not only faced enemy fire, but also the hostility of some of her fellow officers, some of whom had difficulty accepting women in the military. Awarded a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in combat, the author’s active career in the military ended in 2009 as a result of injuries she suffered during the crash. Her courageous exploits also earned her the respect of her fellow officers. When she was no longer able to function as a rescue pilot, she applied to deploy with ground forces as a special tactics officer. Despite her unquestioned qualifications for the job, she was turned down because of a law that excluded women from ground combat, ending her career in the service. A civilian once again, Hegar returned to her home in Austin, Texas, married, and took on a job as a consultant on health issues, but her fighting days were not over. In 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union contacted her, and she enthusiastically accepted an invitation to become a plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against gender discrimination in the military. “The Ground Combat Exclusion Policy was a civilian-issued order in the first place,” put into effect to pacify opponents of the Air Force’s decision to lift the ban on “females in combat cockpits.” In response to the lawsuit, which was supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the policy of banning women from ground combat was reversed by the Defense Department in 2013. “The incontrovertible fact was that this current policy banning women from being in combat was not good for the military,” writes Hegar. “The commanders in the field fighting the actual wars had their hands tied by this policy.”
A gripping chronicle by a daring pilot with an indomitable spirit.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-98843-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dutton Caliber
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Caro’s skill as a biographer, master of compelling prose, appealing self-deprecation, and overall generous spirit shine...
At age 83, the iconic biographer takes time away from his work on the fifth volume of his acclaimed Lyndon Johnson biography to offer wisdom about researching and writing.
In sparkling prose, Caro (The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power, 2012, etc.)—who has won two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and three National Book Critics Circle Awards, among countless other honors—recounts his path from growing up sheltered in New York City to studying at Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia to unexpectedly becoming a newspaper reporter and deciding to devote his life to writing books. Thinking about his first book topic, he landed on developer Robert Moses, “the most powerful figure in New York City and New York State for more than forty years—more powerful than any mayor or any governor, or any mayor and governor combined.” After Caro received a book contract with a small advance from a publisher, he, his wife (and research assistant), Ina, and their son struggled to make ends meet as the project consumed about a decade, much longer than the author had anticipated. The book was more than 1,300 pages, and its surprising success gave Caro some financial stability. The author explains that he focused on Johnson next as an exemplar of how to wield political power on a national scale. Throughout the book, the author shares fascinating insights into his research process in archives; his information-gathering in the field, such as the Texas Hill Country; his interviewing techniques; his practice of writing the first draft longhand with pens and pencils; and his ability to think deeply about his material. Caro also offers numerous memorable anecdotes—e.g., how he verified rumors that Johnson became a senator in 1948 via illegal ballot counting in one rural county.
Caro’s skill as a biographer, master of compelling prose, appealing self-deprecation, and overall generous spirit shine through on every page.Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-65634-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlanticsenior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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