Warner (English/Rutgers Univ.) challenges the current stodginess of queer activism—focused as it is on the gay community’s hope to be considered “normal”—through his incisive critique of the banalities and dangers of such normalcy. Criticizing the way some identities are deemed normal while others are not (Ö la Foucault), Warner delineates with lapidary skill the problems of the cultural constructions of the normal, how heterosexual lives are thus validated at the expense of the queer. Using a smoothly textured argumentative style, Warner showcases the functioning of shame within a conservative ideological framework to reward some identities and punish others. His argument stands strongest when he concentrates on how the eradication of shame from sexuality would liberate queer communities from the monolith of marriage and how the rejection of normalcy would accord the gay community a liberated space within the spheres of the sexual culture. Ironically, the trouble with The Trouble with Normal is that it directs its arguments toward the queer community rather than the straight one. Telling gay people that, for various ethical reasons, they shouldn’t even want to marry, when they already can’t, does not change the fact that laws that enfranchise some while disenfranchising others are discriminatory. Warner’s rhetoric persuasively reveals the hierarchical parameters of marriage and the constraints of normalcy, but a more universal approach to his topic would delineate the limitations of marriage for all people—not just queer people. In the end, his polemic leaves standing discriminatory treatment of queers for the sake of a theoretical attack on normalcy. Warner’s ethical vision succeeds as a utopian revelation of sex freed from shame, but a sharper eye for the real-life ramifications of such an outlook might have revealed its limitations.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-86529-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
A dizzying read, but a timely and important work.
All the president’s men of Houston receive a powerful lashing in this soundly researched, only occasionally sarcastic exposé of high-level corruption by investigative journalist Anderson (Art Held Hostage: The Battle Over the Barnes Collection, 2003, etc.).
The author skillfully moves from the 15-block section of downtown Houston that anchors such corporate giants as Reliant Energy, Enron, Shell Oil, Dynegy Corp. and James A. Baker III’s Institute for Public Policy (at Rice University) to the power center of George W. Bush’s Washington. With the changing of the guard in Texas in 1994—when Governor Ann Richards was voted out and the mild-mannered George W. moved in (thanks to the behind-the-scenes machinations of Karl Rove)—the Republicans had a “pig roast.” And with the Republican surge came the right-wing Congressman Tom DeLay, who was seemingly innocuous until he became majority whip in 1995. A dangerous Republican trio was formed by Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, who gained access to DeLay through his chief of staff Ed Buckham. Together, they effectively worked as lobbyists for many dubious and (for them) lucrative enterprises, such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which would eventually pay Abramoff some $7.2 million in lobbying fees and provide the convenient off-site location for U.S. Family Network (USFN), DeLay’s “grassroots” organization used for political contributions and money laundering. Another pet lobby was the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, which paid Abramoff grandly to lobby against the proposed federal tax on Indian casino profits. Anderson ably chronicles this incredible tale of unbridled greed in government by “Casino Jack” and “DeLay, Inc.” and follows the money trail through the infamous 2000 presidential election recount and the rigging of justice over the war in Iraq. The trail leads to Texas cronies Dick Cheney, Jim Baker and Alberto Gonzales, who all get a thrashing here, though Anderson falls short of indicting the president, who is chastised for his lack of “oversight.”
A dizzying read, but a timely and important work.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-8643-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Best-selling true-crime writer Olsen's latest account of psychopathic terror is little more than a chronological retelling of the basic facts. This time Olsen (The Misbegotten Son, 1993, etc.) looks at George Russell, who, after an adolescence characterized by minor offenses like marijuana violations and the theft of a friend's rare penny, committed the extraordinarily grisly murders of three women, for which he was convicted and sentenced to life. The book is split in two. The first half lopes through Russell's various oddities and abusive relationships with women, and the second half dives into the pulp, the awful acts of a maniac. Olsen's reporting is as plodding and unimaginative as this color-by-numbers structure suggests. He intimates that a dance club called the Black Angus, where Russell spent much of his time, fueled the future murderer's latent sexual anger. It was there that Russell sat beside the DJ booth reading a newspaper and drinking some of the drinks included on the bar's extensive list of mixers. Unfortunately for the reader, Olsen feels the need to catalogue the suggestively named drinks—e.g., ``Sex on the Beach'' and ``The Sloe Screw''—as well as their every ingredient, loading them in the meanwhile with an exaggerated significance as portents of Russell's violent misogyny. The stretch is typical of the book, which has the feel of uninteresting or mishandled material. Olsen ominously sprinkles the text with references to Russell's race (he is black) but does nothing with it, leaving the reader with an incomplete picture of the man and his motivations. The book's overall weakness is highlighted by its liberal use of quotations from books by psychologists on psychopaths as Olsen scrambles for the cover of ``expert'' testimony that adds nothing. Olsen weakly justifies his stripped-down narrative by saying that, unlike creative true-crime writers like Truman Capote or Joseph Wambaugh, he is among those who ``try to remain with the facts.'' Russell's compulsion to kill is less in evidence here than is Olsen's compulsion to churn out yet another murderous tale. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 21, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-10903-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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