An irreverent and entertaining historical survey.
Rarely seen items of human clothing take center stage in Sullivan’s illustrated history book.
In this offbeat nonfiction work, the author notes that Marie Antoinette caused a scandal by attending official court functions wearing only a white shift—a cotton underdress that at the time was only worn beneath additional layers of clothing. During Al Capone’s trial for tax evasion, Sullivan notes, it was discovered that the famous Prohibition-era gangster wore “glove silk” underwear that cost $12 a pair—which, at the time, was equivalent to a week’s wages for the average American. The author reveals that Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, the second man on the moon, wore special, NASA-designed long underwear during his first lunar walk, which came equipped with tubes to collect his urine in a removable bag; unfortunately for him, he tore the underwear while climbing out of the lunar capsule, meaning that when he finally had to go, the urine floated around in the leg of his spacesuit. These are just some of the little-known, real-life underwear tales that Sullivan has unearthed, from the 5,000-year-old undies of a mummified man to the underthings of silent-film actor Buster Keaton, revealed after his pants caught on fire and burned away. In addition to famous figures, Sullivan covers lesser-known underwear-wearers, including George Washington’s “frenemy” and fellow Revolutionary War general Charles Lee; pioneer celebrity swimmer Annette Kellerman; bra inventor Mary Phelps Jacob; and suffragist Amelia Bloomer. The author also shines a spotlight on great innovations in the history of such clothing, including the “vermin-proof” underwear of World War I. Along the way, he explores the underdiscussed relationship that Western society has with its so-called unmentionables.
Sullivan’s prose is sly and well crafted, as if the author means for it to be read aloud: “In an effort to help their armies, sneaky Civil War women secretly stashed things such as weapons, boots, clothing, money, coded messages, and more underneath gigantic skirts. Many were successful in delivering their clandestine contraband, but not every undisclosed underclothes undertaking was a success.” He finds fun, unexpected corners of history to mine for content; one chapter, for instance, deals with the Mona Lisa, which was famously stored in a trunk beneath the undergarments of a thief who briefly stole it from the Louvre. (Sullivan goes further by pointing out that the painting once hung in Napoleon’s bedroom: “If the real Lisa could have somehow seen through the painted eyes of her portrait, she would have undoubtedly seen one of history’s most famous and powerful men in his underwear.”) As the book leaps between industries, countries, and centuries, it quickly becomes apparent that the history of underwear is the history of human society; the reader learns as much about past figures’ privacy, shame, humor, and ingenuity as they do about cotton and silk. The text is accompanied by joyful and amusing black-and-white illustrations by Anderson that contribute to the book’s lighthearted ethos. Although the work seems geared toward younger readers, history buffs of all ages will find much to enjoy; who knew, for instance, that Meriwether Lewis gave William Clark underclothing for Christmas?
An irreverent and entertaining historical survey.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2022
ISBN: 9781631070471
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Heart Ally Books
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A bold and humorous, if uneven, sendup of Scottish culture.
Two shiftless Scots in Glasgow get drawn into an insurrection agitating for independence from England in this madcap satire.
Gourlay Baines leads a meandering life—avoiding work and responsibility, engaging in petty theft and grift, and evading the landlord’s agent, O’Leary, always hunting for his perpetually late rent. Lucky for Gourlay, he’s a man of modest ambitions and counts himself rich when he has a pocket full of change. His “old crony” McMinn one day presents him with a business opportunity. Big Red, a giant of a man—“close to seven feet tall and his red hair, eyebrows and beard were so red that his massive head seemed to be on fire”—is paying cash for help with digging, the details closely guarded. As it turns out, Big Red is preparing a tunnel to a bank vault, a criminal gambit both Gourlay and McMinn participate in reluctantly. When that caper turns out poorly, they’re roped into a planned battle between Big Red and his nemesis, Sanny Rutherford. Scores of men turn out, but before a chaotic fight ensues, the two massed groups bond over their common Scottish heritage. The imbroglio gives Big Red an idea: “We need a common focus, a national focus, and by God!…By God! We have it already in the English! We’re a divided nation—Glasgow/Edinburgh, Catholic/Protestant, Highlander/Lowlander, myself and Sanny even....Linguistically-speaking, a farmer in Aberdeenshire likely has more in common with a Dutchman than a Sassenach....But is there a better uniting force than a common enemy?”
Sleigh farcically chronicles the formation of a group of freedom fighters, the National Army for the Liberation of Scotland, or “N.A.I.L.S.,” a comically incapable ragtag bunch. Gourlay and McMinn seem swept into Big Red’s ambition as if by a massive wave, reluctant but also unwilling to assert themselves. This lack of focused agency, the author cheekily implies, characterizes the desultory Scottish spirit, an ethos more likely to complain of oppression than to competently wage war against it. Gourlay isn’t so sure simply being Scottish means all that much to Scots and therefore doubts it as a significant identity, let alone a call to insurgent action: “Near everybody Ah ken is Scottish, but Ah’ve nae idea to what extent they’re really aware of their national identity, or whether they give a damn about that.” The group’s exploits are the stuff of vaudevillian comedy, the bumbling errors of the perennially distracted. Sleigh’s wit can cut to the quick, but is also deeply silly, and that lightsome but feverish tenor is very hard to keep fresh for the length of a novel, even one on the short side. Furthermore, the dialogue is presented in the thick argot of colloquial Scottish speech, and for the uninitiated, it can be a tedious slough: “Onywey, he coudna get intae ma breeks, so he took a sheet an’ happit himsel’ up in it....Bluidy daft if you ask me.” This is a funny book, one brimming with deliciously irreverent insights. But that’s not quite enough to compensate for the laborious translation it requires.
A bold and humorous, if uneven, sendup of Scottish culture.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-60489-297-0
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A spellbinding, compelling, and multifaceted tale about an Iranian family haunted by war.
An Iranian woman living in America confronts the trauma of her war-torn childhood in this debut novel.
Honarvar’s tale opens in Shiraz, Iran, in 1981 during the Iran-Iraq War. Kimia Shams is a 9-year-old girl on an errand to buy naan at a bakery when she is distracted by a puppet show performed by an enigmatic, aging storyteller. The square is targeted by a missile strike, and Kimia is dragged to safety by her brother, Arman. Kimia and her friend Reza Khan return to the scene of the devastation and discover a trapdoor that leads them into the magical realm of the storyteller, Baba Morshed. As the story unfolds, Baba tells the children a quest tale about the Simorgh, a bird from Persian mythology. Fast-forward to 2009, and Kimia is working as a spiritual counselor in California. She and her family still grapple with the psychological impact of war—her mother in particular is afflicted by bouts of shaking yet longs to return to her homeland. Kimia and her family journey to Iran but find themselves in the midst of the Green Uprising, where the ghosts of their past pose a clear danger. Honarvar’s gorgeously evocative prose subtly captures the young Kimia’s irrepressible delight in the face of oppression: “My sun-soaked eyes followed the touch, and although I couldn’t make out his face, I knew it was Reza. I broke into a smile. Not even my hijab could restrain the elation beaming from me.” The narrative is written predominantly from Kimia’s perspective, but some chapters are devoted to the viewpoints of other characters, such as Arman. Each is written in the first person, and although the author presents a variety of distinct voices, some readers may feel that a third-person narrative mode for such players would add further stylistic texture. This is a minor criticism of a story that draws beautifully on the power of Iranian fables to unearth the magical, restorative world that Kimia finds beneath the rubble of war: “The smooth texture of the wall changed to a rugged surface with dramatic peaks and valleys. I paused and examined a stone carving of the giant Simorgh stretched out before me.” This stellar first novel marks the writer as an author to watch.
A spellbinding, compelling, and multifaceted tale about an Iranian family haunted by war.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-942436-46-1
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Forest Avenue Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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