An armchair historian delivers a remarkably compelling story of justice denied.
A debut historical work focuses on the woman who was turned into World War II’s legendary Tokyo Rose.
The name Tokyo Rose conjures up images of a powerfully seductive Japanese woman demoralizing homesick American soldiers through radio propaganda during the brutal years of World War II in the Pacific. How that label was affixed to Iva Toguri, a Japanese American, is a tragic and complicated story recounted by Weedall in this book. Toguri may have been guilty of naiveté and misplaced faith in the American judicial system, but she was primarily a victim of consistently being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In July 1941, as a 25-year-old aspiring medical student, she dutifully obeyed her parents and went to Japan to bring greetings and gifts from her prosperous family to her aunt’s poor one. Her stay there was a disaster, and for several months, Toguri tried to return to the United States, but there were obstacles. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she could not return home and became an enemy alien. Abandoned by her relatives, she refused to renounce her American citizenship. She was coerced into working for Radio Tokyo as one of the many Japanese American women who introduced songs and read copy on frequent broadcasts. She tried covertly to sabotage all propaganda efforts and was under constant pressure from her Japanese bosses. At the war’s end, she became a hapless victim of intense anti-Japanese sentiment, spearheaded by the powerful tabloid columnist Walter Winchell, and, through perjured testimony and FBI misconduct, was tried and convicted of treason in a biased court proceeding. Toguri served time in prison and was paroled in 1956. She was finally granted a presidential pardon in 1977. The story is gripping, and Weedall recounts Toguri’s years of isolation, prison, and particularly her Kafkaesque trial with excellent pacing and a keen eye for drama. The prosecutor told the jury: “This is one of the most despicable cases of treason against our country at a time of national emergency.” The singular focus on Toguri omits some historical context: The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are only mentioned in one sentence. Undated chapters often leave readers unclear of the precise chronology. But while the mostly fictionalized dialogue is sometimes strained, the court proceedings and testimony are well documented, providing rich and evocative details.
An armchair historian delivers a remarkably compelling story of justice denied.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1643882918
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Luminare Press
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2023 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.
bookshelf
