Impressively authoritative and thoughtfully composed.
A historian reconsiders America’s most notorious prison riot.
In September 1971, after a tense four-day standoff, the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York was finally back under state control, the remaining hostages freed, and officials, particularly those in Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s office, felt relieved. When it soon came apparent, however, that tales of hostage abuse—castrations, slit throats—were false, that the gunfire could have come only from corrections officers and troopers during the assault, the state began almost immediately to cover up what had happened. Thompson (History/Univ. of Michigan; Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City, 2001, etc.) devotes the first half of her narrative to describing in compelling detail the appalling conditions at the prison, the incident that sparked the uprising, the prisoners’ grievances and demands, and the subsequent, tense negotiations overseen by a hastily formed committee of observers, culminating in the facility’s extraordinarily violent retaking. It’s the book’s second half, however, that offers the real eye-opener for readers whose interest in Attica and knowledge of what happened ended when the headlines receded. Thompson carefully tracks the uprising’s dismal aftermath, a bewildering, decadeslong series of commissions, investigations, lawsuits (civil and criminal), and settlement talks. At almost every juncture, she reveals state officials—prison guards, troopers, prosecutors, judges, politicians—acting in bad faith, either criminally or through gross negligence. Her report, not entirely unjustly, will be attacked as too “pro-prisoner,” but her critics will be obliged to account for her sensitive treatment of the state’s callous handling of the surviving hostages and their families and her not infrequent criticisms of the actors who glommed on to the Attica story for their own political purposes. Moreover, detractors will be forced to match the evidence she musters, 10 years’ worth of research—many files remain sealed to this day—her discovery of records long hidden, her numerous firsthand interviews, and her archival deep-dive. Meanwhile, conditions at Attica remain worse than they were in 1971.
Impressively authoritative and thoughtfully composed.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-375-42322-2
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.
Based on eight years of reporting and thousands of hours of interaction, a journalist chronicles the inner worlds of three women’s erotic desires.
In her dramatic debut about “what longing in America looks like,” Taddeo, who has contributed to Esquire, Elle, and other publications, follows the sex lives of three American women. On the surface, each woman’s story could be a soap opera. There’s Maggie, a teenager engaged in a secret relationship with her high school teacher; Lina, a housewife consumed by a torrid affair with an old flame; and Sloane, a wealthy restaurateur encouraged by her husband to sleep with other people while he watches. Instead of sensationalizing, the author illuminates Maggie’s, Lina’s, and Sloane’s erotic experiences in the context of their human complexities and personal histories, revealing deeper wounds and emotional yearnings. Lina’s infidelity was driven by a decade of her husband’s romantic and sexual refusal despite marriage counseling and Lina's pleading. Sloane’s Fifty Shades of Grey–like lifestyle seems far less exotic when readers learn that she has felt pressured to perform for her husband's pleasure. Taddeo’s coverage is at its most nuanced when she chronicles Maggie’s decision to go to the authorities a few years after her traumatic tryst. Recounting the subsequent trial against Maggie’s abuser, the author honors the triumph of Maggie’s courageous vulnerability as well as the devastating ramifications of her community’s disbelief. Unfortunately, this book on “female desire” conspicuously omits any meaningful discussion of social identities beyond gender and class; only in the epilogue does Taddeo mention race and its impacts on women's experiences with sex and longing. Such oversight brings a palpable white gaze to the narrative. Compounded by the author’s occasionally lackluster prose, the book’s flaws compete with its meaningful contribution to #MeToo–era reporting.
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4229-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not an easy read but an essential one.
Title notwithstanding, this latest from the National Book Award–winning author is no guidebook to getting woke.
In fact, the word “woke” appears nowhere within its pages. Rather, it is a combination memoir and extension of Atlantic columnist Kendi’s towering Stamped From the Beginning (2016) that leads readers through a taxonomy of racist thought to anti-racist action. Never wavering from the thesis introduced in his previous book, that “racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas,” the author posits a seemingly simple binary: “Antiracism is a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity and are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” The author, founding director of American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, chronicles how he grew from a childhood steeped in black liberation Christianity to his doctoral studies, identifying and dispelling the layers of racist thought under which he had operated. “Internalized racism,” he writes, “is the real Black on Black Crime.” Kendi methodically examines racism through numerous lenses: power, biology, ethnicity, body, culture, and so forth, all the way to the intersectional constructs of gender racism and queer racism (the only section of the book that feels rushed). Each chapter examines one facet of racism, the authorial camera alternately zooming in on an episode from Kendi’s life that exemplifies it—e.g., as a teen, he wore light-colored contact lenses, wanting “to be Black but…not…to look Black”—and then panning to the history that informs it (the antebellum hierarchy that valued light skin over dark). The author then reframes those received ideas with inexorable logic: “Either racist policy or Black inferiority explains why White people are wealthier, healthier, and more powerful than Black people today.” If Kendi is justifiably hard on America, he’s just as hard on himself. When he began college, “anti-Black racist ideas covered my freshman eyes like my orange contacts.” This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory.
Not an easy read but an essential one.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-50928-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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