A maddening, well-documented account of crime without punishment even as violence against women continues unabated.
A scathing examination of American rape culture, promoted and abetted by athletics.
Documentary filmmaker Schwartzman focuses on an incident that occurred in 2012 in Steubenville, a small town in the “football-obsessed state of Ohio.” High school football players threw a party in which some of them repeatedly raped an intoxicated young woman—and, moreover, boasted of the event on social media as it was happening. “As a result of their tweets and texts,” writes the author, “in the aftermath they couldn’t deny what had happened.” That didn’t keep their coaches and other school officials from trying to cover up the rape, which later led to grand jury indictments—but, unsurprisingly, only the mildest of punishments for the rapists. Therein, Schwartzman observes, lies the crux of a toxic culture that explains away crimes against women as the product of youthful exuberance and adrenaline. In the grim industrial town in which the crime occurred, gridiron success affords the possibility of escape via college scholarships, and locals tend to be disinclined to take that possibility away over what is explained away as teenage hijinks. Indeed, in a local bar, Schwartzman overheard “men [who] grumbled with resentment about trumped-up charges and girls who deserved what they got.” Small wonder, given such attitudes, that it’s so difficult to enact effective policies to combat rape culture, including simple sex education. The people Schwartzman encountered in town were less concerned with the fact of gang rape than with “negative attention about the football program.” Furthermore, the women of Steubenville expressed their tacit support by voting for Donald Trump in 2016. “Women’s supposed solidarity around being potential victims of sexual violence was trumped by their allegiance to whiteness, and their own gender bias,” writes Schwartzman. Meanwhile, the perpetrators earned their scholarships, lauded as “good kids, good football players,” and rape culture rolls on.
A maddening, well-documented account of crime without punishment even as violence against women continues unabated.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-306-92436-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.
A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation.
Is our biggest spectator sport “a practical means for understanding American life”? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it’s a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, “because football is doomed.” Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC—Klosterman offers an “expository obituary” of a game whose current “monocultural grip” will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces—the NFL’s “cultivation of revenue,” changes in advertising, et al.—will end its cultural centrality. It’s hard to imagine a time when “football stops and no one cares,” but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that’s no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a “niche” pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more “elegant,” but “football is the best television product ever,” its breaks between plays—“the intensity and the nothingness,” à la Sartre—provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing “intellectual density” of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an “ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control.” Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s much‑loved Little House novels.” A beloved sport’s eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining.
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593490648
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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