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KING CON

THE BIZARRE ADVENTURES OF THE JAZZ AGE'S GREATEST IMPOSTOR

With the rise of identity theft, celebrity worship, and manipulative social media, this sprightly story of a legendary con...

The absorbing tale of a Jazz Age grifter named Edgar Laplante, who posed as an American Indian and gained extravagant wealth and worldwide fame.

Chronicling the life and entertaining yet fraudulent times of Laplante, aka Chief White Elk, Willetts (Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms: The Spyhunter, the Fashion Designer, and the Man from Moscow, 2015, etc.), in his American debut, brings fresh significance to the ancient profession of the con artist. A vaudeville performer who began his career in traveling medicine shows, by 1917 Laplante was a small-time grifter moving from city to city, posing as Onondagan marathon runner Tom Longboat. As his confidence developed, his game grew, and he effectively dazzled his marks and bled them until his cover was blown. With the law always one step behind, he finally settled into his boldest reinvention: Chief White Elk, revered leader of the Cherokee nation, wounded war veteran, sports celebrity, vaudeville performer, war bonds promoter, etc. Dressed in buckskins and headdress, Laplante was the mainstay of local society pages, and his herculean feats of charisma and charm became unparalleled as his cons grew bigger and more dangerous. After several years, having run the course of his scam in North America, he made his way to Europe, where he began hosting fundraisers for American Indian orphans. By 1924, he was living in the French Riviera, where he met a wealthy Austrian countess from whom he bilked massive sums of money. Touring through Italy at her expense, Laplante hit his ultimate stride when he fell into the graces of the Mussolini regime, which brought him renown across Europe and around the globe. Then, just as he reached his career pinnacle, his fabrications crumbled, resulting in a stint in an Italian prison. Using the “surprisingly extensive paper trail” that Laplante “left behind,” Willetts weaves a fast-paced, intriguing tale.

With the rise of identity theft, celebrity worship, and manipulative social media, this sprightly story of a legendary con artist’s outrageous successes becomes a cautionary tale for the digital age.

Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-451-49581-5

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...

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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.

Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6

Page Count: 248

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015

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