Nuanced essays from a challenging writer whose appeal varies widely.
Wide-ranging personal essays from one of Western literature’s more controversial authors.
Plenty of artists are a mixed bag, but the dichotomy Handke (b. 1942) presents is starker than most. The recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in literature, he is an unquestionably gifted author with an impressive oeuvre. Yet he takes strident political stances, such as his support of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milošević, who was charged with war crimes. Both sides of Handke, the former more than the latter, appear in these five essays. Topics include his perpetual search for quiet spaces, a quest that expressed “if not a flight from society, perhaps a revulsion against society, an aversion to society”; a defense attorney he calls “my friend the mushroom maniac, who’s vanished without a trace”; insomnia and “the divergent views of the world engendered by different kinds of tiredness,” including fatigue borne of political struggles; an attempt to write about jukeboxes, a mission he quickly found insignificant given that year’s political events, including the fall of the Berlin Wall; and a meditation on elements that constitute a successful day, whether for an author’s writing or for humankind in general. Handke makes curious statements—e.g., calling Austrians “the first hopelessly corrupt, totally incorrigible people in history, incapable of repentance or conversion”—and the prose, at least in translation, can get flamboyant: “Tell me about this successful day. Show me the dance of the successful day. Sing me the song of the successful day!” Yet the author is also admirably self-critical, asking in the essay on the trivial topic of jukeboxes at a time of world upheaval, “Was there anyone in the present time, when every day was a new historic date, more ridiculous, more perverse than himself?” The book also contains some welcome light touches, as when, in the essay on tiredness, he asks of himself, “Why so philosophical all of a sudden?”
Nuanced essays from a challenging writer whose appeal varies widely.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-12559-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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