A well-researched narrative of how the U.S. Capitol became a showcase for the nation’s finest neoclassical artwork.
A fictionalized account of how two American sculptors from vastly different backgrounds came to adorn the U.S. Capitol in an era of national strife.
Novak, a sculptor with 40 years of experience, brings the magic of marble carving to life in plain but engaging prose in this debut historical novel. When British troops burned the U.S. Capitol in 1814, from the ashes rose an opportunity for American artists. Previously passed over in favor of skilled Italians, Americans were invited to train in Rome and return to rebuild the Capitol building. Foremost among these homegrown sculptors is Thomas Crawford, a 20-year-old who develops into one of Rome’s premier sculptors, attracting the attention of well-placed Americans George Washington Greene and Charles Sumner. Yet years pass without Crawford garnering a single commission from Washington. Ironically, self-taught sculptor Clark Mills is profiting through his political contacts, receiving only the second commission from Congress awarded to an American sculptor. Not until the Capitol’s expansion in 1852 does Crawford’s luck change. In quick succession, he is awarded commissions for panels, doors, and his dome-crowning glory, Freedom. But success is bittersweet: He is diagnosed with an inoperable tumor behind his left eye. As Crawford’s health worsens, Mills is brought in to complete Freedom, thus marrying Crawford’s Old World training with Mills’ New World entrepreneurial savvy. This microcosm of America’s artistic history plays out against the increasingly volatile congressional battle over slavery. One could argue that Crawford’s difficulties in landing commissions may be traced not only to his long residence in Rome, but to his friendship with Charles Sumner, a powerful abolitionist, whose scathing speeches dot the book’s second half. Mills, on the other hand, could not have risen far without the skilled help of his slaves—in particular, a craftsman named Philip Reid. The white mountaintops of Carrara, the seductive textures of artists’ materials, and the majesty of Roman art all shine in spite of a tendency toward expository dialogue and misplaced punctuation. The result here is less novelesque than nonfiction with dialogue, full of technical and historical detail, but also underdeveloped characters and unevenly executed subplots. That said, neither art enthusiasts nor American-history buffs should mind, as the compelling story unfolds amid the world of classical art before shifting to the realm of political machinations.
A well-researched narrative of how the U.S. Capitol became a showcase for the nation’s finest neoclassical artwork.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1466276789
Page Count: 232
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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.
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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