There were plenty of hand-scrawled signs in public places saying, "Kilroy was here." He probably was, and he certainly made...
Reminiscing about a teenage hobo adventure, former newsman O'Malley describes what happens when a young man from Montana rides the rails and looks for work during the Great Depression.
The narrative is modeled on the old Saturday Evening Post, loaded with action-packed dramatic scenes and propulsive energy. After the violent opening—in which our hero, Richard Maloney (called "Slim") is beaten up by a railroad "yard bull" in charge of keeping freeloaders off the trains, and subsequently finds company and consolation by the fireside of friendly hobos—O'Malley embarks full-steam-ahead on a narrative journey that makes real the plight of thousands of unemployed and desperate people. Not all those whom Slim meets are saints—some beat him up and rob him blind; others, such as an out-of-work railroad porter, urge him to commit crime. He resists, finding instead backbreaking work digging potatoes (25 cents a day, plus all the potatoes he can eat, plus shelter in a barn). Trips to Los Angeles, the Mojave desert and beyond begin to blur in the reader's mind as he describes a closely focused life in strict survival mode. He thinks only about where he can get another meal, whether the railroad "bull" will catch him, or whether the next guy will be a crazed murderer (he meets several while riding the rails). O'Malley packs the story with lively anecdotes, such as playing the only piano tune he knows for poor moonshine-makers desperate for dance, or working as a fake "townie" who dares to challenge the carnival champ—a brain-damaged fellow known as "Battler"—for $2 a fight. After landing unjustly in jail for vagrancy, he witnesses a suicide and an execution during his 90 days behind bars. He also begins to recognize his own imperfections—though he hadn't realized it before, he was "white proud and that was no damn good." After a year and a half on the road he returns home a somewhat broken—but much wiser—man, and still only 19 years old. The voice drifting from the '30s is authentic, but lacking in a suspenseful dramatic thread to keep the pages turning. Nonetheless, he illuminates those trying times with heartfelt emotion and genuine humanity.
There were plenty of hand-scrawled signs in public places saying, "Kilroy was here." He probably was, and he certainly made his mark.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-4033-5448-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
No one’s mind will be changed by Karl’s book, but it’s a valuable report from the scene of an ongoing train wreck.
The chief White House and Washington correspondent for ABC provides a ringside seat to a disaster-ridden Oval Office.
It is Karl to whom we owe the current popularity of a learned Latin term. Questioning chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, he followed up a perhaps inadvertently honest response on the matter of Ukrainian intervention in the electoral campaign by saying, “What you just described is a quid pro quo.” Mulvaney’s reply: “Get over it.” Karl, who has been covering Trump for decades and knows which buttons to push and which to avoid, is not inclined to get over it: He rightly points out that a reporter today “faces a president who seems to have no appreciation or understanding of the First Amendment and the role of a free press in American democracy.” Yet even against a bellicose, untruthful leader, he adds, the press “is not the opposition party.” The author, who keeps his eye on the subject and not in the mirror, writes of Trump’s ability to stage situations, as when he once called Trump out, at an event, for misrepresenting poll results and Trump waited until the camera was off before exploding, “Fucking nasty guy!”—then finished up the interview as if nothing had happened. Trump and his inner circle are also, by Karl’s account, masters of timing, matching negative news such as the revelation that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election with distractions away from Trump—in this case, by pushing hard on the WikiLeaks emails from the Democratic campaign, news of which arrived at the same time. That isn’t to say that they manage people or the nation well; one of the more damning stories in a book full of them concerns former Homeland Security head Kirstjen Nielsen, cut off at the knees even while trying to do Trump’s bidding.
No one’s mind will be changed by Karl’s book, but it’s a valuable report from the scene of an ongoing train wreck.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4562-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.
Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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