A well-researched if unabashedly partisan reflection on the 2024 presidential election.
A progressive political strategist reflects on the 2024 presidential election in this nonfiction book.
Having observed, and often participated in, presidential campaigns for more than half a century, Sloan offered readers weekly commentary via Substack throughout the summer and fall of 2024 on the presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Even as a vocal minority within the Democratic Party questioned Harris’ leadership and viability, the author believed “she had the potential to be an amazing presidential candidate” with “genuine possibilities.” In this collection, he provides reprinted versions of his 2024 articles supplemented here by post-election analysis. Written “in the heat of battle,” the articles are arranged chronologically and offer a vivid look at the 2024 campaign from the perspective of a progressive who lays bare his fears of a second Trump administration, his hope regarding Harris’ political savvy, and his frustrations with some of the Democratic Party’s strategic choices. Writing about Trump, Sloan refuses to pull his punches, describing the Republican nominee as “illiterate when it comes to national policy” and thus susceptible to the extremist ideas propagated by his sycophants, such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposal to dismantle America’s socioeconomic safety net. While the author is generally favorable toward Harris, he is critical of the Democratic Party’s prioritization of baby boomers (both in terms of representation in positions of power and in policy proposals) at the expense of Asian, Black, and Latino constituencies and younger voters; this approach proved costly, Sloan convincingly argues, in the electoral results in key swing states. While not downplaying his concern about the dangers posed by Trump, the author remains optimistic in his belief that America’s democratic traditions can withstand his authoritarian tendencies and in the possibility of a Democratic victory in 2028. While his polemical writing style is unlikely to win many converts from the other side, Sloan backs up his arguments with scholarly endnotes. Political junkies will appreciate the author’s occasional reflections on his work with previous presidential and congressional campaigns.
A well-researched if unabashedly partisan reflection on the 2024 presidential election.Pub Date: April 13, 2026
ISBN: 9798317827533
Page Count: 268
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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