by Roy Cini Cusumano ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 2013
A quick read that may serve as an introductory or refresher course in early American history.
A fictional military tribunal illuminates a pivotal moment of the American Revolutionary War.
Cusumano (In Search of the Grail of Hope and Knowledge, 2005, etc.) invents a court martial of the real-life British Gen. Sir William Howe in order to make the case that he, in May 1778, squandered the best opportunity Great Britain had to end the American rebellion. It’s a familiar argument among historians. At the time, the general, having tendered his resignation as commander of the British forces, was less interested in fighting than in partying, and he was preparing to sail home from Philadelphia. So when George Washington divided his meager forces, sending 2,250 men with Gen. Lafayette on a reconnaissance mission to Barren Hill, Pennsylvania, Howe failed to capture the Frenchman. He also didn’t exploit his numerical advantage by ordering his 16,000 troops to attack Washington’s 3,000 beleaguered soldiers at Valley Forge, just 12 miles away. The fictional trial is set in 1789, a decade after an inconclusive parliamentary inquiry, and it reprises arguments made in real life by American Loyalist Joseph Galloway. In the introduction, Cusumano, a retired teacher, says he was inspired to write the book to combat historical illiteracy among today’s students. Mock trials are indeed established teaching tools, but blending fact and fiction always risks confusion. The author does minimize the fictional elements, but the book’s question-and-answer format constrains its narrative development. That said, the author packs abundant historical information into his witnesses’ answers while keeping the flavor of individual testimony. Larger themes, such as Britain taxing the Colonies to recover French and Indian War costs, also emerge smoothly. From a fictional standpoint, however, readers may question the plausibility of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin appearing at such a proceeding to defend Howe. Modern language occasionally intrudes, such as Jefferson’s doubtful use of the term “wakeup call” and a question about how to treat a soldier who’s “brain dead.” Otherwise, the historical scholarship is solid, and this compact volume serves its educational purpose well.
A quick read that may serve as an introductory or refresher course in early American history.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1458210746
Page Count: 144
Publisher: AbbottPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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