A thoroughly engaging account of trauma and resilience during the Civil War.
A Civil War–era photograph reveals a sprawling true story of suffering and survival in Procko’s nonfiction work.
In January 1865, Knoxville, Tennessee–based photographer Theodore M. Schleier captured an image of 12 men: nine Union officers who’d escaped Confederate prisoner-of-war camps and three Unionist civilian guides who’d risked their lives to aid the officers in their flight to freedom. The officers, who’d been taken captive over the previous year and a half, had been shuffled between several POW camps in Virginia and Georgia, including Richmond’s notorious Libby Prison, where they’d contended with insufficient rations and the proliferation of diseases such as dysentery and typhoid. Multiple escape attempts, including the excavation of a tunnel beneath Libby Prison, resulted in recapture and severe punishment. In October 1864, the officers were sent to Camp Sorghum, a hastily prepared three-acre camp in Columbia, South Carolina. Taking advantage of the inexperienced state militia guard, dozens of officers escaped, starting the next month, traveling northwest through swamps along the Saluda River. They were hidden and fed by others along the way (“The charity of the enslaved people forever changed each escapee so desperate to get home”), and they managed to evaded pursuit, finally reaching the mountains of western North Carolina, where Unionist sympathizers guided them over the state line to safety.Filmmaker and photographer Procko’s exhaustive research includes biographical sketches of the officers’ lives and service prior to, and after, their imprisonment as well as quotes from their own accounts. Although the author refers to the book as a work of narrative nonfiction in the introduction, imaginative descriptions are sparingly used, and they effectively enhance a small number of pivotal moments: “He was witnessing a near total lunar eclipse—an ominous sign at the start of a long and eventful twenty-seven hours that he would remember for the rest of his life.” The majority of the work, though, is a straightforward factual relation of the men’s harrowing experiences and of the toll on their physical and mental well-being—and it’s compelling enough to require no embellishment.
A thoroughly engaging account of trauma and resilience during the Civil War.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781737283416
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2023
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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