A far-reaching, animated, and thoroughly enjoyable account of a family’s roots.
An Indiana-based author traces his family history in this genealogical study.
The title of this work is drawn from the Old Testament book of Isaiah, which begins: “Consider the rock from which you were hewn.” Reynolds (The Harmonious Echo, 2015) cleverly proceeds to do just that by first introducing his ancestors, the Butlers, as they sit around the table for Christmas dinner in 1929. He draws a sketch of each family member, beginning with Edwin Butler, a “handsome man,” “an outdoorsman,” and “photographer.” Beside him is his wife, Clarice, a “ ‘lady,’ in the proper old sense of the word.” After establishing a sense of intimacy, the author delves into the past to find the origins of the Butler name, which has a predominantly British heritage. Reynolds finds that his ancestors fought with the Scottish warrior William Wallace and “were part of the pageantry” when King James I of England was crowned. The author’s family tree reveals a bounty of captivating individuals, from an indentured servant who was sent to America to John Butland, who changed his name to Butler to avoid being associated with a family of the same name with a bad reputation, and the intrepid Winnie Butler, whose travels took her to Alaska, Norway, Rome, and beyond. Reynolds embroiders his family’s story into the more expansive fabric of history beautifully at times. For example, when portraying the youthful Clarice, he describes the fashions of the age: “When Clarice Hawkins was a young girl, the beau ideal of a young woman was the Gibson Girl, the creation of pen-and-ink artist Charles Dana Gibson.” This startlingly detailed background information allows readers to consider all of the family members as distinct products of their eras. The passionately written and painstakingly researched book contains a wealth of intriguing information and is richly illustrated using family photographs, lithographs, maps, and pedigree charts. Reynolds’ study should be a source of great interest and inspiration to readers keen on investigating their ancestors’ histories.
A far-reaching, animated, and thoroughly enjoyable account of a family’s roots.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5370-5208-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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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