An artful addition to Kennedyana, complete with detailed literary forensics that will inevitably invite a comparison to the...
Comprehensive account of the day a young president took the oath of office and gave one of the great speeches of the 20th century.
Clarke (Searching for Crusoe, 2001, etc.) details the activities of president-elect John F. Kennedy for the 11 days that culminated with his delivery of an electrifying address calculated to vie with Lincoln’s and FDR’s best. He unravels the skein of authorship, including the contributions of Ted Sorensen and others, relating just how the youthful politician became the true owner of the speech’s grace and eloquence and how JFK delivered the oration of his life that cold, sunny day more than four decades ago. The cool central figure, fully aware of power of the High Court of History, spent time phoning and tanning at the family ménage at Palm Beach, arranging liaisons and ignoring the imprecations of a dithering mother and a domineering father. Jack reenacted composing a “draft” of his speech in the presence of a reporter or two as Evelyn Lincoln typed consecutive versions. Jackie fretted about the dowdy “Maison Blanche” and devised a killer initial First Lady outfit with Oleg Cassini. Volatile Sinatra, impresario of the inaugural gala, enlisted a “bouillabaisse of hoofers, opera stars, vaudeville comedians, Broadway belters, and classical actors.” Pals from the days of PT 109 appeared. Bigwigs of the generation passing into history succumbed to rampant political schadenfreude. Clarke is adept at seeing the webs of internecine feuds and animosities so hot in the inaugural VIP seats that spontaneous combustion didn’t seem impossible. He’s also an apt student of the what-he-had-for-breakfast-that-day school of popular history, and as his vivid narrative unfolds in that tradition, we can hear the words of the speech rise from the page.
An artful addition to Kennedyana, complete with detailed literary forensics that will inevitably invite a comparison to the present state of political rhetoric and contemplation of what we have lost.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2004
ISBN: 0-8050-7213-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
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
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
