After this unenlightening account, Harlan remains an enigma. (16 halftones, not seen)
A serviceable but bloodless biography of the Supreme Court justice who penned some of the most celebrated judicial dissents of the 19th century.
Yarbrough (Political Science/East Carolina Univ.; John Marshall Harlan, 1992, etc.) sketches the complex, contradictory life of the Kentucky Republican who in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) eloquently disputed the Court's 'separate but equal' doctrine. Harlan's 34-year tenure on the court (18771911) was notable for his willingness to cast the sole dissenting vote in major civil rights cases in the aftermath of the Civil War. In ringing, righteous prose, Harlan was the first justice to argue that the Bill of Rights should apply to the states and US territories (not just to the federal government) and, in the famous case of Lochner v. New York (1905), that states are entitled to pass legislation protecting the health and safety of workers. But Yarbrough shows that Harlan's judicial record even in civil rights cases was 'spotty' and unpredictable, his inspiring dissents often marred by ethnocentric attitudes and gross generalizations. The author also examines Harlan's troubling private life, focusing on the justice's insensitive treatment of both his alcoholic brother and mulatto half-brother, his chronic insolvency, and his tendency to adapt his stance to shifting political winds. But Yarbrough simply doesn't have enough material here: He often speculates on how the justice's private life affected his work but offers little concrete proof of a connection. He also has little to say about Harlan's relationship with his colleagues on the Court. Worse, Yarbrough summarizes instead of analyzing many of the Court's major opinions: Lochner, one of the most influential cases in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, is discussed in a mere page and a half.
After this unenlightening account, Harlan remains an enigma. (16 halftones, not seen)Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-507464-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
A unique, incandescent memoir.
A lyrical, soul-stirring memoir about how an acclaimed Native American poet and musician came to embrace “the spirit of poetry.”
For Harjo, life did not begin at birth. She came into the world as an already-living spirit with the goal to release “the voices, songs, and stories” she carried with her from the “ancestor realm.” On Earth, she was the daughter of a half-Cherokee mother and a Creek father who made their home in Tulsa, Okla. Her father's alcoholism and volcanic temper eventually drove Harjo's mother and her children out of the family home. At first, the man who became the author’s stepfather “sang songs and smiled with his eyes,” but he soon revealed himself to be abusive and controlling. Harjo's primary way of escaping “the darkness that plagued the house and our family” was through drawing and music, two interests that allowed her to leave Oklahoma and pursue her high school education at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Interaction with her classmates enlightened her to the fact that modern Native American culture and history had been shaped by “colonization and dehumanization.” An education and raised consciousness, however, did not spare Harjo from the hardships of teen pregnancy, poverty and a failed first marriage, but hard work and luck gained her admittance to the University of New Mexico, where she met a man whose “poetry opened one of the doors in my heart that had been closed since childhood.” But his hard-drinking ways wrecked their marriage and nearly destroyed Harjo. Faced with the choice of submitting to despair or becoming “crazy brave,” she found the courage to reclaim a lost spirituality as well as the “intricate and metaphorical language of my ancestors.”
A unique, incandescent memoir.Pub Date: July 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-393-07346-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her...
With the assistance of Chambers (co-author; Yes, Chef, 2012, etc.), broadcaster Roberts (From the Heart: Eight Rules to Live By, 2008) chronicles her struggles with myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare condition that affects blood and bone marrow.
The author is a well-known newscaster, formerly on SportsCenter and now one of the anchors of Good Morning America. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which she successfully fought with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Five years later, after returning from her news assignment covering the 2012 Academy Awards, she learned that chemotherapy had resulted in her developing MDS, which led to an acute form of leukemia. Without a bone marrow transplant, her projected life expectancy was two years. While Roberts searched for a compatible donor and prepared for the transplant, her aging mother’s health also began to gravely deteriorate. Roberts faced her misfortune with an athlete’s mentality, showing strength against both her disease and the loss of her mother. This is reflected in her narration, which rarely veers toward melodrama or self-pity. Even in the chapters describing the transplantion process and its immediate aftermath, which make for the most intimate parts of the book, Roberts maintains her positivity. However, despite the author’s best efforts to communicate the challenges of her experience and inspire empathy, readers are constantly reminded of her celebrity status and, as a result, are always kept at arm's length. The sections involving Roberts’ family partly counter this problem, since it is in these scenes that she becomes any daughter, any sister, any lover, struggling with a life-threatening disease. “[I]f there’s one thing that spending a year fighting for your life against a rare and insidious…disease will teach you,” she writes, “it’s that time is not to be wasted.”
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her mother’s passing.Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4555-7845-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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