A compelling account, suffused with both sympathy and sharpness, of a writer who’s mostly forgotten and of a grandson who’s...
A grandson of writer MacKinlay Kantor (1904-1977) unravels the tangles of his grandfather’s life and finds many of those same threads (the good, the bad, the ugly) in his own life.
Shroder—himself a veteran writer (Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal, 2014, etc.) and journalist (editor of the Washington Post Magazine)—remembers his once-celebrated grandfather well, though Kantor had tumbled from the literary mountain by that time. Kantor’s novel Andersonville (1955) won the Pulitzer Prize, had been an enormous bestseller, but he never again produced something so well received by critics and consumers. His wealth flew from his hands like chaff. Shroder was an incredibly fortunate researcher: the Library of Congress holds 158 boxes of Kantor material, and Shroder found other caches, as well, including in his own home. Carefully sifting through all of this, and reading (and in some cases rereading) his grandfather’s work, the author began to see numerous parallels in their lives, from a passion for the Civil War to their submission to the disciplines of writing. Shroder is stunned by some of his discoveries (among them: his grandfather’s serial adultery), is somewhat surprised by Kantor’s turn to the political right (he was friends with Curtis LeMay), and is touched by Kantor’s enduring belief in his abilities despite reviewers’ harshness and slumping sales. The connections the author sees between the two of them sometimes seem a bit forced or obvious—writers do share some things, whether blood relatives or not. But the more Shroder finds out about his grandfather, the more his sympathy grows—Kantor’s own father was a con man of the first order—and he ends with a deeply felt appreciation. The author also notes that Kantor’s wife tolerated a lot—and lovingly so.
A compelling account, suffused with both sympathy and sharpness, of a writer who’s mostly forgotten and of a grandson who’s grateful.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17459-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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