A disjointed tale of society and its riches, dull and thrilling in about equal portions.
Another tell-all about money, power and the people who wield both, from Vanity Fair contributor Stadiem (co-author: Daughter of the King: Growing Up in Gangland, 2014, etc.).
In his latest offering, the author once again forgoes traditional biography in favor of a series of linked portraits of an entire wealthy group, this time people who entered social consciousness during the late 1950s and ’60s, when air travel became more attainable for the masses. Their antics span continents, careers and almost all imaginable levels of education, and since Stadiem has chosen the airline industry as an organizing principle, he includes the much-less-visible men who designed and built those jets. Unsurprisingly, they’re given to self-indulgent behavior and scandalous misdeeds just like other rich people. While the author does his best to weave together the tenuous threads connecting each person, family or event, it’s a labored process that results in clunky prose littered with out-of-place name-dropping and heavy-handed reminders. Many of the stories have strong appeal—e.g., brothers Ivan and Oleg Cassini could have filled an entire book by themselves—but Stadiem’s broad focus means that even the longer sections whet the appetite rather than satiate it. Social and business dynasties rise and fall, partnerships still recognizable today are forged and sometimes destroyed, and serious rivalries crop up. Each is treated similarly, as a minibiography emphasizing sex and scandal (when available). For dabblers, this narrative abundance may seem like a treasure trove; for those seeking more substantial insights, it will simply lead to a longer reading list. Stadiem also has trouble winnowing down his facts to the most pertinent and exciting, providing instead excessive detail that invites readers to skim.
A disjointed tale of society and its riches, dull and thrilling in about equal portions.Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53695-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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 Yorker staff 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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