A knowledgeable and compelling opinionated X-ray of the modern legal machine.
Reid sounds a call for passionate lawyering and issues a stern assessment of the modern U.S. legal profession.
In his nonfiction debut, the author, a trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor, opens stark and strong: “Everything you’ve been told about being a lawyer is wrong.” He examines the negative press that tort reform has garnered over the years, characterizing it as a product of “corporate money and self-interest,” which Reid calls “propaganda.” Tort reform, per the author, has therefore led to changes that hurt ordinary people; “along the way, it’s poisoned the public perception of plaintiffs’ lawyers as well.” Reid aims to offer a corrective alternative in which the two typical goals of those attending law school—either landing a spot at a prestigious law firm or a job as a virtuous public defender—are understood to be far from the only or even the most attractive career choices for aspiring lawyers. “You don’t have to choose between making a difference and making a living,” Reid writes; you can choose plaintiffs’ law instead. He describes the standard funnel into which law students get sucked, starting with the on-campus interview, leading to law school (where, the author points out, most of the professors have never practiced law), and then to what he describes as “BigLaw” with little or no information given to other possibilities. Avoiding this “vicious cycle” can be done, but it’s tricky, and Reid is here to offer a road map. The centerpiece of his book is his advocacy for practicing plaintiffs’ law, which, he states, “laid the foundation for the modern Western world and America.” Though Reid passionately makes a case for this much-maligned branch of the profession, the book’s most memorable feature is its withering condemnation of BigLaw, where the author describes awestruck clerks getting invited to partners’ homes where “they will sip cocktails … looking out over a lake, and earn more in a week than they’ve earned in a month.” This pitch-perfect scorn will likely convince more readers than the book’s central argument for finding a middle way.
A knowledgeable and compelling opinionated X-ray of the modern legal machine.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781967115174
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Wren House Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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