Procter does not ignore Hearst’s ruthless dishonesty, his reptilian professional and personal ethics, but the author does...
Procter (History/Texas Christian Univ.) completes his two-volume biography of the man whose ego and empire and sense of entitlement ballooned to proportions so vast that it took the Great Depression and time’s stiletto to puncture them.
Throughout, Procter (William Randolph Hearst: The Early Years, 1863-1901, 1998) is kind to his subject. Hearst was a genius (or nearly so), a wonderful cook, fiercely loyal to both women in his life (his wife and the actress Marion Davies), highly creative and innovative with a “seemingly inexhaustible work ethic.” He loved art and amassed one of the greatest collections ever. Procter reminds us of Hearst’s innovations not only in journalism but in Hollywood. He created The Perils of Pauline (and wrote scripts for the serial); he insisted on historical accuracy in sets and costumes. Hearst also had ferocious political ambitions. He served two terms in Congress but failed repeatedly to win the White House and seemed to have a genetic incapability of backing a winner in state or national elections. He believed in “America First” and urged the country to stay out of both world wars. He had an audience with Hitler in the early 1930s and came away very impressed, says Procter. The author does show Hearst’s great weaknesses, principally his inability to control spending. If he wanted it (a rare work of art, an English castle, a private compound at San Simeon, whatever), he bought it. For years, he invested $50,000 per month in the construction of a San Simeon property. Frequently, he took long and luxurious trips to Europe with dozens of his closest friends.
Procter does not ignore Hearst’s ruthless dishonesty, his reptilian professional and personal ethics, but the author does sometimes succumb to the subject’s celebrity and toxic charm.Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-19-532534-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
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 Yorkerstaff 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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