An absorbing evocation of the Vietnam experience, full of mordant reflections and searing visuals.
The Vietnam War’s drudgery, horror, and occasional humanity come through in Clevenger’s memoir and photo portfolio.
The author spent most of 1968 in Vietnam as an infantryman and combat photographer in the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, and his recollections paint a fraught portrait of boredom, tension, and terror. He spent much time slogging through rice paddies infested with ants, leeches, and pythons; crawled into tunnels in search of Viet Cong guerillas, an ordeal that still inspired nightmares 50 years later; and survived firefights with the help of dumb luck. (He suffered a minor hand wound from a shell-burst while peering through his camera—which blocked the shrapnel from taking out his eye.) The book also has high drama: Clevenger had to threaten to shoot a fellow soldier to prevent him from raping a Vietnamese girl, witnessed a stewardess on his flight to Vietnam break down weeping at the thought of ferrying men to their deaths, and turned to faith to weather his predicament. Clevenger’s prose is clear-eyed, down-to-earth, and full of arresting detail in moments of crisis: “The gunfire paused, and Jerry was the first to rise. Fire cracked again, and Jerry dropped…‘It’s only a scratch,’ I told him as blood soaked the dressing and covered my hands.” The author’s black-and-white war photos tell their own riveting stories. In them, Vietnam is a vista of lush paddies as seen from a Huey—but on the ground it’s a sucking morass (in one picture, a soldier struggles to keep his head above the mud engulfing his body) or, often, a dreary stubble razed by napalm and Agent Orange. Soldiers appear poignantly young, at ease with their lethal gear, sometimes relaxed, sometimes raddled with adrenaline or exhaustion. Clevenger’s combat photos are intense and immediate: One spotlights a soldier frozen amid a blur of water churned up by enemy bullets. The result is a vivid, emotionally powerful re-creation of war’s reality.
An absorbing evocation of the Vietnam experience, full of mordant reflections and searing visuals.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781956200027
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Babel Editions
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
