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 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
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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