A historically edifying monograph and a fascinating personal memoir.
Fong chronicles the Allied defeat of the German Luftwaffe during World War II and his own participation in the bombing campaigns.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the author aspired to assist in the war effort; specifically, he longed to join the Flying Tigers, an all-volunteer unit of pilots deployed to China to help defend it from Japanese invasion. In 1943, shortly after Fong graduated from high school in San Francisco, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, though he was disqualified from flight training due to poor eyesight. He instead trained to become a tail gunner, and on the first day of 1945, he landed in Liverpool, England, to join the 735th Bombardment Squadron of the 453rd Bombardment Group. The author was part of a crew flying the B-24 Liberator, running bombing missions designed, among other things, to cripple the German Luftwaffe, which was absolutely necessary for the success of Operation Overlord. In impressive detail, Fong recounts the 22 missions he participated in, including the bombing of Berlin, the “very heart of the Nazi regime.” The author exactingly situates those missions within their historical and military contexts and lucidly depicts their harrowing nature. He also provides a moving personal reflection on his own experience of the war and affectingly depicts the “extreme elation and apprehension” he felt when he flew his first mission a little more than two weeks after his arrival in England. Fong mercifully avoids any melodramatic posturing or histrionic hyperbole—this is an understated work, brimming with scrupulously documented detail. In fact, the true power of the narrative, in addition to its historical rigor, is precisely this journalistic objectivity. While military histories about World War II are not in short supply, this is a marvelously concise and cleareyed account of the bombing campaigns against Germany.
A historically edifying monograph and a fascinating personal memoir.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798989539222
Page Count: 284
Publisher: LJ Strange
Review Posted Online: May 9, 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
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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