Thompson is an insightful, wry observer of our times, with a cynical eye for the most foolish of human follies.
As U.S. society reconfigures itself, Thompson provides a map to the emerging territory.
There are two competing instincts in human psychology: to be a part of a group and to be different than others. At the overlap of these forces is the search for status, which is the concern of Thompson, who has made a solid career out of skewering the pompous and witless in comic memoirs such as Smile When You’re Lying and To Hellholes and Back. The author sees a fundamental change underway as the link between status and wealth breaks down. His interest was first piqued when he encountered well-off people boasting of having a rescue mutt instead of a purebred dog. The message was that they were someone with an enlightened mind and a generous spirit, capable of disdaining the traditional trappings of affluence. It’s a show to claim status, and the animal is just a prop. “Perform a gallant act. Broadcast it. That’s virtue signaling in a dog biscuit,” writes Thompson. Looking around, he finds this sort of theater everywhere, from the organic foods that the “virtuous” favor to the fashionably battered clothes they wear. Part of this is due to the proliferation—and therefore devaluation—of items that were once marks of wealth (designer handbags and shoes, etc.), and part of it is due to the millennial generation getting older. There is an endless search for “authenticity,” notes the author, which often means traveling to exotic locations in order to post pictures on social media. Thompson, in his droll way, has a good time with all of this, so it is a shame that he often wanders off the point. The long section on luxury cars, for example, fails to connect with the rest of the narrative. However, he provides plenty of intriguing observations and comments, making the book an entertaining read.
Thompson is an insightful, wry observer of our times, with a cynical eye for the most foolish of human follies.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-476-76494-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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