Detailed but not dense: a sturdy addition to the literature of social justice and contemporary women’s issues.
A complex account of justice sought—and won—in a case that stretched out over a quarter-century.
Lois Jenson, the unlikely heroine of this tale by journalist Bingham (Women on the Hill, 1997) and attorney Gansler, had it tough back in 1974. A single mother of two children born out of wedlock, she lived on welfare, food stamps, and low-paying jobs, barely making ends meet in the far north of Minnesota. When the federal departments of justice and labor required nearby mills and mines to increase their numbers of female and minority employees, she found work, hard and dirty but well paid, at a taconite plant. She was one of the few women outside the front office, and when some of her fellow male coworkers greeted her with lewd remarks and suggestions, it was no surprise; the Mesabi Range’s rough, male-dominated society was still “at its core a frontier culture.” As another female employee said, local women “didn’t know enough to know the men’s behavior was offensive or to know it was belittling.” Outsider Jenson did, and she complained. She was ignored by management, harassed even further by some of the men, ostracized by some of the women. A union grievance evolved into a seemingly endless class-action lawsuit. Reconstructing courtroom back-and-forth (a snippet of examination: “When you used the word fuck in the workplace, you didn’t determine in advance whether or not someone’s sensitivities are more acute than yours, did you?”), Bingham and Gansler track the changing fortunes of the suit as it met at first with hostile judges, was heard by a more sympathetic appellate court, and eventually provided a precedent by which subsequent harassment cases would be measured.
Detailed but not dense: a sturdy addition to the literature of social justice and contemporary women’s issues.Pub Date: June 18, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-49612-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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