Ordinary lives rendered extraordinary by a master journalist who captures all their perplexity and quiet rebellion.
A selection of journalistic pieces from 1999 to 2007 by an accomplished Brazilian journalist, novelist, and documentary filmmaker spotlights “a country that exists only in the plural…the Brazils.”
A rigorous investigative journalist who attempts to inhabit the lives of her subjects while suppressing her own “biases, judgments, [and] worldviews,” El País columnist Brum (One Two, 2014, etc.) adheres to a method of listening carefully and letting her subjects unravel the story themselves. In the first piece, “Forest of Midwives,” the author chronicles the vivid tale of midwives in the riverlands of far northern Brazil, whose ancient skills at “baby-catching” are passed from generation to generation. Although the women don’t get paid or have a lot to eat, children are their riches: “Out here in these backwaters of death,” says one elder midwife, “either we fill the world with children or we vanish.” Brum writes eloquently of people mired in the doomed cycle of poverty, most of whom can’t get a leg up because there is no support. In “Burial of the Poor,” the author writes about Antonio, “feller of trees,” who walked to the hospital to retrieve his stillborn baby, just one of the numberless poor who “begin to be buried in life.” In the most heart-wrenching longer piece, “The Noise,” Brum tells the story of T., a longtime worker in an asbestos plant in São Paulo who was dying of mesothelioma (the “noise” was the hideous sound of his gasping for breath). Poisoned by the plant owners who knew the health danger and tried to get him to sign away indemnity (he refused), he told Blum, “I am made of asbestos.” Among many other poignant stories, the author describes the teeming underbelly of the favelas in Brasilândia, the desperately poor gold prospectors in Eldorado do Juma, a defiant elderly community in Rio de Janeiro, and a threatened clan of Indigenous people deep in the heart of the Amazon.
Ordinary lives rendered extraordinary by a master journalist who captures all their perplexity and quiet rebellion.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64445-005-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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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