A superior exploration of the consequences of the hollowing out of our agricultural heartlands.
A Washington, D.C.–based journalist returns to her Idaho birthplace and muses about its decline.
Permanently settled in the 1860s by a mixture of homesteaders, miners, and loggers, Emmett grew into a prosperous farming town. It also became almost entirely White because that’s what settlers wanted. “The history of Emmett…is rife with horrific stories of murder and abuse of local Native Americans,” writes Olmstead, and Idaho laws forbidding Asian land ownership stayed on the books until 1952. Along with local history, the author offers a skillful mixture of memoir, polemic (in the vein of Michael Pollan), and paean for rural communities (à la Wendell Berry, cited often). She paints a simultaneously vivid and discouraging picture of the consequences of a profit-hungry economic system in which “mobility is equated with success and rootedness with failure.” Even as she matured in a loving family and close-knit community, Olmstead faced consistent pressure to leave. The ruthless combination of the free market and government policy was converting family farms into megafarms focused only on “profit-focused ends.” In the 1980s, farmers earned 37 cents from every dollar Americans spent on food; today, it’s 15 cents and dropping. As an industrial product, food increasingly became an input for other industrial products. Perhaps the author’s greatest shock was discovering Emmett’s dependence on supermarkets, which carry few local goods. Surrounding farms once provided much of their food, but no more. One Virginia farmer told Olmstead that “farming is seen as what you do if you can’t do anything else.” The author also describes an organic farm, a workaholic entrepreneur expanding his produce farm, and a couple who left the city to restore a family farm. While these stories reflect optimism, much of Olmstead’s urgent narrative, a kindred spirit to Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s American Harvest, suggests that too much has been lost already.
A superior exploration of the consequences of the hollowing out of our agricultural heartlands.Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-08402-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Sentinel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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
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
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