A dense appreciation of a unique area that will appeal to those who have had enough tales of Manhattan.
A thorough examination of the history of the Bronx from colonial times up to the present.
Readers expecting a comic tone from New Yorker writer Frazier, author of Gone to New York, Travels in Siberia, and other acclaimed books, won't find it here. It's not entirely clear why he devotes a massive volume to the Bronx, aside from the fact that the author, who lives in a New Jersey suburb of New York, decided at some point about 15 years ago that he would walk a cumulative 1,000 miles in the borough. Frazier chronicles his deliberate pacing through the years, documenting what is known about the Native Americans who moved through the area before the Dutch settlers arrived, reflecting on the enslaved people who lived there in colonial times, and analyzing the impact of Revolutionary War battles on the area. Tangents abound: Frazier spends many pages, for example, on the life, travels to France, and mistresses of politician and occasional Bronx resident Gouverneur Morris, who was at least in part responsible for the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and who gave his name to the Bronx’s Morrisania neighborhood. Using mainly secondary sources, the author traces a narrative arc that leads up to the “paradise” era in the 1930s and ’40s, when children of Jewish immigrants played stickball in the streets; down to the lows of the 1970s, when fires seemed to sweep continually through the neighborhoods; through the rise of hip-hop and on to today, including the effects of gentrification. As he approaches the present, Frazier further inserts himself into the story, adding anecdotes about people he met on his walks or summarizing interviews with those who have had an impact on the community.
A dense appreciation of a unique area that will appeal to those who have had enough tales of Manhattan.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780374280567
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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 virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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