An astute examination of loneliness and isolation that sheds light, finds humor, and provides hope.
A cultural anthropologist offers his take on America’s self-reliant culture.
According to Richardson, some key traits lodged in the American ethos, such as self-reliance and maintaining privacy, seem positive but have contributed to increasing widespread isolation; trauma lessens when burdens are shared as a group, but too often Americans are expected to find their own solutions. Sally, a participant in the author’s study, is a nurse mourning the tragic death of her sister. (Richardson uses research gleaned from a sampling of older Americans aged 45-74.) Her co-workers ignored Sally’s unhappiness until her volatile emotions began to affect her job performance. By comparison, Richardson’s adopted South Indian community (he spent time in the region conducting fieldwork as a student) gave immediate “comfort and censure” to a man who had developed a drinking problem, seeing his issue as the group’s responsibility. Family ties in modern America are weak and distant compared to earlier time periods and other cultures, the author asserts. Canada’s Nêhiyawak people have 17 terms related to varieties of cousins; in the U.S., most people have little contact with any cousins at all. Richardson observes that even minor-seeming issues, such as the ways we eat and have fun, contribute to societal disconnection. With abundant specialized diets (e.g., gluten-free or vegan) available to them and unlimited access to snacks, family members and friends often eat separately rather than sharing meal times. Recreation is a healthy respite from work, but the idea of fun has shifted—rather than involving social interactions, amusement now often falls to streaming platforms like Netflix, viewed alone. Richardson effectively uses humor and personal anecdotes—his dad becomes an ongoing joke—and the book’s charts and graphs are mostly easy to read. The author’s message that we need more collectivism to be healthy again is daunting for an individualistic society, but Richardson also provides glimmers of hope; for example, Gen Z seems to be a more collaborative generation than its predecessors, and Americans are seeking mental health treatment more often.
An astute examination of loneliness and isolation that sheds light, finds humor, and provides hope.Pub Date: May 17, 2024
ISBN: 9798988768005
Page Count: 434
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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