A painstakingly reported, clearly written case study that is all too relevant today.
A detailed account of the shooting deaths of police and self-described black nationalists on July 23, 1968, in Cleveland.
Cleveland-based lawyer and author Robenalt (January 1973: Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month that Changed America Forever, 2015, etc.) devotes roughly 75 percent of the book to Cleveland’s historical racism (both individual and systemic) and conditions that led to the shootout. Some of the characters and their personal histories within the Cleveland metropolitan area are so specific that non-Cleveland readers might feel adrift. Others, however, contribute to a story that was being played out in similar fashion across the United States, as the author appropriately explains. And the cast of characters at the end of the book is especially helpful. A major narrative thread involves the seeming anomaly of African-American politician Carl Stokes being elected mayor just eight months before the fatal day. As the first black mayor of a large American city, Stokes was poised to ameliorate racial tensions; Robenalt offers explanations about why that failed to occur. “Stokes was elected in an apparent triumph of the ballot over the bullet,” writes the author. “But even his election could not turn back the generations of frustration, anger, and neglect.” In addition, the author provides sometimes-surprising insights on why visits to Cleveland by Martin Luther King Jr. upset some of the leading individuals on both sides of the racial divide. Naturally, Clevelanders hoped that those directly responsible for the carnage—three police dead, 12 police wounded, at least three black nationalists dead and one wounded, at least two civilians dead from the crossfire—would face severe punishment. The leader of the black nationalists who fired shots did face trial in a Cleveland court, and a jury sentenced him to death. One fact about the trial highlighted the systemic racism contributing to the shootout: The jury was all white.
A painstakingly reported, clearly written case study that is all too relevant today.Pub Date: July 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-89733-703-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 Yorkerstaff 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 moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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