A frightening, wholly believable vision of an American cataclysm to come—possibly soon.
Nightmarish dispatches from the camps of the “Trumpocene.”
At the epicenter of Sharlet’s account is Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was killed while attempting to breach the Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. She was, writes the author, “a fool who pursued her own death,” but then adds, “And yet, the rest of us might say the same of ourselves.” That’s a debatable proposition, but what isn’t debatable is how Babbitt, wholly committed to Trumpism, has been converted into a martyr, a symbol of MAGA vexillology: “Ashli Babbitt was processed, made productive, almost immediately after her death, transformed right away into yet another flag, like a new tarot card in the deck of fascism.” If Sharlet tries to give her a touch of a pass—she was someone’s daughter, once a little girl who loved horses—it comes back to doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Babbitt is the subject of constant debate and remembrance among the people Sharlet encountered as he traveled around the country, a journey that led him to lay out a sharp, distressing portrait of a chaotic future: MAGA America is pumped up for, even eagerly anticipating, civil war, egged on by self-serving fundamentalist preachers, undergirded by antisemitism and QAnon dogma, and manipulated by Trump, who “fused his penchant for self-pity with the paranoia that runs like a third rail through Christian conservatism, the thrilling promise of ‘spiritual war’ with dark and hidden powers.” It seems perhaps an odd digression for Sharlet to begin his account with a meditation on the subversive hidden meaning of the Harry Belafonte song “Day O!” but in the end, it all makes sense—far more so than the MAGA devotee who cursed Democrats for, as he confusedly asserts, “outlawing abortion.”
A frightening, wholly believable vision of an American cataclysm to come—possibly soon.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781324006497
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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