A clarion call for reproductive rights.
A resonant collection that champions reproductive freedoms in the face of widespread opposition.
Editor Oria, whose previous collection, Indelible in the Hippocampus, gathered writings on the #MeToo movement, compiles another mixed-media powerhouse. Fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, and art elevate this collection into a technical triumph, finely pairing a range of forms with its contributors’ intersectional experiences. Effortlessly diverse, the book reminds readers that reproductive rights are more than a stance on abortion; many pieces explore the choice of childlessness, while others recount the horrors of nonconsensual sterilization. These brave stories are devastating to read and will inspire action (the book is produced in collaboration with the Brigid Alliance, a pro-choice fund that offers travel support for women in need). The fiction leans toward realism—e.g., the expecting lesbians in Kristen Arnett’s “The Babies” or the baby-crazy and terminally ill husband in Alison Espach’s “Let’s Just Be Normal and Have a Baby.” The nonfiction unfolds similarly but lands with a haunting, real-life gravity. Riva Lehrer’s “Curse of the Spider Woman,” which details her struggles with spina bifida and the nonconsensual sterilization she endured after a medical emergency, is one of the most affecting contributions. Beautiful, accessible poems are woven throughout, but the plays often feel trite by comparison, and a comic about White privilege is consumed by its own aggressive wokeness and lacks the heart that makes the other contributions so successful. Central to the collection is an exchange between Oria and her friend, where their discussion was overshadowed by the pandemic and the current toxic political climate. “As we continue our cultural conversation on reproductive health,” Oria writes in her introduction, “...my hope is that we fight the terrible symptom while keeping in mind the larger illness that produces it, a system in which certain bodies hold inherent power over other bodies.” Other contributors include Deb Olin Unferth, Tommy Orange, Tiphanie Yanique, and Kirstin Valdez Quade.
A clarion call for reproductive rights.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-952119-21-7
Page Count: 428
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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