Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 1/22/2007
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 1/22/2007
American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment
Sasha Abramsky. Beacon, $25.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-8070-4222-9
There's no doubt about where journalist Abramsky's fury is directed: at the contemporary U.S. penal system, which he criticizes for jettisoning any thoughts of rehabilitation in favor of increasingly harsh punishment, and which he sees as a reflection of America's violent culture. Few would find much to argue with as Abramsky depicts the recent growth of, and violence in, American prisons; he presents alarming statistics on the rise in government spending on punishment in the past 25 years, even as a "less government is more" ethos has ruled. He's also highly critical of mandatory sentencing laws. As he and others have pointed out, law and order wins political races, and jails provide jobs in places where industry has dried up. Abramsky (Hard Time Blues: How Politics Built a Prison Nation) has long written about this issue, and the book displays a lot of on-the-ground reportage with prisoners, corrections officials and scholars. His suggestions for returning to rehabilitation could be more specific, but this remains a well-researched book on a significant American problem that's often locked away behind bars. (May)
The Man Who Stopped Time: The Illuminating Story of Eadweard Muybridge—Pioneer Photographer, Father of the Motion Picture, MurdererBrian Clegg. Joseph Henry, $27.95 (276p) ISBN 978-0-309-10112-7
Eadweard Muybridge "stopped time," according to science journalist Clegg, by training a dozen cameras on a trotting horse, to show its movement as no painter ever had. While devising this system of sequential photography, Muybridge realized he could animate the horse's movements by reassembling the negatives. Having made his name as a pioneering photographer of Yosemite and Alaska, he made his historical mark by devising an innovative system of recording and showing motion pictures. Despite his flawed technology, it was Muybridge who opened the first movie house at the 1892 Chicago World's Fair, and his concept inspired the process used today. But Muybridge's engineering successes were tempered by tension in his personal relationships, Clegg shows. He alienated his patron Leland Stanford and spent years trying to drum up the massive financial backing he'd taken for granted. He also lived the second half of his life as a murderer, having shot his wife's lover, yet winning acquittal after arguing for his own insanity. Working with sometimes contradictory evidence like newspaper clippings, court records and personal letters, Clegg holds his readers' attention by filling in gaps in historical data with careful suppositions. (May 12)
The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? Leslie Bennetts. Hyperion/Voice, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4013-0306-8
It would be easy to dismiss this as yet another salvo in the mommy wars-—the debate over women opting out of careers to be stay-at-home moms. But Bennetts, a longtime journalist and writer for Vanity Fair, is more interested in investigating what she sees as the heart of the matter: economics. Through impressive research and interviews with experts and with real women, Bennetts shows that women simply cannot afford to quit their day jobs. Long-term loss of income has a cascading impact in areas such as medical benefits and retirement funds, not to mention a woman's sense of autonomy, derived from financial independence. Further, a career supplies a woman with a measure of security for herself and her children in the event of unexpected sickness or divorce. As any woman who has tried knows, returning to the workforce and finding a well-paying job after an absence of years, or even decades, is difficult. Not so long ago mothers would pin a dollar bill to their daughters' underclothes when they went out on a date in case, for some reason, they needed carfare home. Those mothers knew all to well that without money of your own it's easy to be left stranded. As Bennetts expertly shows, it's still true. (Apr.)
Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your BodyCourtney E. Martin. Free Press, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7432-8796-8
It is no longer enough for girls to be good, says journalist and teacher Martin in her debut book. Girls must now be perfect, and that need for perfection is played out in women's bodies. But beneath the high-achieving "perfect girl" surface, seven million American girls and women suffer from an eating disorder; 90% of high school–aged girls think they are overweight. Drawing on more than 100 interviews with women and girls ages 9–29, Martin constructs a cultural critique of a generation of girls steeped in the language of self-control. "If I'm not thinking about my body or calories, I'm probably sleeping or dead," a 14-year-old confesses. Such heartbreaking quotes fill the book and fuel Martin's anger. In chapters devoted to the influence of "porn culture," the role fathers play in shaping their daughters' self-image, eating disorders among athletes, the narrowly circumscribed role of women in hip-hop and more, Martin explores the forces that drive young women to sacrifice themselves on the altar of perfection. A self-described perfect girl, Martin brings a personal perspective to the topic. If occasionally overambitious in her reach, Martin has a valuable mission: calling on young women to harness their intellectual and emotional energy and learn to enjoy their bodies, "imperfect" though they may be. (Apr.)
What Makes Women HappyFay Weldon. Chicago Review, $18.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-55652-681-7
According to prolific novelist and playwright Weldon, women's sources of happiness are sex, food, friends, family, shopping and chocolate—in that order. Women can be "wonderfully" happy, but only for 10 minutes because after that, they are beset by anxiety and guilt (re chocolate: "My God, did I actually eat all that?"). Other failed attempts at witty, self-help advice: women should not be upset by men's fondness for porn because "men are creatures of the cave" and porn "just helps a man get through the day." Falling down some kind of rabbit hole that seems to have landed her in the 1950s, Weldon encourages women to fake orgasms because faking is "kind to male partners of the new man kind," who otherwise might become too anxious to perform. Her counsel to infertile women is downright dangerous: before pursuing grueling fertility treatments, first try getting pregnant from random sex with a stranger and then pass off his baby as your husband's. Famous as a novelist for clever feminist observations about the war between the sexes, Weldon (She May Not Leave) caused controversy in the U.K., where this latest effort was perceived as reactionary. Americans will surely find Weldon pathetically out of touch with her core readership with this mishmash of pointless parables and banal advice that won't make anyone happy. (Apr.)
Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political IdealistLois Gordon. Columbia Univ., $32.50 (528p) ISBN 978-0-231-13938-0
British-born heiress to the famous steamship fortune, Nancy Cunard (1896–1965) lived an extraordinary life. A famous beauty who became a flamboyant journalist and humanitarian, and an aspiring poet herself, she had such bold-faced lovers as Ezra Pound, who immortalized Cunard in the Cantos, and T.S. Eliot, who characterized her as an immoral siren with literary aspirations in The Waste Land. Edward, prince of Wales, wooed her to no avail; a fashion icon in Roaring '20s Paris, Cunard was photographed by Man Ray and played onscreen by Garbo; and she figured in the works of Waugh and Neruda. Cunard's long poem Parallax was published by the Woolfs' prestigious Hogarth Press, and her own Hours Press published Beckett, Robert Graves and Laura Riding. A scandalous romance with a black American musician severed her from family and inflamed her social conscience; she crusaded for blacks in her mammoth anthology Negro and against Franco's fascism as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. Although not written to appeal to a broad audience, this able, diligently researched biography by Fairleigh Dickinson English professor Gordon (coauthor of American Chronicle: Year by Year Through the 20th Century) revives the memory of a remarkable woman against the backdrop of major 20th-century events. Illus. (Apr.)
A Guest in My Own Country: A Human LifeGeorge Konrád. Other Press, $15.95 paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-59051-139-8
This powerful, highly literary memoir by a world-famous author—essayist and novelist Konrád was elected president of International PEN in 1990—discursively traces his life as a Hungarian child during the Holocaust, and later as a student during the Hungarian revolution of 1956. While it deals with his growth as an intellectual and writer, it is primarily a meditation on the conflicts between national and individual identity. Konrád's prose is distanced and unemotional, but always carries a potent punch: "In the winter of 1944–45 I saw any number of dead bodies. I could picture myself among them, but the tasks of day-to-day existence obscured most of my imaginings. Danger makes you practical." This cool, objective voice works as well for the smaller vignettes as it does when he is musing on Dr. Mengele's obsession with killing Jewish children. There are moments of almost surreal narrative here—his mother and father tell Konrád (b. 1933) and his sister bedtime "adventure stories" of how they survived the war—but also moments of stately, traditional bildungsroman. His account of the 1956 revolution, in which he was an active participant, is equally laconic. This memoir stirs and provokes in unexpected ways that linger after it is read. (Apr. 24)
The Dragon's Tail: The Biography of Raphael's MasterpieceJoanna Pitman. Touchstone, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7432-6513-3
Now in the collection at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Raphael's St. George and the Dragon was a thank-you gift from Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, to Henry VII in 1506 for making him a knight of the Order of the Garter (St. George was the order's patron saint). The work has had a complex, contested ownership, including Charles I, French financier Pierre Crozat, Catherine the Great, Joseph Stalin and Andrew Mellon. Pitman (On Blondes), photography critic for the Times of London, enthusiastically unravels this provenance in a skillfully paced, energetically written account that reads like a detective story, though her deep research includes archives from the Hermitage and interviews with prominent historians. Pitman's portrait of Raphael is vivid if familiar, describing a precocious, highly ambitious and financially astute artist-courtier who was a bitter rival of Michelangelo, a committed womanizer and consummate professional whose death, according to Vasari, resulted from "an excessive bout of lovemaking." Pitman has a broader aim beyond this one painting: she wants to demystify art and art history. The epilogue is an ode to public museums that allow not just rulers but ordinary people to view masterpieces of art. But Pitman's passion for Raphael's painting and for the investigative process is infectious and the book's greatest strength. (Apr. 17)
Auguste Rodin: Drawings & WatercolorsAntoinette Le Normand-Romain and Christina Buley-Uribe. Thames & Hudson, $34.95 (440p) ISBN 978-0-500-97321-9
The authors of this hefty volume present several hundred illustrations selected from the thousands of drawings and watercolors by Rodin (1840–1917) housed in Paris's Musée Rodin. In the brief but incisive text, Le Normand-Romain, who was in charge of sculpture at the museum, traces the artist's development as a sculptor and discusses his early drawings, especially the figural studies in black ink for his monumental door, The Gates of Hell. Buley-Uribe, in charge of graphic works at the museum, covers the enormous output of drawings and watercolors, most of them depicting nudes and dancers, that Rodin produced during the rest of his life. She shows how these were influenced by the art of ancient Egypt and Greece as well as by Rodin's observations of Japanese theater and Javanese and Cambodian dancers, and she describes the wide range of materials and techniques he used as he experimented with various media. Unfortunately, the text, which is essential for understanding these works, is printed so lightly and in such small type that it is hard to read. Otherwise, this is a handsome book in which well-reproduced color illustrations underscore the genius of an artist whose remarkable drawings and watercolors, often shocking for their eroticism, deserve to be better known. (Apr.)
Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car BombMike Davis. Verso, $19.95 (192p) ISBN 978-1-84467-132-8
From the world's first car bomb in 1920 (actually a horse-drawn wagon, exploded by anarchist Mario Buda in downtown Manhattan), to those incessantly exploding in Iraq, Davis shows how these "quotidian workhorses of urban terrorism" are responsible for "producing the most significant mutations in city form and urban lifestyle." Whether the product of fringe militancy or "clandestine state terrorism," Davis shows, the car bomb has a limitless capacity to create and sustain fear (largely because of low cost and technological accessibility). Given the weapon's ubiquity in modern times, a "brief history" scarcely allows room for the numerous theaters of conflict within which the car bomb has evolved, including Northern Ireland, Beirut, Israel, the U.S. and Colombia, let alone much political background on, say, the Tamil Tigers' bombing campaign in Sri Lanka. At its best, this is a gripping supplementary history, full of surprising, often contrarian facts and voices behind some of the most spectacular acts of violence on record. Despite clearly populist sympathies, Davis steers away from romanticism, keeping tight focus on the indiscriminate violence inflicted upon innocents. Packed with horrific and heartrending details, the book goes beyond the statistics to portray the human and moral costs of this gruesome political lever. Photos. (Apr.)
The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman EmpireAlessandro Barbero. Walker, $24.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-8027-1571-5
Medievalist Barbero (The Battle: A New History of Waterloo) offers a revisionist history of the relatively obscure battle of Adrianople, arguing that the course of world history changed after the clash in 378, in the eastern Roman province of Thrace, between an army of Goths and a Roman imperial army. The battle resulted in an overwhelming barbarian victory—the eastern emperor Valens died along with two-thirds of his army—setting in motion a train of events that led directly to "the fall of the western Roman Empire," according to Barbero. Rejecting the traditional view that Rome's decline was well underway by the fourth century, Barbero claims that by the eve of the battle of Adrianople, the empire's earlier problems "seemed to be... under control." To reconstitute the imperial army after the devastating losses at Adrianople, the Romans had to turn to the Goths, whose loyalty depended on how well they were paid. Eventually, the barbarians—despite their questionable loyalty—became "indispensable" for the defense and administration of the empire. When their interest and Rome's diverged, the western empire's fate was sealed. While Barbero's thesis is sure to spark debate among scholars and students, his sprightly prose makes this slim volume accessible to a general audience. (Apr.)
Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis and the People Who Pay the PriceJonathan Cohn. HarperCollins, $25.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-058045-2
In this addition to the growing list of exposés of the toll our patchwork, profit-based health-care system takes on Americans, Cohn makes a plea for a universal coverage with a single-payer system regulated by the government. Drawing on research and riveting anecdotes, Cohn, a senior editor at the New Republic, describes how private insurers decide who and what they will—and will not—cover. He also examines how rising health-care costs lead corporations to seek ways to deny coverage to employees, such as hiring full-time workers as temps or independent contractors without health insurance. In tale after tale, Cohn documents the sometimes catastrophic results. they couldn't. Cohn points out that managed care initially had an altruistic goal of making health-care affordable for all. But by 1997, two-thirds of HMOs were controlled by for-profit companies concerned with making money rather than preventing and easing sickness. The author convincingly argues that Medicare and universal health care in such countries as France, though not perfect, are far superior to the system most Americans face. Much of this is well-trod territory, but Cohn is eloquent, and he's good at using case studies to dramatize and explain complex issues. (Apr. 10)
Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in AmericaJeff Wiltse. Univ. of North Carolina, $29.95 (296p) ISBN 978-0-8078-3100-7
Historian Wiltse offers a detailed study of the history of municipal swimming pools from the late 19th century through the present, tracing their development from bare-bones baths for the working classes to elegant, "sylvan" recreational spaces for the middle and upper classes. Wiltse makes a strong case that the history of these swimming pools embodies the painful challenges that class, gender and race presented America in the 20th century. The most compelling portions of the book deal with segregation and the fight to integrate municipal pools. Wiltse describes the eroticizing of the municipal pool as white women began to appear in increasingly revealing swimming suits; this, says the author, was one of the primary motivations behind the white push for municipal pool segregation. Wiltse also details the "white flight" from the pools that followed desegregation. This is well done, clearly written, thoroughly researched history, and it effectively makes important points about the tensions that confounded America during the Civil Rights movement. The writing is occasionally dry and statistic-laden, but Wiltse uses the municipal swimming pool as a fascinating window onto social changes and urban tensions across the 20th century. B&w photos. (Apr. 23)
How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life: Opening Your Heart to Confidence, Intimacy, and JoySusan Piver. St. Martin's, $19.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-35596-8
Readers of popular self-help books may recognize Piver as the author of The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do." But Piver has also been a student of Buddhism for 10 years and is an authorized meditation teacher. This little book distills what Piver has learned from meditation, retreats and sessions with her spiritual teacher, offering a skillful description of Buddhist meditation for the beginner. Her point is very simple: "There is a kind of happiness that is effortlessly present at all times. This happiness comes from stopping the relentless search to fulfill our own needs. It comes from relaxing with things exactly as they are." In that vein, she explores several basic Buddhist concepts and also lays out a sort of in-home retreat for greater self-awareness, a seven-day, hour-by-hour program of journaling, walks and meditation. In trying in this way to combine the more spiritual Buddhist and more pragmatic self-help genres, she produces a book that's both personal and contemplative, but that may not appeal to readers of either genre. (Apr. 5)
All That Glittered: The Golden Age of Drama on Broadway, 1919–1959 Ethan Mordden. St. Martin's, $26.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-33898-5
Acclaimed for his sprightly histories of the Broadway musical, the author turns to nonmusical theater in this scintillating survey. Mordden considers New York theater the wellspring of mid-century American culture, especially during the 1930s, when the advent of talkies forced a Hollywood desperate for material to ransack Broadway for scripts—and the talent that could bring their dialogue to life. Thus, he contends, "West-Central Manhattan" remade America in its own image—urban, sophisticated and racy, presided over by the wisecracking reporter and "that ubiquitous 1930s character, the Unmarried Sarcastic Woman," and tinged with an ironic gay sensibility. Mordden brings out his themes in an anecdote-strewn tour of significant (and some not so significant) productions, pausing now and again for set-piece drama criticism—comparing O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, for example, with Rachel Crothers's comedy Susan and God—and perpetually tossing off witty asides (the sublimely square actor Ralph Bellamy, he observes, "brings the Clueless Hetero to a completion so absolute that [he] creates something never before thought possible or even necessary: the opposite of Kabuki"). Erudite, but casual and conversational, and full of fresh perceptions, Mordden is a charmingly insightful raconteur who condenses 40 years' worth of opening nights into a single engrossing montage. Photos. (Apr.)
The Violin Maker: Finding a Centuries-Old Tradition in a Brooklyn WorkshopJohn Marchese. HarperCollins, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-06-001267-0
Celebrated Brooklyn violin-maker Sam Zygmuntowicz recently accepted a challenging commission from violinist Eugene Drucker of the Emerson String Quartet: to make a new violin that would equal Drucker's beloved Stradivarius. Marchese (Renovations: A Father and Son Rebuild a House) documents their collaboration. He follows Zygmuntowicz through the exacting, scrape-by-scrape process of trying to transform a block of wood into an exquisitely wrought vibrating box that somehow captures the inexpressible sonic essence the finicky Drucker longs to hear. Along the way, Marchese goes on a pilgrimage to Stradivarius's hometown of Cremona and delves into the secrets behind the maestro's incomparable sound. Was it the wood? The varnish? The nap-time transmigration of his spirit into the violin under construction? Zygmuntowicz's example, Marchese finds, suggests a more prosaic, if no less marvelous, possibility—that the genius of craftsmanship resides not in magic ingredients or arcane techniques, but simply in taking infinite, exhausting pains with the work, in "caring more and more about less and less." He also broaches a more inflammatory corollary: that modern violins actually sound just as good as Strads. The result is a beguiling journalistic meditation on the links—and tensions—between art, craft and connoisseurship. (Apr.)
Teenage: The Creation of Youth CultureJon Savage. Viking, $29.95 (528p) ISBN 978-0-670-03837-4
Although popular assumption might place the birth of teenage culture alongside the rise of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s, Savage (England's Dreaming) traces a more elaborate backstory that extends into the late 19th century. His catalogue of influences and indicators bounces from Goethe and Rimbaud to teenage girls' diaries, but the account only begins to pick up steam at the end of the First World War, as a generation of British youth reject the values of the elders who sent them into battle. Later, in the U.S., Prohibition not only taught booze-loving college students disrespect for the law, it put them in contact with a criminal underground that strengthened their subversive tendencies. The analysis of teen culture during the Second World War is particularly strong, moving from the Hitler Youth and rebellious " swing kids" in Germany to the Zoot Suit riots of Los Angeles and the "Zazou" movement of occupied Paris. Savage weaves his disparate sources into a convincing narrative of how adolescents were molded by political and cultural pressures into the consumer-friendly category of " teenager" by the end of WWII, but while individual anecdotes carry some verve, the writing never fully sheds its dry academic tone. (Apr.)
Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's MemoirDan Mathews. Atria, $24 (272p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9187-3
Having grown up poor and gay, with a penchant for punk rock and Lawrence Welk, Mathews, who is now campaign chief for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, had a rough start. But his camp, cosmopolitan and crass memoir is like a life lesson from the Island of Misfit Toys: a study of the unwitting heroism and adventures of an outsider dedicated to a cause. Less a treatise than a picaresque tale, his book wouldn't be complete without a bit of persuasion, whether detailing the horrors of the fur industry, factory farming or animal experimentation. But he's as willing to make fun of himself as he is of his many targets—including Vogue editor Anna Wintour (who, he says, "looks as if she has constant, painful gas") and deli-meat–hurling Iowan children. Then again, this is a man who dresses up regularly in a carrot costume. Aided by humor, luck and friends like Pamela Anderson and Morrissey, Mathews makes clear there is savvy to his controversial methods. "The flair you bring to a protest is as important as the issues themselves—if you want to reach beyond the small core of whoever might care about an issue." Those at odds with Mathews's ideals are bound to find him irritating, but open-minded readers will discover a charming polemicist. (Apr. 17)
Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New DalevilleWitold Rybczynski. Scribner, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7432-3596-9
Architecture critic Rybczynski spent four and a half years observing the progress of New Daleville, a residential subdivision designed by one of his former students in a "neotraditional" style that builds houses close together on smaller-than-usual lots in order to foster a stronger sense of community. He is there to witness every stage of development, from the purchase of a large tract of land in rural Pennsylvania through meetings with local community leaders to get planning approval, to the moment when a family moves into one of the first completed units. The account is forthright about the difficulties New Daleville's creators face in making the project work, but Rybczynski (A Clearing in the Distance, etc.) remains optimistic that "the small lots [and] narrow streets... will all make sense" in the future. Occasionally, he provides historical and cultural perspective in a style reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell, debunking the myth of urban sprawl and explaining American homeowners' preference for single-family dwellings. But Rybczynski also excels at the "close-up," John McPhee's method of reporting, where every interview reads like an intimate conversation, and a simple walk down neighborhood sidewalks can reveal a wealth of history. This charming mixture of reportage and social criticism fits comfortably on the shelf next to David Brooks's On Paradise Drive. (Apr.)
Not a Drop to Drink: America's Water Crisis (and What You Can Do)Ken Midkiff. Inner Ocean (dist. by PGW), $14.95 paper (196p) ISBN 978-1-930722-68-2
Though it offers a litany of damning facts about America's state-of-emergency water crisis, this is pretty dry reading. Midkiff (The Meat You Eat) earnestly marshals plenty of cautionary information: once-flush aquifers are being rapidly depleted, most precipitously the Ogallala, which stretches from Nebraska to the Texas panhandle, while the Colorado (in Texas) and Rio Grande rivers vanish into dry riverbeds before they reach the Gulf of Mexico. Water from the tap in Atlanta has had to be boiled to make it potable, while farmers' wells in New Mexico are tapped out. Midkiff frets that the privatization of municipal water services will raise household bills for private profit, and faults outdated, lobby-driven farm subsidies for encouraging "water-guzzling" rice crops in California's Central Valley, which was once a desert, before the lure of underpriced water transformed it into an agricultural cornucopia. The author, former director of the Sierra Club's clean water campaign, doesn't put stock in desalinization plants or the meltwater of towed glaciers, believing that conservation is the most viable path to sustaining water supplies. His call for immediate collective effort makes good sense, even if expressed with bromides like "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." (Apr.)
The River QueenMary Morris. Holt, $24 ISBN (288p) 978-0-8050-7827-5
In this chronicle of a self-imposed journey down the Upper Mississippi River, Morris (Nothing to Declare) attempts to figure out her future and enjoy herself. After her daughter leaves for college and her father dies, Morris opts to jump aboard a houseboat, hoping the quest will help her navigate life's troughs. It's a great idea, but the voyage is tough on the reader. Morris is a touchy trekker, making her less than a great travel companion. Until the last third of the book, she's distressed by just about everything having to do with the venture. The cramped quarters on the houseboat, the food, the once booming river towns now mostly boarded up and lonely, and the sometimes tedious pace all cause her consternation. "I hate pizza. I hate all that doughy stuff. I want a meal, shower, amenities," sums up her attitude for most of the trip. Morris sprinkles the narrative with tantalizing bits of fact and opinion regarding both the human and natural environments she encounters. This is where the book sparkles. But often she barely skims the surface, leaving the reader thirsty for more. Sadly, by the time Morris regains her spirit and begins to enjoy the adventure, readers may have jumped ship. (Apr.)
Without a Map: A MemoirMeredith Hall. Beacon, $24.95 (248p) ISBN 978-0-8070-7273-8
It was 1965 when Hall was expelled from her New Hampshire high school, shunned by all her friends, made to leave her mother's home, and kept hidden from sight in her father's house—all because she was a sexually naïve 16-year-old, pregnant by a college boy who wasn't all that interested in her anyway. And in this memoir, chapters of which have been published in magazines, Hall narrates this bittersweet tale of loss. After childbirth her baby was put up for adoption so fast, she never had even a glimpse of him. She finished high school at a nearby boarding school, then soon wandered to Europe and eventually found herself just walking, alone, from country to country. Somewhere in the Middle East she scraped bottom and repatriated herself. She accumulated another lover and had two children, before her first son, the one she was forced to abandon, made contact. Making peace with him was deeply healing. This painful memoir builds to a quiet resolution, as Hall comes to grips with her own aging, the complexities of forgiveness and the continuity of life. (Apr.)
Get in the Game: Elements of Perseverance That Make the DifferenceCal Ripken Jr. with Donald T. Phillips. Gotham, $26 (272p) ISBN 978-1-592-40264-9
Athletic superstar Ripken (Play Baseball the Ripken Way) turns the often pro-forma business/personal management guidebook into a well-written combination autobiography and inspirational self-help book. During his long career with the Baltimore Orioles, Ripken broke numerous baseball records, including New York Yankee Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive games played, and he was recently voted into the Hall of Fame at his first opportunity. Unlike Ripken's other autobiographical books on baseball, this one begins with a contemplation of Gehrig's famed work ethic (maintained even after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and analyzing "the many parallels in our careers and how similarly he and I approached our jobs." Ripken breaks down Gehrig-style perseverance—"steadfastness, hanging in there in the face of difficulty, overcoming obstacles"—into eight elements, each with its own chapter: "The Right Values," "A Strong Will to Succeed," "Love What You Do, "Preparation," "Anticipation, "Trusting Relationships," "Life Management" and "The Courage of Your Convictions." Many of his observations border on the clichéd ("Straight shooters get more work, are appreciated more, and are almost always respected"). But overall the book's essential message—"If you enjoy the journey, you're going to be more involved. And then you'll always be in the game"—is illuminating even to those who aren't baseball fans. (Apr. 10)
True Grace: The Life and Death of an American PrincessWendy Leigh. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-312-34236-4
Grace Kelly's public persona sounds glam: a Hollywood star marries royalty. But behind the cameras were decades of unhappiness and a lonely death. And in this well-researched biography, Leigh (Prince Charming: The John F. Kennedy, Jr., Story) presents Kelly as the daughter of a self-made millionaire known for his philandering and emotional indifference. Yet she was eager to impress him and longed for attention. She found it onscreen and in a series of affairs with older, married men: Ray Milland, Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper and the Shah of Iran. In fact, according to Leigh, she had affairs before and after her marriage. Kelly looked cool, but she was sexually aggressive—a subject that Leigh doesn't shy away from. The mystery is why the Oscar winner chose Prince Rainier, the ill-tempered, cash-strapped ruler of a tiny principality. It wasn't a love match: Rainier got a $2 million dowry, while Kelly's glamour turned a dissolute country into a playpen for the rich and famous. Kelly hoped to keep her career and was crushed when she realized marriage had trapped her. She could divorce—but she couldn't take her children. Leigh makes certain to note Rainier's infidelities—along with chronicling Kelly's history, acting career and charitable work in Monaco. (Apr.)
Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage & Cunningham Carolyn Brown. Knopf, $35 (656p) ISBN 978-0-394-40191-1
Brown, a founding member of Merce Cunningham's dance company, began working on her memoir shortly after leaving the troupe in 1972, but it's proved worth the 30-year wait. Of course, the behind-the-scenes perspective on Cunningham's groundbreaking choreography is invaluable, but Brown's keen critical insights are enhanced by her account of Cunningham's temperamental difficulties in relating to and managing his fellow artists. She also discusses the role avant-garde composer John Cage played in the company's development, although it's the emotional roller-coaster of their friendship that proves most memorable. For many, the centerpiece of Brown's story might be found in several chapters devoted to a 1964 world tour, but there are wonderful moments sprinkled throughout, including the debut performance of Cage's landmark silent piece, 4'33" , along with humorous vignettes featuring Robert Rauschenberg, Willem de Kooning and Rudolf Nureyev. Brown writes with great candor about the emotional costs of her artistic commitment, but she can occasionally be oblique; the dissolution of her marriage to open-form composer Earle Brown nearly gets lost in the shuffle of performances (and reactions to outraged critics, many recounted in detail). Her story will become an indispensable document for anyone curious about the mid-century revolution in American art. 40 pages of photos. (Mar. 21)
Ultra TalkDavid Kirby. Univ. of Georgia, $19.95 paper (280p) ISBN 978-0-8203-2909-3
Over the course of 16 previously published essays, ranging from extensive literary analyses to relatively brief reviews, poet and critic Kirby (The Ha-Ha) explores subjects as diverse as Walt Whitman, NASCAR and stripping, utilizing his extensive literary knowledge throughout. Kirby's general thesis is that the best art is art that's appreciated by both the elite and the general public over a long period of time, and in his academic essays about Shakespeare and Whitman, he demonstrates this bridging with an effortless combination of anecdote and quotation. Kirby's travels also play a significant role, particularly his journeys through Italy, which are warmly, if sometimes a bit tediously, recounted in "Looking for Leonardo" and "I Shot a Man in Corleone." Kirby's interaction with pop culture subjects is less assured than with high culture ones—his Johnny Cash insights, for example, seem anemic next to his bravado interweaving of Emily Dickinson and Bernini's Saint Teresa. In most places, however, Kirby's understanding of such a wide range of subjects greatly enhances his literary analysis, as in his piece about striptease, which bemoans the devolution of erotic dancing from an art form to pornography. No matter the subject, Kirby's goal is to find connections—between the past and the present, the artistic and the mundane—and, for the most part, that goal is soundly achieved. (Mar. 25)
Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts Clive James. Norton, $35 (768p) ISBN 978-0-393-06116-1
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, Tacitus to Margaret Thatcher, this scintillating compendium of 110 new biographical essays plumbs the responsibilities of artists, intellectuals and political leaders. British critic James (Visions Before Midnight) structures each entry as a brief life sketch followed by quotations that spark an appreciation, a condemnation or a tangent (a piece on filmmaker Terry Gilliam veers into a discussion of torturers' pleasure in their work). Sometimes, as in his salute to Tony Curtis's acting or his savage assault on bebop legend John Coltrane's penchant for "subjecting some helpless standard to ritual murder," James's purpose is just bravura opinionating. But most articles are linked by a defense of liberal humanism against totalitarianisms of the left and right—and ideologues who champion them. He lionizes prewar Vienna's martyred Jewish cafe intellectuals; castigates French apologists for communism—especially Sartre, who "could sound as if he was talking about everything while saying nothing"; and chides Borges for not noticing Argentina's descent into fascism. This theme can grow intrusive; even in an entry on children's author Beatrix Potter, he feels called upon to denounce Soviet children's books. But James's brilliantly aphoristic prose, full of aesthetic insights but careful not to let aesthetics obscure morality, makes for a delightful browse suffused with a potent message. Photos. (Mar.)
The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and WhyJabari Asim. Houghton Mifflin, $26 (288p) ISBN 978-0-618-19717-0
Midway through Washington Post columnist Asim's history of the "N" word in America, readers may conclude it should not be uttered by anyone, anymore, for any reason. Essentially, this 400-year chronology is an exhaustive history of white supremacist ideology, showing that the word nigger is as American as "liberty, freedom, justice and equality." He sweeps over this sensitive and contradictory terrain—including black Americans' use of the word—with practicality, while dispensing gentle provocations. Asim notes, for example, that popular civil rights presidents like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon B. Johnson used the N word all the time. Bicycling in Africa in 2004, a young black American encounters a black-owned hip-hop clothing store called "Niggers." Children growing up during the latter half of the 19th century sang "The Ten Little Niggers" nursery rhyme. Asim is at his best when offering his opinion—"in the 21st century, to subsist on our former masters' cast-off language... strikes me as... an immense, inscrutable, and bizarre failure of the imagination." Still, he concludes, the word nigger is indispensable in certain endeavors. His analysis of 19th- and 20th-century pop culture phenomena may too fine-toothed for general readers, but clear, engaging writing increases the pleasure. (Mar.)
Israel and Palestine: Peace Plans from Oslo to DisengagementGalia Golan. Markus Wiener, $22.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-55876-421-7
Delivering a readable and remarkably evenhanded account, Golan, an Israeli activist and professor of government, dissects each of the major Israeli and Palestinian peace attempts, from Oslo in 1993 to the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, and evaluates the current prospects for peace. Avoiding overstatement and diatribe, she meticulously analyzes the letter and spirit of these accords, weaving complex issues (such as the status of 1947–1948 refugees and East Jerusalem) into the modern political context (Sharon's rise to power, Palestinian uprisings, etc.). On the positive side, she shows, this decade-plus of negotiations has brought an acceptance of the 1967 borders as a basic framework of agreement. From the beginning, however, these negotiations were beset with a lack of trust and a dramatic power imbalance, and were consistently undermined by Israeli military occupation and settlement programs and Palestinian terrorism. Despite the difficult subject matter, Golan remains as critical of her own government as she is of its Arab counterparts—and bolsters her analysis with helpful maps and full annexes of the agreements. Her conclusion is refreshingly, if ambitiously, optimistic: despite the violence and intransigence of both sides, she argues that Israelis and Palestinians are substantially closer to peace now than when the talks began. (Apr.)
American Warrior: A Combat Memoir of VietnamJohn C. "Doc" Bahnsen Jr. with Wess Roberts. Carol/Citadel, $24.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-8065-2806-9
Retired army brigadier general Bahnsen (West Point class of 1956) presents his war memoir with the help of old military writing pro Roberts (Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, etc.) in an oddly shaped narrative. It consists primarily of Bahnsen's vivid, first-person recollections of his two action-packed Vietnam tours of duty, in 1966–1967 and 1968–1969, with the 118th Assault Helicopter Company, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 1st Armored Squadron. Interspersed with Bahnsen's remembrances are detailed oral history–like interviews with the general's former military colleagues, along with occasional italicized passages, presumably from Roberts, since several refer to Bahnsen in the third person. Bold subheads mark transitions between Bahnsen's offerings and the others, such as "Then Major Jim Dozier talks about pacification and Vietnamization." The stories, which rely significantly on reconstructed quotes, paint Bahnsen as a "tough, bullheaded" warrior, as one of his former sergeants puts it. Bahnsen, who Roberts says fought in Vietnam with "nonstop heroism," remains a true believer in the mission in that controversial war. "My only regrets," he says, "are the men killed and wounded and the fact that we did not kill more of the communist bastards!" 16 pages of color photos. (Mar.)
Days of Valor: An Inside Account of the Bloodiest Six Months of the Vietnam WarRobert L. Tonsetic. Casemate (www.casematepublishing.com), $32.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-932033-52-6
In his first book, Tonsetic focuses on the battles at the start of the North Vietnamese and Vietcong Tet offensive from late January to May 1968, fought by his unit, the U.S. Army's 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, which was assigned to the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Tonsetic, who commanded an infantry company, relies heavily on evocative first-person testimony from his fellow infantrymen to paint a picture of almost nonstop combat action among his and other battalions of the 199th, which fought primarily around the cities of Bien Hoa, Long Binh and Saigon. But rather than a memoir, this is an in-the-trenches look at men in combat that tells "the stories of the men who performed the deeds of valor through their own eyes and words." In fact, Tonsetic refers to himself throughout the narrative in the third person. With its acronym-heavy use of military lingo and its focus on tactics and battle action, this book will appeal to those interested in the nuts and bolts of Vietnam War combat and in the period during which Americans killed in action reached the highest levels of the long Vietnam War. (Mar.)
Testimony: France in the Twenty-First CenturyNicolas Sarkozy. Pantheon, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-375-42505-9
Much of this newly translated political manifesto by France's Gaullist presidential front-runner won't come across clearly to Americans—especially the author's cryptic allusions to his marital difficulties, his murky feuds with other French politicians, and to unnamed "plotters and schemers in their smoke-filled rooms." But given Sarkozy's penchant for "American"-style rhetoric, much else will seem familiar: his celebration of individual initiative, hard work and risk-taking entrepreneurship; his insistence that France dynamite its allegedly sclerotic welfare state and embrace a competitive global economy; his tough-on-crime stance and his tearful elegies for children murdered by sex offenders. Sarkozy decries France's 35-hour workweek, high minimum wage and lavish dole, and fires a fusillade of small-bore, often vague proposals to improve the tax and judicial systems, education, the constitution, the civil service and immigration policy. For all his echoing of Bills Clinton and O'Reilly (with a touch of Gallic grandiosity), this leader on the French right is still left of the American consensus; he opposes the death penalty and champions affirmative action, and even his reformed welfare state would strike many Americans as socialistic. As bracing—or unsettling—as Sarkozy may sound to the French, in English he is rather tepid. (Mar.)
Driving with Dead PeopleMonica Holloway. Simon Spotlight, $23 (336p) ISBN 978-1-4169-4002-2
Death lurks everywhere in Holloway's childhood. A neighbor boy accidentally shoots and kills a train conductor; a little girl is mowed down by a motorist. Her father's main hobby is filming grisly car wrecks and natural disasters, and her best friend's family runs the town mortuary. Observing the dead in their coffins, Monica wonders: would she be better off in a casket than alive in her parents' home? In this memoir, Holloway (an actress turned writer) tackles the horrifyingly familiar story of father/daughter incest: the secrecy that surrounds it and the ways it corrodes families from the inside out. Even though her memories of the abuse were repressed, evidence cropped up everywhere, from her chronic bed-wetting and compulsive lying as a girl to her adult attraction to abusive men; when her older sister, JoAnn, comes forward with her recollections, Holloway begins to remember her own trauma. As a writer, Holloway might not be in Mary Karr's league, but her blunt sentences deliver the unvarnished truth. In coming to terms with her tragedy, Holloway writes, "Knowing there is no cavalry is much better than hoping for a cavalry that never comes." Her memoir sings with the power of a disenfranchised woman finally finding her own voice, and her brutal memoir is hard to forget. (Mar.)
Pint-Sized Ireland: In Search of the Perfect GuinnessEvan McHugh. St. Martin's/Dunne, $23.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-36366-6
An Australian, McHugh has his first pint of Guinness on the ferry from Wales to Ireland and is mighty unimpressed. But after he reaches the Emerald Isle, his opinion of Guinness changes and, along with Twidkiwodm ("the-woman-I-didn't-know-I-would-one-day-marry"), he circumnavigates the island in search of the best pint. McHugh certainly isn't the first backpacker to traverse Ireland's customary tourist spots—Yeats country, the Burren, the pubs of Dublin, the Giants' Causeway, Dingle Bay—with beer on the brain. But it is the unplanned events that make the travel special. While he inserts his share of Irish lore and legend into his travelogue, his descriptions of being in a rowboat with a German bagpiper or his recounting of leading a rag-tag bunch of Italians, Germans and Australians up the sacred mount Croagh Patrick are what brings his book to life. It also helps that McHugh, who continually professes his admiration for Irish writers, has a bit of the gift of gab himself. His prose flows like a friendly barstool chat and his frequent cheeky one-liners play the foil to his nostalgic nature. (Mar.)
Brave New West: Morphing Moab at the Speed of GreedJim Stiles. Univ. of Arizona, $19.95 paper (272p) ISBN 0-8165-2474-2
When the author of this humorous and provocative book moved to Moab, Utah, nearly 30 years ago, he thought he'd found the perfect "funky little town" that offered "open land, solitude, and the freedom to live an uncluttered life." But within 25 years, the place was inundated with mountain bikers, backpackers, motor homes, fast food chains, housing projects, resort hotels and all manner of promoters and developers. As in the independent newspaper he started in 1989, the Canyon Country Zephyr, Stiles rails against these intruders and the uncontrolled growth they bring to the rural West. Developers and tourists bear the brunt of his spleen, but he also has harsh words for those who long for the "good old days" while making a buck from the new, and for environmentalists who promote an "amenities economy" but fail to see how this commodifies nature. Though a curmudgeon, he allows some cautious optimism, advocating dialogue between the Old and the New West, and champions those who defy conventional economic wisdom. Even at his most acerbic—castigating environmentalists and admonishing tourists to be humble—Stiles never fails to be entertaining. 17 line drawings by the author. (Mar.)
Men May Come and Men May Go, but I've Still Got My Little Pink RaincoatGigi Anders. HarperCollins/Rayo, $19.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-111885-2
These lively dispatches from the dating circuit by Anders, the Cuban-American journalist and author (Jubana!), redeems each man in her life according to the item of clothing he inspires. The first of these 10 chapters, "Little Pink Raincoat," establishes unfussily the author's essential emotional conflict between possessing that perfectly wonderful piece of clothing, in this case a bubble-gum pink Gap raincoat ("Once you have it," she notes, "you've arrived more deeply and forever at your best self"), and finding the sympathetic mate. In the end, the author gains the raincoat, which her yo-yo lover of four years barely notices, and loses the guy. Ditto for the rest of her sartorial trials: "Peach Panties" chronicles a short-lived affair with a Washington, D.C., married dermatologist (she calls him DFC, for Doctor Fruit Cocktail), whose fetish is peach-colored lingerie; "Red Ballet Slippers" finds her obsessing over the purchase of red ballet flats to wear on a blind date with a suave Argentinean snob in Miami (he turns out to be gay and in need of a green card). In this lighthearted memoir, Anders demonstrates some clever journalistic writing and an impeccably fun fashion sense. (Mar.)
Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and CreationismEdited by Andrew J. Petto and Laurie R. Godfrey. Norton, $27.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-393-05090-5
Paying significant attention to creationism's newest incarnation, intelligent design, this revision of Petto and Godfrey's 1983 Scientists Confront Creationism contains mostly new essays and some revised holdovers from the original edition. The 16 articles include contributions from some of the biggest names in the anti-creationism field: Wesley Elsberry demolishes the concept of complexity promoted by William Dembski, while several contributors demonstrate that Dembski defines his terms idiosyncratically, in a manner that scientists have not found productive, and that his mathematics and logic are wanting. Similarly, ample evidence is presented to show that Michael Behe's best examples of irreducible complexity have been found to have simpler versions indicating how they could have evolved. Individually, the chapters are well written for a general audience. Collectively, however, there is a fair amount of repetition, The best chapters directly take on the claims of creationists and promoters of intelligent design; less engaging and useful are chapters that largely ignore the controversy and present detailed evolutionary information. Nonetheless, there is much to help readers gain a robust understanding of the current controversy. Indeed, the point is very clearly made that the battle is a political one and not one of scientific substance. (Mar.)
The Baseball Economist: The Real Game ExposedJ.C. Bradbury. Dutton, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-525-94993-0
Subjecting recent baseball debates to plentiful regression analyses, Kennesaw State economist Bradbury gamely fuses our national pastime and the "dismal science" somewhat in the spirit of Steven Levitt (Freakonomics), Michael Lewis (Moneyball) and Bill James (Baseball Between the Numbers). Like the latter, Bradbury offers a front-office perspective on labor (that's the players), salaries, managerial influence, steroids, market size and the like. Like a scrappy role player, Bradbury's enthusiasm is evident (he's a Braves supporter); he offers a chapter on managers' ability to work the umps ("it appears that most managers don't seem to have any real impact in arguing balls and strikes") and investigates top pitching coach Leo Mazzone's contributions. A blogger at his Web site sabernomics.com (a play on the acronym SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research), Bradbury, while not forging new ground, shines in the closing chapters, in which he convincingly bucks the conventional wisdom that Major League Baseball behaves like a monopoly. While the numbers crunched are more of the Financial Times than the box score kind, the issues the book deals with are those discussed in many a barroom. (Mar.)
Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr. Burt Boyar. Regan, $49.95 (340p) ISBN 978-0-06-114605-3
So often photographs tell the story of—or offer insights into—their subjects, but in this collection of photos taken by Sammy Davis Jr., beginning in the early 1950s, the story told is that of the photographer. Boyar, who co-wrote with his wife, Jane, three autobiographies with Davis (Yes I Can; Why Me?; Sammy), now offers these beautiful archival snapshots that Davis took of his friends, family and acquaintances. "Jerry [Lewis] gave me my first important camera, my first 35 millimeter, during the Ciro's period, early '50s," Boyar quotes Davis. "And he hooked me." The photos that follow are rare shots of his father dancing onstage as part of the Will Mastin Trio; fun, candid snapshots as only a close friend can take of Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Nat "King" Cole and Marilyn Monroe; of politicians (and family members) he associated with, like Robert Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr.; and most touching—and rare—are photos of his one-time wife May Britt and their three children, Tracey, Jeff and Mark. Boyar writes that "Sammy's camera often served as a shield" to gain access to places he couldn't because of his color. Again quoting Davis, "Nobody interrupts a man taking a picture to ask... 'What's that nigger doin' here?' " As an entertainer and photographer, Davis was able to enter into many worlds. (Feb.)
Poor PeopleWilliam T. Vollmann. Ecco, $29.95 (464p) ISBN 978-0-06-087882-5
The varied responses to the question "why are you poor?" fuels this meditation on the nature of poverty by journalist and National Book Award–winning novelist Vollmann (Europe Central, etc.). The book, structured as a series of vignettes that span the globe and decades, describes Vollmann's encounters with individuals and families who many would consider poor. A handful of these people, including three generations of women in Thailand and two men in Japan, drive the book, as Vollmann closely examines their circumstances. His alternately sentimental and erudite inquiry is based in large part on his and their personal experience, as an antidote to the official and scientific data about poverty. Indeed, his attempt to understand poverty is deeply entwined with a more poetic inquiry into happiness. Some of the anecdotes set aflight by Vollmann's novelistic attention to details are provocative;others, however, come off as more nostalgic than illustrative, and give the book a desultory feel. But the book's movement between details and thought, spiced with Vollmann's singular style, is intriguing. On the table is not just poverty, but questions of community, fate and perspective. The book's greatest accomplishment is that—unlike other works of this sort—it's neither guilt producing nor guilt absolving. At the end, there's no implied sigh or self-congratulation, for writer or reader. This is the book's greatest achievement.(Mar.)
