Familiar pandemic terrain revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.
In this memoir, a New Yorker offers reflections on the year of Covid-19, complete with a look at former President Donald Trump and his administration.
From Covid-19’s first appearance on the West Coast in the beginning of 2020 to the insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Pedersen tracks the local, national, and global progression and consequences of the virus that would change everything during a year of stress, craziness, and an ever increasing death toll. It is hard to imagine anyone being able to make readers laugh—or at least chuckle—with such a narrative. But the author, who has written five plays and 18 books, composes paragraphs rich in sarcasm and irony. Although she is an unabashed progressive, even her beloved New Yorkers and their leaders do not always escape her sharp commentary. It is not long before Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio become “Guv Dad” and “Mayor Mom,” trying to get their millions of kids to behave and stay safe: “Mayor Mom wanted to talk things out and employ more ‘social distancing ambassadors’ for a socially distanced group hug. Guv Dad was having none of it.” “Daft Uncle Donald” was always ready to exacerbate the parental discord with some new revelation: “We’d have very few cases if testing stopped.” Acerbic wit notwithstanding, Pedersen’s edgy memoir is an exhaustive, chronologically organized, and annotated compendium of the multitude of crises that roiled the country—the pandemic, the scarcity of Covid-19 tests, the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, historic hurricanes, an explosion of wildfires, and the dangerous miracle cures that were instantly debunked. Remember Trump pondering injecting disinfectants into the human body? The book is both political and personal—a newsreel of 2020 that viscerally and angrily captures the tragedy, confusion, and communal anxiety of the year from an author who lived in one of the country’s first virus epicenters. At one point, Pedersen describes early June as New York City entered Phase 1 of the reopening: “Finally, we all had toilet paper, but the FDA announced a shortage of the antidepressant Zoloft and its generic equivalents.”
Familiar pandemic terrain revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.Pub Date: March 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-673620-3
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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
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