An excellently rendered, unsettling narrative of America at its worst.
A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award chronicles a dark period when the Ku Klux Klan was ascendant.
In 1866, in a small town in Tennessee, six White war veterans formed a secret brotherhood to share their disgust about the emancipation of Blacks. By 1868, the Klan had 500,000 members “in every province of the former Confederacy.” By the 1920s, the Klan’s raids, beatings, lynchings, and arson had spread throughout the country. It was, Egan writes in his shocking, horrifying history, the “largest and most powerful of the secret societies among American men.” Klan members included ministers, politicians, judges, policemen, bankers, and businessmen, united in their belief in White supremacy and their virulent hatred of immigrants, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Blacks. Central to Egan’s narrative is David C. Stephenson, bluff and arrogant, a manipulator and liar, a vicious sexual predator, a “carouser, a gasbag, a petty thief” who demanded unconditional adoration from his lackeys. Charming when it suited him, ruthless toward his enemies, he harbored an insatiable lust for power. Stephenson’s “unbridled energy” fueled the exponential growth of the Klan in Indiana, where, he boasted, “I am the law.” Klan members filled positions at every level of government, and Stephenson himself aimed for a presidential run. Klan vigilantes rampaged on morality patrols, and the group allied with the eugenics movement to pass the nation’s first forced sterilization law. In 1924, Congress, filled with Klan members, passed the National Origins Act, vastly limiting immigration. Egan reveals the bold efforts of journalists, lawyers, and Black and Jewish leaders to oppose the Klan despite being threatened constantly. He also reveals the scandals and infighting that imperiled Stephenson’s position—until one woman’s deathbed testimony took him down. The Klan’s grievances, the nation’s polarization, and a blustering politician who saw efforts to bring him to justice as a “hoax and witch hunt”: This riveting history seem disturbingly familiar and undeniably chilling.
An excellently rendered, unsettling narrative of America at its worst.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9780735225268
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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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