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Recent Reviews
Mary V. Dearborn
Rave The Washington Post Carefully researched and smartly rendered ... In this extraordinary biography, Dearborn brings Carson McCullers to life, revealing the debilitating physical ailments and near-constant psychic torment she had to conquer to produce four works of fiction imbued with some of the most emotionally sensitive poetic prose ever produced in American letters — a testament to why McCullers will live on as a unique and enduring artist.
Alice Sedgwick Wohl
Positive Washington Post Unflinching in its honesty, Wohl’s memoir provides a disquieting glimpse into one family in America’s privileged class, a family made worthy of examination because one of its members — whose presence lives on luminously in her films — remains a source of fascination more than 50 years after her death ... sensitive, elegantly written.
Lee Kravetz
Positive The Washington Post ... highly readable, entertaining...the novel is an ingenious addition to an ever-growing body of work about Plath that has helped make her an American literary icon ... Expertly woven together, the three storylines tell one story ... Last Confessions is not without its missteps, including factual errors and misrepresentations ... In the end, though, Last Confessions captures larger truths, such as the place Plath has come to occupy in the literary canon.
Heather Clark
Rave The Washington Post [An] exhaustively researched, frequently brilliant masterwork that stretches to 1,072 pages (including notes). It is an impressive achievement representing a prizeworthy contribution to literary scholarship and biographical journalism ... Portions of Red Comet are deeply moving, but a tendency to downplay Hughes’s violence will likely attract critics ... Plath’s loss continues to resonate.
Noel Holston
Positive Newsday Imagine going to bed one night able to hear, then waking up deaf ... a poignant and often humorous account of this misfortune that befell him ... fact-filled, enlightening, often revealing in its honesty[.]
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Eds. Cathy W. Barks and Jackson R. Bryer
Rave The Washington Post Zelda writes in direct yet passionate prose, Fitzgerald with a poetic flair reminiscent of his fiction. The result is an engrossing account of their love story—full of longing and ardor, heartbreak and betrayal ... Over the years, myths have emerged around their romance...but their letters portray something else: a singular, enigmatic connection ... Eleanor Lanahan...writes...a moving introduction to their exceptional letters.
Lindsey Hilsum
Rave Newsday In the preface to her excellent biography, Hilsum sums up the enigma of Colvin: \'Marie knew where the story was, and would stop at nothing to get it.\' The biography’s aim is to illuminate that fact ... Absorbing and meticulously researched, In Extremis documents Marie Colvin’s quest to bear witness to the atrocities perpetrated by oppressive forces throughout the world—a calling she ultimately paid for with her life.
Stanley Plumly
Rave The Washington Post With a keen eye for artistic composition and in language that easily alternates between analytical and lyrical, Plumly explores the two artists’ canons through the prism of their lives, all the while asking: What makes their work unique and lasting? Elegy Landscapes contains 41 incisive, engaging chapters ... Wise in its knowledge of art, readable in its storytelling, Elegy Landscapes documents Constable and Turner on their quest to capture the intimate sublime.
Sylvia Plath
Rave The Washington Post \"The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 2, deftly edited by Plath authorities Karen V. Kukil and Peter K. Steinberg, serves as a chronicle of the Plath-Hughes marriage ... Because Plath was an ardent letter writer, Volume 2, coming in at more than 1,000 pages, assiduously documents the joy and success of the marriage’s first six years and the anguish and drama of its final six months that resulted in Plath’s suicide one frigid morning in February 1963 ... In often haunting detail, The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 2 documents the rise and fall of a literary marriage whose dissolution ended up destroying a genius.\
Jon Meacham
Rave Newsday Meacham’s book arrives at a time when much about the American political system seems broken. People are angry, ambivalent, anxious. But Meacham, by chronicling the nation’s struggles from revolutionary times to current day, makes the resonant argument that America has faced division before — and not only survived it but thrived ... Ultimately, Meacham believes the nation will move beyond Trump because, in the end, as they have shown on vital issues before, Americans embrace their better angels. This book stands as a testament to that choice — a reminder that the country has a history of returning to its core values of freedom and equality after enduring periods of distraction and turmoil ... Gripping and inspiring, The Soul of America is Jon Meacham’s declaration of his faith in America.
Joe Biden
Positive Newsday Politics is the backdrop to Biden’s engaging new memoir, Promise Me, Dad ...documents the year Beau, an Army National Guard veteran who served in Iraq, battled the disease, starting at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and ending at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington ... This memoir is proof Biden has, as painful as that might have been. Absorbing and often deeply moving, Promise Me, Dad is Biden’s love letter for his son — a son for whom his admiration was surpassed only by his adoration.
Sylvia Plath, ed. by Peter K. Steinberg & Karen V. Kukil
Rave The Washington Post \"Often using vivid and compelling language, Plath addresses many topics in her letters — from politics and literature to her education and love life to her own unbridled literary ambitions and her plans to achieve them. The sheer quantity of the letters — Volume 1 runs to more than 1,300 pages — is as impressive as their quality ... Engaging and revealing, The Letters of Sylvia Plath offers a captivating look into the life and inner thinking of one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.\
Sylvia Plath, ed. by Peter K. Steinberg & Karen V. Kukil
Rave The Houston Chronicle ...an extensive journal and carried on voluminous correspondence with a variety of family members, friends and business contacts. It has fallen to Plath experts Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil to gather Plath\'s correspondence into The Letters of Sylvia Plath, a collection so mammoth it will be published in two volumes. Often using vivid and compelling language, Plath addresses many topics in her letters - from politics and literature to her education and love life to her own unbridled literary ambitions and her plans to achieve them ...sheer quantity of the letters –– Volume 1 runs more than 1,400 pages –– is as impressive as their quality ... Engaging and revealing...a captivating look into the life and inner thinking of one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
Kurt Andersen
Rave Newsday In this absorbing, must-read polemic, Andersen exhaustively chronicles a development eating away at the very foundation of Americanism. And what does it all portend? 'Nations and societies have survived and recovered from far more terrible swerves, eras that felt cataclysmic as they were happening,' Andersen writes. 'The good news . . . is that America may now be at peak Fantasyland. We can hope.'”
Chris Whipple
Positive Newsday Carefully researched and eminently readable, The Gatekeepers, which grew out of Whipple’s 2013 documentary The Presidents’ Gatekeepers, provides a fresh view of the modern presidencies. Whipple cuts to the heart of what, or more to the point who, makes a presidency succeed or fail ... In all, Whipple discusses 23 chiefs of staff who served the previous eight presidents. To Whipple, a president’s fate is determined not only by outside events but by the person he chooses to help him manage those events.