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Recent Reviews
Anna Funder
Mixed The Chicago Review of Books \"The result is an engaging, informative, but flawed book that focuses attention on Eileen O’Shaughnessy—who was married to Orwell from 1936 until her premature death in 1945—but too often speaks on her behalf. Funder insists early in the book that she chose not to write a novel about Eileen because she did not want to \'privilege my voice over hers\' but this is frequently what she does ... Funder’s decision to compensate for a lack of Eileen’s own words by reconstructing what she felt is nonetheless a mistake ... There is a great deal to admire in Wifedom. It is well-written and, on its own terms, carefully researched, although it is a shame Funder did not consult the extensive scholarship on Orwell, as his ideas about gender and sexuality have been discussed for decades. It has little new to tell us about Orwell but it is not about him; it is about Eileen.\
George Saunders
Rave The Chicago Review of Books It will surprise few readers of contemporary fiction to learn that George Saunders’ new collection of short stories, Liberation Day, is very good indeed ... Once one has established that Liberation Day is as good as one would expect (it is), and that it only strengthens Saunders’ position as a major contemporary writer (it does), one must consider how it intervenes in current debates and what it contributes. It is a compelling, witty book but it is not just entertainment; there is a considerable amount at stake in its inventiveness, its dexterity, and its skillful use of the fantastic. Political in the broad sense, it not only demands that we explore the relationships between individual moral failings and social injustice, but also exposes the acts of evasion, rationalization, complicity, and plain cowardice that enable us to avoid this. One of the most important functions of art is to challenge the comforting illusions we live by, which are too often not only unquestioned but unnoticed. Literature disrupts what we think we know, insisting on complexity, ambiguity, nuance. Liberation Day is a pleasure, but—like all the best books—an unsettling one, denying its readers simple consolations ... s particularly attentive to the use of social and economic conventions to legitimize injustice ... insists on the importance of recognizing the consequences of one’s actions, on a commitment to the truth, however uncomfortable ... uncompromising but not despairing. A book for our troubled times, it is a major achievement by a major author.
Kristen Ghodsee
Positive Publisher\'s Weekly Despite \'the many troubles with central planning, the massive human costs of the collectivization of agriculture, and the brutal decades of Stalinist rule,\' the Soviet Union made considerable advances: life expectancy and literacy rates increased significantly and infant mortality decreased significantly...These developments may not seem important to people who have always been confident their children will survive childhood and learn to read, but they illustrate what could be achieved...The five women Ghodsee represents attempted to use the possibilities of the new state to overturn long-standing injustices...They were not wrong to do so just because they were sometimes defeated; the big battalions are always on the side of the established order...Their ideas and actions not only deserve recognition but serious critical attention...Red Valkyries is a compelling book, a call for a broader understanding of the history of women’s political practice, the ideas that informed it, and its implications for our own time...It reminds us that there were always loftier goals than getting more women into middle and upper corporate management.
Lawrence Wright
Positive The Chicago Review of Books ... generous in giving people credit for what they did achieve, even when their contribution were uneven ... Wright is particularly attentive to the disproportionate impact of the disease on people of color...His analyses of these disparities are sometimes insufficiently integrated with other elements of the text, which is frustrating as the object is to demonstrate the centrality of race to American society, but he does trace the historical foundations of differences in infection and mortality rates rather than just describing them. A more explicit discussion of class would have strengthened his argument but his emphasis on the fact that social and economic precarity substantially increased the risk from COVID-19 still demonstrates that the crisis required a political as well as a scientific response ... The speed of its composition sometimes shows in its structure and even its prose ... Despite being slightly uneven, the book is a valuable, readable early contribution to what will inevitably become a substantial body of work on the pandemic. Wright secured remarkable access to key figures in the scientific, medical, and political communities, and provides a compelling account of the complexities of COVID-19, the struggle to contain it, and the search for a vaccine. It is important to recognize the scientists, doctors, nurses, and other essential workers who did their jobs under dangerous conditions, and to expose those politicians and advisors who, from positions of relative safety, did not. The Plague Year is to be commended for both its compassion and its anger.