MixedThe Wall Street JournalMr. Kanigel tells this story well. Yet at precisely the point when the tale should deepen and gather force, he makes a curious narrative decision. He skips over Jacobs’s emergence as an activist and public figure in the late 1950s, focusing almost exclusively on her writing...after getting comfortable in 1961, the reader may find it disconcerting to return to 1958 and only then discuss the activism that had helped shape Jacobs’s persona and ideas ... Mr. Kanigel’s description of the Jacobs family’s first week in Toronto illustrates his strengths as a writer...But Jacobs’s life in Toronto becomes very dull indeed.
