MixedThe Washington PostThe fact-checker’s efforts to find out if anyone’s heard from Sylvia are amusing and picaresque—and indeed, The Fact Checker is a comic novel—but I still found myself yearning for more intrigue, for the drama and absurdity to be ratcheted up. By the time the fact-checker has made it to New Egypt’s farm in New Jersey, ready to cause some real trouble in the name of his quest, much of the novel’s space has been taken up by quiet misadventures, and the big finale doesn’t quite land as hard as it should ... Still, the narrator of this debut novel has a cutting, incisive voice, and his shaggy story entertains—akin to something a friend might tell you over a couple of beers. He’s an interesting guy to spend time with, even if his story falls a bit flat on the page.
PositiveThe Washington PostLipstein is such a gifted writer that he shifts nimbly between Reuben’s and Cecilie’s inner worlds ... But Lipstein’s very talents as a storyteller render some of the book’s clunkier notes that much more discordant. Reuben’s cancellation, and the downfall of his career, is a tantalizing premise for a novel. But when we finally find out what he did, it’s a bit of a letdown ... At other points, Reuben engages in morally relativistic, ends-justify-the-means thinking that falls short of profundity ... Lipstein, for all his wonderful writing, dispatches with the possible complexities of his narrative a little too breezily.
Joshua Prager
PositiveThe New RepublicPrager excels in revealing the messy, complicated people at the heart of America’s abortion fight; their motives, he seems to say, are much more tangled than any of them would likely admit ... None of the people who populate this book is a perfect hero, nor are there perfect villains: Prager makes the convincing case that Mildred Jefferson, who became president of the National Right to Life Committee and whom Ronald Reagan credited with awakening him to the horrors of abortion, found her way to a career as a pro-life spokesperson in large part because of racism ... a fascinating portrait of a woman whose life was shaped by the abortion debate.
Becky Cooper
RaveThe Washington Post... exhaustive and extraordinary ... The most noteworthy element of Cooper’s book might be its reportorial ambition. Over 400 pages, she doggedly tracks down primary sources and digs for decades-old documents. It is a testament to her skills as a writer that she is able to connect the threads of the cold case to larger cultural issues ... Cooper has made a welcome entry into the annals of true crime ... [Cooper] carefully investigates every lead, reports every fact and contextualizes for the reader the culture that gave rise to the original story. If it is possible to write responsibly about the past, then surely [Cooper\'s] done it.
