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Nonfiction Views: The week's top new nonfiction books [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-05-30
BOOK NEWS
In last week’s Nonfiction Views review of Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, by comedian and writer Jamie Loftus, I mentioned my fondness for New York City’s Gray’s Papaya hot dogs, which she covers in the book. Turns out that the founder of Gray’s Papaya, Nicholas Gray, had passed away a few days earlier at the age of 86.
There was an entertaining article in the New York Times about the 50th anniversary of the nonfiction book Sybil, purported to be “the True and Extraordinary Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities.” I remember reading it decades ago.
“Sybil” is part of a long American parade of books about psychologically distressed women, preceded in the 1960s by “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” and “The Bell Jar,” followed in the 1990s — the cloak coming off — by the confessionals “Girl, Interrupted” and “Prozac Nation.” It haunted teenage girls (and surely some boys) from their bedroom shelves, with its distinctive covers of a face divided as if the shards of a broken mirror, or fractured into jigsaw-puzzle pieces. I, too, was intrigued by that mirror cover, but thoroughly perplexed by the text. Returning to it as an adult, I can only see “Sybil” weighed down with all the scholarship and skepticism that came to surround her, like clanking, oversize accessories. The book is a historical curiosity and a cautionary tale of mass cultural delusion that makes one wonder what current voguish diagnoses — witness the “TikTok tics” — might warrant closer interrogation.
In a similar vein, the website Literary Hub offers a peek at the introduction author Susanne Kayson has written for the 30th anniversary of her memoir of her time in the ward for teenage girls at McLean psychiatric hospital, Girl, Interrupted. I remember reading that as well decades ago. My, how time flies!
I’m now in line for the upgraded version of the American Booksellers Association ecommerce platform, through which many of the indie bookstores around the country run their websites. I’m working on the design and configuration, but I’m not sure how long it will take. But I’m excited, because the new website will be a much better reflection of me, allowing me to feature different modules on the homepage for things like current affairs, allyship, global history and world fiction, diverse children’s books and more. I’ll let you know when it’s ready. Meanwhile, I’m still putting together my discounted feature books for Pride Month.
THIS WEEK’S NEW NOTABLE NONFICTION
The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West, by Chris Wimmer. The summer of 1876 was a key time period in the development of the mythology of the Old West, and came against the backdrop of the massive 100th anniversary party thrown to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Many individuals who are considered legends by modern readers were involved in events that began their notoriety or turned out to be the most famous — or infamous — moments of their lives. Those individuals were Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James. The Summer of 1876 weaves together the timelines of the events that made these men legends to demonstrate the overlapping context of their stories and to illustrate the historical importance of that summer, all layered with highlights of significant milestones in 1876: the inaugural baseball season of the National League; the final year of President Ulysses S. Grant’s embattled administration; the debut of an invention called the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell; the release of Mark Twain’s novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer;” and many more.
The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America, by Monica Potts. Growing up gifted and working-class poor in the foothills of the Ozarks, Monica and Darci became fast friends. The girls bonded over a shared love of reading and learning, even as they navigated the challenges of their tumultuous family lives and declining town—broken marriages, alcohol abuse, and shuttered stores and factories. They pored over the giant map in their middle-school classroom, tracing their fingers over the world that awaited them, vowing to escape. In the end, Monica left Clinton for college and fulfilled her dreams, but Darci, along with many in their circle of friends, did not. Years later, working as a journalist covering poverty, Potts discovered what she already intuitively knew about the women in Arkansas: Their life expectancy had dropped steeply—the sharpest such fall in a century. This decline has been attributed to “deaths of despair”—suicide, alcoholism, and drug overdoses—but Potts knew their causes were too complex to identify in a sociological study. She had grown up with these women, and when she saw Darci again, she found that her childhood friend—addicted to drugs, often homeless, a single mother—was now on track to becoming a statistic. The Forgotten Girls is a profound, compassionate look at a population in trouble, and a uniquely personal account of the way larger forces, such as inheritance, education, religion, and politics, shape individual lives.
The Soldier's Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II, by David Chrisinger. A beautiful reckoning with the life and work of the legendary journalist Ernie Pyle, who gave World War II a human face for millions of Americans even as he wrestled with his own demons. At the height of his fame and influence during World War II, Ernie Pyle’s nationally syndicated dispatches from combat zones shaped America’s understanding of what the war felt like to ordinary soldiers, as no writer’s work had before or has since. From North Africa to Sicily, from the beaches of Anzio to the beaches of Normandy, and on to the war in the Pacific, where he would meet his end, Ernie Pyle had a genius for connecting with his beloved dogfaced grunts. A humble man, himself plagued by melancholy and tortured by marriage to a partner whose mental health struggles were much more acute than his own, Pyle was in touch with suffering in a way that left an indelible mark on his readers. While never defeatist, his stories left no doubt as to the heavy weight of the burden soldiers carried. He wrote about post-traumatic stress long before that was a diagnosis. In tandem with this book, Penguin Classics is reissuing Ernie Pyle’s classic Brave Men.
In the Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took On the US Army, by Charles Barber. At the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, dramatized by the popular film Black Hawk Down, the majority of soldiers who died were killed instantly or bled to death before they could reach an operating table. This tragedy reinforced the need for a revolutionary treatment that could transform trauma medicine. So, when Frank Hursey and Bart Gullong—who had no medical or military experience—discovered that a cheap, crushed rock called zeolite had blood‑clotting properties, they brought it to the military's attention. The Marines and the Navy adopted the resulting product, QuikClot, immediately. The Army, however, resisted. It had two products of its own being developed to prevent excessive bleeds, one of which had already cost tens of millions of dollars. The other, "Factor Seven," had a more dangerous complication: its side effects could be deadly. Unwilling to let its efforts end in failure—and led by the highly influential surgeon Colonel John Holcomb—the Army set out to smear QuikClot’s reputation.
Over the course of six years, Hursey and Gullong engaged in an epic struggle with Holcomb for recognition. Ultimately, a whistle‑blower inside the Army challenged the Army’s embrace of Factor Seven, which resulted in a massive lawsuit led by the U.S. Department of Justice. The lawsuit focused further attention on the financial ties between the pharmaceutical company that produced Factor Seven and Holcomb’s research institute. By withholding QuikClot—which later became the medical miracle of the Iraq War—and in the use of Factor Seven with its known, life-threatening risks of heart attacks and strokes, the lives of countless soldiers were imperiled. Using deep reportage and riveting prose, In the Blood recounts this little‑known David‑and‑Goliath story of corruption, greed, and power within the military—and the devastating consequences of unchecked institutional arrogance.
Genealogy of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night, by Lisa Belkin. Independence Day weekend, 1960: a young cop is murdered, shocking his close-knit community in Stamford, Connecticut. The killer remains at large, his identity still unknown. But on a beach not far away, a young Army doctor, on vacation from his post at a research lab in a maximum-security prison, faces a chilling realization. He knows who the shooter is. In fact, the man—a prisoner out on parole—had called him only days before. By helping his former charge and trainee, the doctor, a believer in second chances, may have inadvertently helped set the murder into motion. And with that one phone call, may have sealed a policeman’s fate. Alvin Tarlov, David Troy, and Joseph DeSalvo were all born of the Great Depression, all with grandparents who’d left different homelands for the same American Dream. How did one become a doctor, one a cop, and one a convict? In Genealogy of a Murder, journalist Lisa Belkin traces the paths of each of these three men—one of them her stepfather. Her canvas is large, spanning the first half of the 20th century: immigration, the struggles of the working class, prison reform, medical experiments, politics and war, the nature/nurture debate, epigenetics, the infamous Leopold and Loeb case, and the history of motorcycle racing. It is also intimate: a look into the workings of the mind and heart.
Our Tribal Future: How to Channel Our Foundational Human Instincts into a Force for Good, by David R. Samson. What do you think of when you hear the word “tribalism?” For many, it conjures images of bigotry, xenophobia, and sectarian violence. Others may envision their own tribe: family, friends, and the bonds of loyalty that keep them together. Tribalism is one of the most complex and ancient evolutionary forces; it gave us the capacity for cooperation and competition, and allowed us to navigate increasingly complex social landscapes. It is so powerful that it can predict our behavior even better than race, class, gender, or religion. But in our vast modern world, has this blessing become a curse? Evolutionary anthropologist David R. Samson engages with cutting-edge science and philosophy, as well as his own field research with small-scale societies and wild chimpanzees, to explain the science, ethics, and history of tribalism in compelling and accessible terms. Readers will discover that tribalism cannot, and should not, be eliminated entirely—to do so would be to destroy what makes us human. But is it possible to channel the best of this instinct to enrich our lives while containing the worst of its dangers?
All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them. If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be appreciated. Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 15% each week). We also partner Libro.fm for audiobooks. Libro.fm is similar to Amazon’s Audible, with a la carte audiobooks, or a $14.99 monthly membership which includes the audiobook of your choice and 20% off subsequent purchases during the month.
READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE
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