Ordinary People (1976, Judith Guest)

Judith Guest's Ordinary People is a moving drama about a middle class family coming to terms with the loss of a family member. Conrad Jarrett is a teenager who spent his life in the shadow of his older brother Buck, until Buck died in a boating accident that Conrad blames on himself. After a suicide attempt and spell in a hospital, Conrad tries to rebuild an "ordinary" life at home and school, but finds himself unable to readjust. His teachers and classmates treat him like a freak, he no longer enjoys swimming or hanging out with his jock friends, and he retreats back into a self-imposed shell. His father Cal, a genial attorney, tries to reach out to him with forced kindness; his mother Beth, who favored Buck, responds with cold detachment, wishing that Conrad could simply snap out of it. Guest's book is simple in conception, but deeply felt in its particulars: Conrad's struggles with intrusive thoughts, a sense that he's not worthy of friendship and that he's to blame for everyone's standoffish attitude towards him, are heartrending and relatable to anyone who's suffered from severe depression. The book provides him a lifeline with Dr. Berger, an uncommonly empathetic therapist, and a furtive romance with classmate Jeannine, who finds his plight sympathetic rather than distasteful. His story's paralleled with the preoccupations of his parents: Cal wants to help his son but can't find the appropriate balance between authority figure and confidante; Beth tries to will their fractured family back to the status quo, an approach which is recognizable as it is futile. Guest's narrative doesn't entirely avert cliché or melodrama (a subplot with one of Conrad's fellow hospital patients has a predictable resolution) but in general is a careful, measured and moving portrait of how tragedy, stress and mutual misunderstanding can effect the most "ordinary" of families. Adapted into an award-winning film by Robert Redford, starring Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland.

Rating: 4/5

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Complete Omnibus (2020, Hanokage)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the manga adaptation of one of the most popular and acclaimed anime series of all time. The deceptively familiar story follows Madoka Kaname, an ordinary adolescent who's unwittingly swept into the world of "magical girls" - young women adorned with magical powers to fight reality-warping "witches." Unlike standard entries in this genre, Madoka Magica recasts the "magical girl" as a Faustian pact with Kyubey, an emotionless cat-like alien who has ulterior motives for offering girls unlimited power. Madoka is restrained from making her pact by the mysterious Homura Akemi, though her impulsive friend Sayaka Miki (wishing to save the boy she loves from a devastating injury) takes the plunge with tragic results. The narrative also introduces Mami Tomoe, the magical mentor who shows Madoka and Sayaka how to get ahead, and bad girl Kyoko Sakura, constantly munching junk food and issuing snarky putdowns between battles. The series quickly transforms from Sailor Moon-style adventures to heavy explorations of survivor's guilt, the nature of selfishness (and selflessness), a person's individual worth and the nature of hope in an often bleak and despairing world. The opposite of what you'd expect from the cutesy cover art, in other words. 

This manga version (illustrated by Hanokage) closely follows the script and storyline of the show, though the narrative is compressed at points (less time with side characters like non-magical friend Hitomi and Madoka's family, for instance) and the character models differ from Ume Aoki's series designs (most notably for Kyubey, far more expressive than in the series, where his face is an eerie blank slate). Probably the biggest disappointment is that the gonzo imagery of the series - the surreal witches' labrynths and the juxtaposition of everyday life with philosophic horror which is co-creator Gen Urobuchi's trademark - can't easily be replicated in comic form; Hanokage mostly opts for a dark monochrome pallette that ranges from fine to one-note. Nonetheless, the manga format allows her to explore the personalities of the main girls in more detail: for instance, we better understand Mami's motivations, Kyoko's feelings about Sayaka (the subject of much ship-teasing among fans) and get more sense of Madoka's inner debate about whether or not to make a wish. And Hanokage adds a few character epilogues which provide a heart-wrenching coda. Overall, it's not a perfect rendering of the show but does a fine job capturing its important points while illuminating a few more. Followed by several spin-off manga, some of which are worth reading, but can't match the brilliance of the original.

Rating: 5/5 

Note: Read my articles on the Madoka Magica series here. 

The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (2013, Margaret MacMillan)

Margaret MacMillan's The War That Ended Peace was among the many books written for the centennial of the First World War, trying to explain how Europe's different superpowers backed into the world's most destructive conflict (up to that point) without fully intending to. MacMillan's book has most of the same strengths as her earlier work on the Paris Peace Conference: an eye for sharp character sketches and an ability to convey broader political-diplomatic context with finesse. The book's sharpest passages lie in her assessment of Europe's prewar statesman, from the bellicose military leadership of Britain and France who foresaw war as inevitable, to the hopelessly reactionary Tsar Nicholas and his court, to Germany's erratic Kaiser Wilhelm, whom she portrays with some sympathy as a well-meaning monarch whose personality flaws unwittingly antagonized his fellow statesmen. MacMillan dutifully recounts the escalating crises, imperial rivalries and power clashes that led to war, culminating in the "damn thing in the Balkans" that exploded the powder keg in 1914. It's here that the book starts to lose interest; MacMillan presents these events fluently enough, but her analyses and dramatization adds nothing to earlier works by Barbara Tuchman (The Proud Tower), Robert K. Massie (Dreadnought) and others, which explore them with more color and insight. From the crop of contemporaries, War That Ended Peace is easily bested by Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers, which has a more controversial thesis (blaming the war principally on Serbia, with some unwitting assistance from a belligerent Kaiser) than MacMillan's rehash of the "collective responsibility" thesis which long dominated popular discourse on the Great War's origins, but is increasingly debatable. Thus MacMillan's book is readable and conversant in its subject matter, but at nearly 700 pages of text one wonders about the need to revisit this well-worn topic, if she has very little new to say.

Rating: 3/5

Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism

 

Rachel Maddow's new book Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism reminds us of the struggles waged against American far right groups in the '30s and '40s. Long neglected by historians, this topic has received significant attention in recent years due to its obvious timeliness, with books like Charles Gallagher's Nazis of Copley Square and Steven J. Ross's Hitler in Los Angeles exploring specific groups and movements of Nazi sympathizers and their disturbing parallels to the alt-right. Maddow (building on her podcast) ties these stories together into an engaging narrative, introducing (or reintroducing) readers to the creeps, crooks and would-be dictators who sought to emulate Hitler. Some of these movements are relatively well-known, like the Nazi-backed German-American Bund, racist "Radio Priest" Father Charles Coughlin, and Charles Lindbergh's America First movement. Others, however, are so bizarre: William Dudley Pelley's wacko Silver Shirts, a combination political movement-religious cult that preached spiritual enlightenment through extermination of Jews; George Deatheridge, a professional Southern bigot who orchestrated an elaborate plot to overthrow the American government in the late '30s; George Van Horn Moseley, a high-ranking Army General who ranted about Jewish conspiracies and toyed with becoming America's Fuhrer; Lawrence James, the Nazi intellectual who proved to be a Black man "passing" as a white fascist . Where historians often tend to dismiss or downplay these groups, Maddow makes clear that, if often ineffectual in practice, their ideology and intentions were extremely serious, plotting massacres of Jews, mass poisoning of celebrities and plotting against the government. She also demonstrates that a shocking number of isolationist congressmen, including well-known figures Burton K. Wheeler and Hamilton Fish, were actively fed Nazi propaganda by German agent George Sylvester Viereck (who besides his fascist activities, Maddow tells us, authored "the first gay vampire novel in history"). Maddow demonstrates how a team of unlikely heroes, from journalists Eric Sevareid and Arthur Derounian to Los Angeles businessman Leon Lewis and prosecutor O. John Rogge, worked to expose and foil their efforts, to general ridicule and indifference. A circuslike Sedition Trial of key fascist leaders in 1944 fizzled out when the Judge died during the trial; afterwards, the Justice Department buried Rogge's report, allowing the indicted to escape justice. Maddow's book is well-researched and fluently written, though her snarky, conversational style (referring to one pro-Nazi businessman as a "gazillionaire" or wondering if James would make a killing on Substack today) might grate on some readers. Still, Maddow's to be commended for re-introducing this subject to a wider audience; hopefully, readers will take the appropriate lessons from her work.

Rating: 4/5

Note: I wrote a series of articles on this general subject in 2018, which can be read here. 

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them (2023, Timothy Egan)

Timothy Egan's A Fever in the Heartland illuminates the tawdry life and times of D.C. Stephenson, the leader of Indiana's Ku Klux Klan chapter in the 1920s. Egan provides a cliff notes sketch of the Klan's original iteration during Reconstruction, and its resurgence in the post-WWI United States, before moving onto his main story: how the Klan took over an entire state for much of the '20s. Stephenson, an unusually gifted conman, sold millions of Indianans on the idea that cloaked vigilantes were needed to rescue the United States from decadence, immigration and cultural rot. Thus the Second Klan openly paraded around the Hoosier State, denouncing subversive politics, African-Americans, Catholic and Jewish immigrants and the related scourges of alcohol, feminism and sexual liberation, initiating vigilante attacks on anyone deemed subversive towards Stephenson's order while winning loyalty of political figures throughout the State, and eventually the country. Not that Stephenson himself adhered to his principles: behind the scenes he was a cheat, a bigamist, an alcoholic who brutalized his romantic paramours. Stephenson's downfall came about not through his repulsive politics, which were common enough for his time, but through his rape, abduction and murder of Madge Oberhalzer, a headstrong modern woman who spurned Stephenson's advances and was brutalized in turn. Egan perhaps glories too much in the seamier side of his story, but astutely observes that Stephenson's support grew not in spite but because of his hypocrisy; too strong or shameless to be held to his own principles, he exercised a degree of naked power ("I am the law" was his Judge Dredd-esque boast) which, for many, foretold the strong man. Fortunately, rape and murder was too gruesome for 1920s Americans to countenance; Stephenson received a long prison sentence and while the national Klan disowned him, coverage of the trial was enough to destroy their power. Not a definitive account of its subject, but a good narrative reminding us (as if modern Americans need reminding) that the seeds of hate and appeal of strongman rule are perennial in our politics.

Rating: 4/5

Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970, Garry Wills)

A classic work of political science, Garry Wills' Nixon Agonistes remains an insightful look at the rise of the 37th President and the environment which enabled his rise to power. Wills alternates coverage of the 1968 presidential campaign with a broader analysis of the United States, riven by Vietnam, racial tension and cynical politicians increasingly willing to take advantage of these divisions. Wills views Nixon as "the Last Liberal" in American politics, not in our modern sense but as a self-made man who achieved success working through the System. Thus, he became a spokesman for Americans angry that success no longer seemed assured for them. For all the musings about Nixon's lack of authenticity, on this level at least he was fundamentally sincere; he found his insecurities mirrored in that of many Americans, enabling to rise from his political grave, win election and preside over one of the country's most tumultuous periods. "Every campaign" from his Red-baiting Congressional days to the presidency "taught Nixon the same lesson: mobilize resentment against those in power." And while Nixon laid no claim to the radicalism of the New Left and eschewed the coarser rhetoric of the Wallace-Bircher Far Right, he persuaded tens of millions of voters that "those in power" - Lyndon Johnson's Democratic Party, their allies in the media, judiciary and classroom, the minority interest groups they supposedly coddled and fawned over - were not just wrong, but un-American enemies to be ostracized and destroyed. 

Written in 1970, Nixon Agonistes is, to be sure, a difficult book to recommend to nonexperts. Wills jumps between topics almost at random, following only the loosest thematic structure. Readers will find amusing, and valuable his portraits of that year's political figures - Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney, Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy, the monstrous George Wallace and asinine Spiro Agnew. He's also quite astute showing that Nixon's "Silent Majority" was motivated by a sense of displacement, viewing liberal expansions of minority rights as infringing upon theirs; Lyndon Johnson's Great Society fostered an impression, justified or not, that middle class Americans no longer mattered to "the Establishment" - a resentment that Nixon brilliantly exploited. He also shows why Kennedy-Johnson liberals failed to anticipate the era's radical movement; Black Power, student activists and others felt that the "soft intolerance" of Democratic rulers dismissed their causes as unworthy of concern, thus driving them to increasingly extreme courses of action. Thus '60s liberalism, however idealistic its intention, failed to truly address systemic issues while alienating Americans unpersuaded of the need for drastic change. And Wills  notes that liberal writers like Arthur Schlesinger were happy to praise in Kennedy and Johnson traits (reliance on charisma and image, strident anticommunist rhetoric, a desire for sweeping presidential power) that they decried as monstrous in Nixon and other Republicans. 

Perhaps Wills' biggest failing, besides the book's rambling and orotund prose style, is that his central premise sometimes contradicts the actual text. Certainly, Wills relies on a nebulous definition of "liberalism" that few modern readers will recognize, since clearly he doesn't mean to suggest Nixon is a liberal in the sense that Kennedy, Johnson or Gene McCarthy were liberals. One can agree with his views on the shortcomings of Great Society liberalism while also wondering how Nixon himself embodied the same worldview (after all, most of the progressive initiatives Nixon supported were largely opportunistic or cynical - certainly not sharing LBJ's views about the power of government). Even so, he's astute in recognizing Nixon's achievement: persuading white, middle-class voters that, however troubled minority groups and the disadvantaged might be, their own grievances (some real, others imagined) and everyday frustrations were worse. That's remained the Republican Party's underlying appeal, in increasingly strident form; and Wills, writing before Watergate and Reagan's rise to the White House, when Donald Trump was a minor figure in New York real estate, recognizes the lasting power of this message.

Rating: 4/5

Dracula (1897, Bram Stoker)

 

Amazingly, I hadn't read Dracula until this Halloween - perhaps, given how deeply its tropes and characters embedded themselves in pop culture, I never felt the need? Regardless, Bram Stoker's seminal vampire tale remains a classic of the horror genre. Stoker's tale focuses of course on the battle between a cadre of Western Europeans and Count Dracula, an ageless, pitiless vampire from Transylvania who entraps the ambitious Jonathan Harker, spirits himself away to London and wreaks havoc on the city, targeting free-spirited young Lucy and Harker's fiancée Mina. The novel functions on several levels: as a horror story, of course, with Dracula the archetypal literary bloodsucker, all polite surface and deadly avarice; as a gothic romance of sorts, with prim and proper Englishwomen falling victim to Transylvania's thirstiest neck-nobbler (not to mention Jonathan's entrapment by Dracula's wives); as a pre-modern techno-thriller, with Victorian England pitting its technology (blood transfusions, trains, telegraphs and guns) against the superstitions of the East. The book's epistolary style takes some getting used to, as does Dracula's lack of the romantic characteristics which mark his screen appearances; he's a force of brute sex and manipulation rather than a suave charmer. But Stoker's pulpy prose, sharp characterizations (particularly the grim Dr. Van Helsing, the strong-willed Mina and the gun-totin' American Quincey Morris, who defeats the Count with a Bowie knife) and the novel's pervasive sense of dread makes it essential reading for the spooky season.

Rating: 5/5