nonfiction

“A powerful story of a tumultuous era by an
author more adept at visual art than textual storytelling.”
from darkroom
“marketplace of ideas” and looks to the Enlightenment philosophes
for their views on toleration and defamation.
A spirited defense without being heavy-handed.
DARKROOM
A Memoir in Black and White
Weaver, Lila Quintero
Illus. by Weaver, Lila Quintero
Univ. of Alabama (266 pp.)
$24.95 paperback | Mar. 1, 2012
978-0-8173-5714-6
A debut graphic memoir provides a
unique child’s perspective on racial strife
in 1960s Alabama.
Weaver came to America from Argentina
in 1961 at the age of five and found herself considered an outsider
on both sides of the racial divide. Even within her family,
there were subtle distinctions, with a mother whose European
ancestry made her unmistakably white, a father considerably
darker and an older sister who came much closer to an American
ideal of beauty (though her voluptuous lips were considered
suspect). The memoir is most compelling when it reflects this
child’s perspective, in a town “neatly divided between black and
white. Until we arrived. We introduced a sliver of gray into the
demographic pie.” The illustrations are impressive throughout,
as the author plainly learned much from a father who had
a passion for photography and a mother who was a visual artist.
Yet there are stretches where this narrative of violence and
turbulence could have been written by another, more conventional
observer, where the author disappears from her account
of many incidents that she was too young to witness, let alone
understand. At such points it reads more like a civil-rights
primer (often with powerful imagery) than the account from
an immigrant neither black nor white, “in America but not of
America.” In the afterword, Weaver explains that this began as
an undergraduate project by an adult student, one who is plainly
an accomplished artist but who is still learning how to frame
and sustain a cohesive narrative.
A powerful story of a tumultuous era by an author more
adept at visual art than textual storytelling.
A LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS
A World Champion’s Journey
Wellington, Chrissie
Center Street/Hachette (336 pp.)
$24.99 | May 15, 2012
978-1-4555-0557-9
A world-record–holding professional
triathlete enthusiastically shares a life
devoted to sports, her “drug of choice.”
Early on in her amiable memoir, Wellington
admits to being “accident-prone
and low on common sense.” That fact hardly prevented her
from pursuing a career in the high-octane arena of competitive
sports. Enjoying a happy childhood in eastern England, Wellington
was raised by parents who, while they loved the outdoors,
displayed none of the athletic prowess she’d nurtured
throughout her adolescence, a time plagued with anorexia, bulimia
and alcohol binging. Her burgeoning interest in corporate
law took a backseat to environmental-development work and
concurrent marathon runs, which served to fuel an interest in
triathlon training in Nepal and assorted adventures honing her
craft in Switzerland. She began training with noted Australian
coach Brett Sutton and continued onward to triathlon competitions
worldwide. Wellington traces her personal history
through memories and diary entries. But most compelling are
the urgent details on the meticulous preparatory routines and
rituals necessary to become physically (and mentally) ready to
compete in these grueling contests. Later candid chapters on
her morphing relationship with Sutton, revelations on life and
love and her record-setting racing record effectively gel to illustrate
the strife and struggle as well as the victorious exhilaration
inherent with training, competing in and winning the Kona
Ironman Triathlon. She concludes with comments on the completion
of her 13th Ironman race in 2011.
Empowering and suitably commemorative.
THE SNAKE EATERS
An Unlikely Band
of Brothers and the
Battle for the Soul of Iraq
West, Owen
Free Press (352 pp.)
$26.00 | May 1, 2012
978-1-4516-5593-3
Gripping, disturbing account of
American advisors in Iraq, focused on
several National Guardsmen and the
Iraqi soldiers (jundis) they trained.
Besides being meticulously written, this book has an
unusual pedigree: West, a novelist (Four Days to Veracruz, 2003,
etc.), former Marine and son of renowned military writer Bing
West, was recalled in 2006 to serve a second combat tour in Iraq,
as an advisor in Khalidiya, a city beset by a brutal insurgency.
West’s personal experience makes up the final third of the book,
but the primary section focuses on the National Guard advisor
team that he helped replace. Initially, their war resembled an
unholy combination of Black Hawk Down and Catch-22. Unlike
full-time soldiers, they were abruptly withdrawn from civilian
life, given outdated training in counterinsurgency and sent to
a posting outside the city to pair up with an Iraqi battalion, a
move meant to showcase the Bush administration’s intent
to “stand down” as Iraqi units “stood up.” West vividly captures
the personalities of the advisor team, who quickly found
themselves contending with frequent sniper and bomb attacks,
culminating in the death of a well-liked U.S. corpsman. The
author’s crisp writing makes more apparent the material waste
and absurdity of America’s “small wars.” Despite the advisors’
bravery and good intentions, they were consistently undercut
by supply problems and chain-of-command issues that inevitably
gave the Guardsmen short shrift. West ably captures the
drama in the initially tense relationships between the Americans
and their beleaguered Iraqi counterparts, the remnants of
Iraq’s professional officer class, and he’s sensitive to the nuances
of Iraqi culture, which initially allowed al-Qaeda and other
insurgents to fester in hardscrabble cities like Khalidiya. The
author argues that the unit trained by the Guardsmen evolved
into a determined and nonpartisan fighting force: “For a bunch
of carpenters and cops, they were a pretty determined bunch.”
One of the better reflections on the war in Iraq, with
enough sense of on-the-ground combat reality to hold disturbing
portents for future “small wars.”
EXIT INTERVIEW
Westin, David
Sarah Crichton/Farrar,
Straus and Giroux (288 pp.)
$27.00 | May 22, 2012
978-0-374-15121-8
A former president of ABC News
looks back over the stories that shaped
his leadership.
Westin succeeded Roone Arledge as
the head of the news organization in 1997.
Here he presents an insider’s view of some of the bigger stories
that broke while he was in charge and defends the continuing
value of broadcast news. The major stories included the death
of Princess Diana, the Monica Lewinsky scandal and President
Clinton’s impeachment, the breakdown of exit polling in the
2000 presidential election debacle, 9/11 and the subsequent
invasion of Iraq. The author shows how he established himself
within the company and also the country as the leader of the
most-watched network news broadcast in America. Westin also
notes that while networks favored advertiser-funded broadcasting
that avoided controversy, Fox News and others “embraced
controversy. The more partisan, the better. And this approach
was every bit a matter of shrewd business as it was a matter of
ideology.” The author’s selected stories demonstrate how the
news can be covered without becoming overly polemical, and
he argues against the temptation “to cut back on the reporting
and seek an audience through the expression of opinion.” In
that vein, he looks at Fox’s mixture of “twenty-four hour news
with polemics” and its relation to conservative politics. ABC
News still reaches four times as many viewers as Fox, and Westin
discusses how technology and the Web are being used to
defend that advantage.
Should interest more than just news or politics junkies.
A GOLDEN VOICE
How Faith, Hard
Work, and Humility
Brought Me from the
Streets to Salvation
Williams, Ted with Witter, Bret
Gotham Books (288 pp.)
$26.00 | May 10, 2012
978-1-592-40714-9
A captivating memoir about a man’s
life of drug addiction and homelessness.
With the assistance of veteran co-author Witter (co-author:
Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who
Saved Him, 2011, etc.), Williams tells the story of how he reached
his childhood dream of becoming a radio voice and subsequently
lost it through his addiction to crack. The author’s obsession
with becoming a radio voice started at age 10 when his mother
bought him a radio. He idolized Hank Spann and learned the
voice-inflection techniques from the on-air personalities of the
time. Williams knew he had the gift of a “golden voice” from
childhood, but he enlisted in the Army after graduation. When
he was dishonorably discharged for black-marketing electronic
equipment, he found a job as a DJ at a radio station in Chadbourn,
N.C. He later became a radio personality and town
celebrity in Columbus, Ohio, until he became addicted to crack
and quit his job to spend all day smoking. The rest of the memoir
follows his life as an addict, homeless person and absentee
father. The grimy details of crack houses and harsh aspects of
homeless life add color to the story, as do the pages written in
the voice of his girlfriend Kathy. The writing style is fast-paced
and easy to follow despite the whirlwind of events, and Williams
does not shy away from self-criticism. Religion becomes
a main theme toward the end of the book, as the author claims
it was God who ultimately led to his freedom and sobriety. The
story ends just before his rise to fame and does not explore his
life after he became a national sensation.
Disturbing and hard to put down.
GREEN ILLUSIONS
The Dirty Secrets of Clean
Energy and the Future
of Environmentalism
Zehner, Ozzie
Univ. of Nebraska (456 pp.)
$29.95 paperback | Jun. 1, 2012
978-0-8032-3775-9
Alternative solutions to the growing
energy crisis other than alternative energy.
“Green” technology and energy solutions
are all the rage as global warming, rising populations and
unheard-of oil prices confront the world. However, asks Zehner,
“do we have a society capable of being powered by alternative
energy” His answer is no. With thorough research, the author
demonstrates that no amount of solar panels, wind turbines,
838 | 15 april 2012 | nonfiction | kirkusreviews.com |
| kirkusreviews.com | nonfiction | 15 april 2012 | 839