An author reflects on his past, his place, and his craft

Russo, Richard.  Life and Art: Essays.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.  ISBN:

        9780593802168

 

Are you interested in what makes a writer write?  What demons or angels perch on his or her shoulders and whisper in their ears words of encouragement or discouragement?  Some authors are willing to take the reader behind that curtain where the sausage is made and discuss their process.  Other authors are more willing to talk about what inspired them to write a particular story or novel.  Richard Russo is more of the latter in this volume of essays.

 

Part 1 of this collection  - Life - has essays dealing with his life, his parental relationships and how those shaped his life and his writing.  He warns folks to be wary of writers since they are often guilty of taking events that they witness and using them as fodder for their stories.  He pleads guilty to that fact in regard to a number of his books.  He also reveals family events and interactions during the essays to make a point with the reader.  

 

Then in Part - Art - Russo discusses both the craft and the storytelling aspects of  writing.  He elucidates on using other folks lives in his stories, how the order of words affects the message being delivered, and then has fun discussing books, movies, and the art of turning one into the other.

 

So if you are looking for one author's perspective on a varied number of topics, feel free to pick up and peruse Richard Russo's Life and Art!  

 

Do you belong to a cult?

Borden, Jane.  Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America.  New York: Atria/One 

         Signal Publishers, 2025.  ISBN: 9781668007808  

 

Do you self identify as American? Do you hold to the so-called "American Dream" however you define it?  Mind you the "American Dream" is aspirational, not reality.  Do you hold that following particular rules will lead to wealth and prosperity?   Or do you believe that only the "chosen" will succeed and be blessed with wealth?  In Cults Like Us, Jane Borden takes these concepts and more in a deep dive into a variety of organizations and movements to try and make the case for all Americans being infected with cult-like thinking with specifics being provided..

 

Jane Borden opens the book with an alternative view of Columbus's reasons for discovering the New World then segueing into the Separatists/Pilgrim's voyage in 1620.  She conflates the Separatists and later Puritan settlers beliefs and practices into the Protestant work ethic that some claim infects the core American values.  She then uses various aspects of group psychology as placeholders to examine various cults.

 

The meat of the book is Jane Borden's dive into various cults and cult adjacent groups of various flavors.  There is the Church Universal and Triumphant, Christian Nationalism, the Oneida Community and related communes of the 1800s, the manifest destiny myth, the various "hidden rulers" conspiracy theorists (think Deep State these days), anti-intellectualism, rural/urban identity clashes, personal growth scams such as Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (M.S.I.A) and NXIVM which had roots with Phineas P. Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy are covered in several chapters..  Amway and other multilevel marketing organizations have their own chapter.  Then there is the chapter populated with us-vs-them cults such as the Nuwaubians, the Moonies, Scientology, and Heaven's Gate.  The final chapter looks at compensatory control groups through the lens of Love Has Won, the American monomyth, and the Internet.  

 

If you are looking for examples of how cults have shaped and are still shaping American culture, pick up Jane Borden's Cults Like US, but don't expect step-by-step solutions.  Those you need to figure out for yourself.  

 

June 1944 and the 82nd Airborne!

Donovan, James.  Nothing But Courage: The 82nd Airborne's Daring D-Day Mission and Their 

        Heroic Charge Across the La Fiere Bridge.  New York: Caliber, 2025.  ISBN: 9780593184875 

D-Day 1944 France.  Before the soldiers landed on the Normandy beaches, soldiers of the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division dropped in from the skies.  Nothing But Courage covers the 82nd Airborne's fight during the first few days of the Normandy Campaign.  

James Donovan structured Nothing But Courage in four parts.  Part I: The Plan discusses the  original mission and the last-minute change that likely saved a number of paratrooper's lives. Part I also introduces the paratroopers and locations that were key to victory.  

 

Part II: The Drop looks at how the paratrooper's experience differed depending upon what drop they were in.  Some landed in swampland, some right on top of a target and only one group landed pretty much exactly where they had planned on.  Weather, speed, and pilot skills played a major role in the scattering of the troopers.  Mind you, this scattering really confused the Germans as shown by the slowness of their reaction.

 

Part III: The Battle concentrates on the different conflicts the 82nd Airborne were conducting.  There was the fight for Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the battle for Le Manoir La Fiere, the initial fight for the Cauquigny causeway and bridge, and the attempted rescue of various isolated paratroopers. 

Part IV: The Bridge and Beyond concentrated on the charge by various groups across the Cauquigny causeway that finally pushed the Germans back and allowed the forces from Utah Beach to stream out and cut off the Germans in the Cherbourg.

 

In Nothing But Courage, James Donovan brings the reader down into the action with the judicious use of first person perspective along with narrative that ties everything together.  He also provides limited insight from German first person accounts that provides perspectives.  If the reader is interested in small unit actions, D-Day, or airborne operations, they should pick up Nothing But Courage!

Axe Murders Through the Ages!

James, Rachel McCarthy.  Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 

         2025.  ISBN: 9781250276735

 

Axe murders are murders done by an axe, right?  Simple definition, one would think, but as Rachel James makes clear over the course of Whack Job, nothing is simple.  Axe murder entered the headlines in the late 1800s, but the phrase still catches attention today.  So if you are interested in examples of axe murders through the ages, read on!

 

James opens with an explanation of the hat brim rule of skull damage and uses that with Cranium 17 from La Sima de los Huesos which had holes in its skull that indicated it had likely been murdered by a hand axe 43,000 years ago.  Chapter 2 skipped ahead to Seqwnenre Tao who worked on liberating Egypt from the Hyksos invaders but met his fate under an axe blade.  Chapter 3 skips over to China with the burial of Quen Fu Hao of the Shang dynesty and her four axes and ritual deaths.  Chapter 4 discusses Croesus's threats to the city of Lampsacus, the role of tyrants in the past and an axe used to strike down a son a generation later.  Chapter 5 ships over to North America with the tale of Freydis Eriksdottir killing fellow Norsemen.  Chapter 6 narrates England's HenryVIII and the role axes played in the execution of traitors.  Chapter 7 brings in George Washington, the beginning of the French and Indian War,  and the roles played by hatchets and tomahawks in settling North America.  Chapter 8 tells the story of William Tillman, a black cook, who took back a ship captured by Confederate  pirates during the American Civil War.  Chapter 9 relates infamous tale of Lizzie Bordon who songwriters claim "gave her father forty whacks."  Chapter 10 discusses the murders of Frank Lloyd Wright's family at Taliesin near Spring Green (IL).  Chapter 11 supplies the story behind the murder of 6-year-old Linda Glucoft by the grandfather of her playmate.  Chapter 12 has a sordid tale of how Betty Gore was killed in Dallas (TX) by the mistress of her husband.  James ends the book with a final case - Mario Markworth who killed 2 men in 2019 in Kansas City (MO) with an axe.

 

If you are interested in examples of how axes have been used in killings over the centuries, Whack Job will whet your desire to find out more about these cases.  Rachel James gives you plenty of examples in Whack Job along with her sources so that you can check out the details for yourself.  So go forth and read!

 

Was there a real Miss Moneypenny?

Hubbard-Hall, Claire.  Secret Servants of the Crown: The Forgotten Women of British 

          Intelligence.  New York: Citadel Press, 2025.  ISBN: 9780806543710

 You know the scene from the James Bond movies - Bond enters or leaves M's office and interacts with Miss Moneypenny.  But was Miss Moneypenny based on a real person?  That is what Secret Servants of the Crown seeks to answer along with a number of other questions regarding the role of women in MI5 and MI6 during World War I and II.

 

Hubbard-Hall opens the book with Kathleen Pettigrew who was most likely the inspiration for Miss Moneypenny.  She was the secretary for three heads of MI6 before she retired in 1958.  She had witnessed the apprehension of Mata Hari during World War I, World War II, and the unmasking of Kim Philby.  

Hubbard-Hall then spends several chapters dealing with the roles played by women during World Wat I and the birth of MI5 and MI6 as separate entities.  There were the Lunn Sisters who spied for England in Russia and then one spied for Russia in England after the war.  Then there was the case of Olga Gray who went undercover to prevent Soviet agents from obtaining plans for a top secret weapon.  During World War II, women served in both MI5 and MI6 in England and overseas.  They were part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) with various female agents dying during operations in occupied territories.  Then there were Rita Winsor and Ena Molesworth who traveled from Geneva across France during the German invasion to the Spanish border and then on to their new post in Lisbon.  After the war the pair set up a travel agency - International Services -  that would take high-end tourists to a variety of countries especially Soviet Union, and China.  Besides the exploits of individual members of MI5 and MI6, Hubbard-Hall outlines the behind-the-scenes work played by many in running the various indexing systems crucial to the organizations, the code-braking and the training of agents.  

So if the reader is interested in a behinds the screen look at British intelligence during the first half of the Twentieth Century, he or she should pick up Secret Servants of the Crown and find out what was actually happening!

 

The Decisive Year - Spring 1864-Spring 1865

Ellsworth, Scott.  Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, The Lincoln 

        Assassination, and The Rebirth of America.  New York: Penguin Random House, 2025.  

        ISBN: 9780593475614

 

Are you interested in American history, especially American Civil War history?  Can you name in detail what all happened during the the last 12 months of that war?  How much do you know about all the conspiracies, plots, and personalities involved on both sides?  If you do not, Scott Ellsworth has a deal for you with his book Midnight on the Potomac!

 

Scott Ellsworth organized Midnight on the Potomac in the style of a play with three acts, two intermissions, and an afterword.  Act One covered Grant's move south to The Wilderness and on to Spotsylvania and then Petersburg, the Jubal Early invasion that almost took Washington, a look at President Lincoln, the growing number of contrabands around Washington, and the nadir of Lincoln's chances for reelection.  The First Intermission was a visit to Richmond (VA) with a look at the morale and fighting spirit of the South.  Act Two opens with conspiracies and plots being hatched around Lake Erie and in Canada and the introduction of the Booth family with their conflicted loyalties.  Atlanta falls to Sherman and he heads east to the sea.  Plots are hatched and activated to kidnapped President Lincoln before Election Day (November 8, 1865) and to to burn down New York City.  The Second Intermission was a look at Christmastime in Washington and Richmond.  Act Three opens with Lewis Powell who hailed from Florida in Washington trying for a shot at Lincoln while blacks joined the Union army and others pushed for basic civil rights such as education.  Booth was still trying to kidnap Lincoln when Lincoln gave his 2nd Inaugural Address on a rainy March day.  Then there was the visit by Lincoln to City Point  (VA) to confer with General Grant which led to April 2, 1865 with the final assault on Petersburg followed quickly by the fall of Richmond and the chase of  the Army of Virginia that ended at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.  Then Booth got his shot at eternal infamy when he assassinated Lincoln on April 14, 1865.The Third Act ends with a summary of the end of the Civil War and the chase for Booth and his co-conspirators. The Aftermath opens with an interview of D. W. Griffith and Walter Huston on the making of The Birth of a Nation  and then goes on to highlight the twisting of historical events in the service of The Lost Cause, the legacies  of John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln along with all who served and died to preserve the Union and set the country free.

 

So if you want to learn about the end of the American Civil War with all its warts and triumphs, pick up Scott Ellswoth's Midnight on the Potomac and dive in! 

Blame Texas, and Maybe the South!

Burrough, Bryan.  The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild.  New York: Penguin Press, 

        2025.  ISBN: 9781984878908

 

 

Do the names Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and Luke Short ring a bell with you?  Or maybe the Shootout at the O.K. Corral?  Or just about any western novel or movie which has a gunfight (High Noon) or gunslinger as a hero (Louis L'Amour's The First Fast Draw).  Well Bryan Burrough makes a case for blaming Texas and its exports of shootists, gunmen, and "range detectives" for the violence that swept the West after the Civil War.  

Burrough opens The Gunfighters with a chapter on why he is focusing on Texas.  He then delves into the history of the first gunfighters with the Texas Rangers in the 1840s and California in the 1850s before the 1865 fight between Wild Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt that many claim was the "first Western gunfight."  Mark Twain in Roughing It discussed the mystic of the gunfighter.  Burrough in the next seventeen chapters covers the gamut of the West from 1865 Texas to Kansas in the 1870s, Dodge City, a detour to the Midwest with Jesse James, the Texas invasion of New Mexico (think Billy the Kid), Tombstone (AZ) with the feud between the Cowboys and the Earps, the range wars in Wyoming and Montana (Tom Horn & "Deacon" Jim Miller), Oklahoma in the 1890s, and finishing with Butch Cassidy.  The final chapter - From Headlines to History - provides the endings to various of the gunfighters in the 20th century.  

If a reader is interested in the truth behind the legends of the West, they would do well to pick up and perusing Bryan Burrough's The Gunfighters!