wahistorian's Reviews (506)

Garner's lean controlled style sets the perfect tone for this real-life courtroom drama, in which Robert Farquharson is tried for the murder of this three young children by plunging his car into a dam lake and allowing them to drown. Farquharson insisted that cough syncope--a blackout induced by uncontrolled coughing--caused the accident, and that he couldn't rescue the three boys from the car. Garner is a daily attendant on the proceedings and the appeal, and her mesmerizing account focuses more on the way trials attempt to make sense of the incomprehensible than on the emotional toll of such a horrific incident. Garner is obviously an admirer of Janet Malcolm, and her story benefits by it. Not a whodunnit, the book's focus remains solidly on the process and the people, with the result that unsatisfying questions are left unanswered. If this was a tragic accident, why were the ignition, headlights, and heater found in the off position when the car was recovered? If the trial left these questions hanging--which it did--so does Garner. Just like real life.

Arlie Russell Hochschild applies her skills as a sociologist to understanding the Trump voter as embodied by southwest Louisiana. Her lens of study is environmental health and safety, believing that the environment is a public Good that touches all of us equally, rich or poor, black, white, or brown. I admire Hochschild's ability to be open to ideas that she found abhorrent or sad or misguided, although ultimately I think her quest to tease out a logically consistent view of the world may be misguided. Still, there's plenty to think about here: I am especially intrigued (and depressed) by her conclusion that red states are assuming all the environmental burdens of our consuming lifestyles (willingly), while people in blue states really reap the benefits. That makes me complicit in the degradation of southern lives, even as they refuse to stand up to the petrochemical companies and the Bobby Jindals.

I had to give up on 'Fever Swamp,' because I suspected, for me, its relentlessly dark viewpoint of the 2015 Presidential election was feeding my worst instincts. I have no doubt it is well researched, but informed by Patterson's lack of respect for the roster of Republicans. Democrats get little scrutiny here, so it's half a story.

This is another multiple perspective mystery from Hawkins--like 'Girl on a Train'--and while there are many things the author does well, ultimately the multiple perspective blunt the suspense rather than enhancing it. The premise is that the river running through the small English town of Beckford has an irresistible draw for the town's women, or perhaps for the men who find them troublesome. When Nel Abbott is found drowned there, her sister Jules returns to take care of her niece Lena and try to understand why a vibrant woman who was writing a book about the river's history would commit suicide. Hers is not an investigation, except into her own relationship with and estrangement from Nel, but the investigation bubbles around her, with multiple characters exploring their own relationship to the river. In the end the climax is less surprising than inevitable; having followed the soap opera entanglements of the various characters throughout the book, the resolution doesn't actually resolve anything. This reader was left with the sense that these stories were a snapshot in time of human involvement with the river, which perhaps was Hawkins' intention, but it doesn't make for a very satisfying story.

Three stars for the interesting and historical premise; two stars without it.