An engrossing history of a remarkable man and the time that shaped him.
In this memoir/biography, a woman chronicles the extraordinary life of her grandfather, who may have been the model for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legendary Jay Gatsby.
Rathbun grew up knowing very little about her maternal grandfather, George Gordon Moore—at best, she had access to “sketchy details” about the man who was already 80 years old when she was born. He was a larger-than-life figure, a self-made millionaire who lived an adventurous life. But by the time the author knew him, he was in greatly diminished form, senescent and broke, a stark departure from his former glory as a man of wealth and power. Rathbun lucidly captures this incongruence: “It’s hard to square such an opulent image with my recollections of the old man dribbling oyster stew down his shirt at Christmas. But as I confront these dueling images, I have the sense I am watching a sentimental old movie in which pages fly off the calendar as the years fly by—in reverse in this case, so that in the space of a few seconds, I have time-traveled nearly a century.” She heard rumors that Moore was the inspiration for Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, the enigmatic businessman whose bottomless wealth was of mysterious origin. Rathbun decided to conduct a journalistic investigation of her own, and whether or not Moore truly was the model for Gatsby, there were certainly striking parallels between the two. Both men were self-made millionaires, obsessed with the British aristocracy, engaged in unscrupulous business activities, and moved by a “rapacious social ambition.”
Rathbun paints a striking picture of Moore, a complex man, intellectually brilliant but morally challenged, who was capable of great loyalty and patriotism. In addition, she unearths a “submerged family history” that clarifies the murky depths of her own mother’s early life, an “unfathomable” woman so abandoned by her parents that she was all but an orphan. Moreover, the author brings to electrifying life a unique period of American history, one featuring wealth and optimism, but also the gathering storms of war and economic collapse that would challenge the nation’s buoyancy. Moore was devastated by the stock market collapse of 1929, though he never stopped scheming, often dishonestly, to regain his squandered affluence. Yet Moore’s questionable ethics don’t make him any less captivating a character—he willfully fashioned an incredible existence, one enjoyed on a breathtaking scale of grandiosity. A party he threw at the famed Ritz in New York City in 1912 was described by a reporter as a bash that “in magnificence and sumptuousness has never been surpassed in the history of brilliant entertainments held in that smart hotel.” And while Rathbun’s mother is only a supporting character in the family history limned in these pages, she emerges as an enthralling figure, one whom the author only knew as a “half-remembered dream.” This is a marvelous blend of personal and grand history, one in which the former is illuminated by the latter, and vice versa. It is also a deeply readable account, filled with drama and authorial insights.
An engrossing history of a remarkable man and the time that shaped him.Pub Date: March 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798885450034
Page Count: 282
Publisher: White River Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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