A relatively accessible approach to a subject that may still—beg pardon—tax readers without training in economics.
A graphic treatment, with attendant simplifications, of French economist Piketty’s difficult study of capitalism and its failings.
Piketty’s opus would seem an unlikely candidate for translation into what used to be called a comic book. Complete with a fictional family to humanize the dismal-science edge (whence the “novel” part of “graphic novel”), it opens with Piketty’s account of France’s ancien régime and its three estates (the clergy, the nobility, and all the rest), an economy based on deep inequalities. That gulf is reinforced by a proportional or flat tax, which, as one panel puts it, “since the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor,…thus favors the wealthiest group.” Contrast this with progressive taxation, where the “highest incomes are more heavily taxed, for the good of all society,” and you begin to build a bridge. Anathema to free-marketers and libertarians, that system worked in France, the U.S., and other advanced countries until the 1980s and ’90s, when, once those taxes were rolled back, “multiple elites” began to contend on left and right, each in turn building a base that reflects “the return of the educational cleavage,” the left representing educated globalists and the right building on the less educated nationalists. At present the latter seems to be ascendant, and, as a character representing Piketty at the lectern asserts, 1% of the population owns 27% of global wealth, more than twice as much as the poorest half. What’s to be done? Piketty has never been short of policy recommendations, and the graphic treatment captures some of the key ones, including cracking down on taxes evaded (which, if paid, “would pay the annual salary of 34 million nurses”), taxing carbon emissions, instituting “genuine social ownership of capital” by giving employees meaningful shares in their employers’ businesses, and more. It doesn’t quite add up to a novel—it’s really more like Piketty for Dummies.
A relatively accessible approach to a subject that may still—beg pardon—tax readers without training in economics.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781419777059
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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