We here at the Independent love every piece we run. There are no winners or losers. But all kidding aside, here are February’s winners.
“February 2019 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri.” As always, this perennial favorite (penned by Maryland’s newly minted poet laureate!) drew huge numbers of verse-loving readers.
Kenneth Jost’s review of The Company They Keep: How Partisan Divisions Came to the Supreme Court by Neal Devins and Lawrence Baum (Oxford University Press). “Whatever the strengths or weaknesses of their theory, Devins and Baum lament the way that the increased politicization of political elites has found its way into Supreme Court chambers. ‘Justices now act more as adherents to one ideological side, a side increasingly identified in partisan terms, than they did for most of the court's history,’ they write in conclusion. ‘That is a consequential change.’”
“An Interview with Diane Kiesel” by Kitty Kelley. “For all the reasons I was initially attracted to [Dr. Dorothy Ferebee’s] story, I remain attracted to it. She is a role model and my hero. I think she’s made me more courageous, more willing to take professional risks, and more willing to push myself to the outer limits of my ability…She re-ignited my love for nonfiction writing and guaranteed that I will continue to do it as long as I’m physically able.”
Robert Allen Papinchak’s review of Bowlaway: A Novel by Elizabeth McCracken. “If early John Irving and late Elizabeth Strout had a fictional child, with a nudge from Charles Dickens and Sherwood Anderson, it would be Bowlaway. Who would think that a candlepin bowling alley in a small town in Massachusetts could provide such an interesting setting and prove such a viable subject for an invigorating novel?”
Y.S. Fing’s review of Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation by Steve Luxenberg. “We are here again today. In voter suppression, in gerrymandering, in the imbalanced representation of the Senate and the Electoral College, U.S. history is repeating itself. With this monumental work, Luxenberg shows us precisely how — through the workings of malleable law. He also signifies what a shame it was that the white people of the United States put the entire weight of social equality and civil rights in the 19th century (and most of the 20th) upon the humble shoulders of Albion Tourgee, that his noble efforts have been so lost to history, and that we still haven't completed his work.”
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