Deborah Mason

NonfictionArts & CultureArt

Women in the Picture

Review by Deborah Mason

As art historian Catherine McCormack points out in Women in the Picture: What Culture Does With Female Bodies, galleries and museums are full of paintings and statues of women in various guises and genres. Indeed, there are so many that we rarely take time to consider the implications of how they are depicted. We see a Madonna, and we think, “That’s a Madonna.” Few question how the Madonna is depicted, or even why the Madonna is depicted.

McCormack wants us to ask these questions, but she also wants us to consider by whom and for whom an artwork was created. She examines four archetypes of women in Western European art—Venus, the Madonna, the damsel in distress and the monstrous woman—to examine their impact on not only how we look at art but also how we view women in general.

Because so much of this art was created by male artists for male clients, McCormack argues, we have become accustomed to viewing these images through male eyes. As a result, when we see Titian’s “Rape of Europa,” we see a technically brilliant, erotically charged depiction of a myth, not the terror and brutality of the rape that is about to take place. When we see a Madonna, we see an idealized vision of motherhood, not how that mother is trapped by her hearth and home. Sphinxes, witches and gorgons, McCormack believes, are not existential threats to male heroes but the projection of misogynistic fears of powerful women.

McCormack’s purpose is twofold. First, rather than ditching Western European art, she wants us to engage with it critically, deliberately and honestly so that we can begin to recognize the impact of the male artist’s perspective and reinterpret his art with fresh eyes. Second, she wants to encourage women artists to take these subjects and represent them in ways that expose their realities to future generations. As a result, Women in the Picture is a thought-provoking call to action for artists and viewers alike.

Catherine McCormack looks closely at four archetypes of women in art to examine not only how we look at art but also how we view women in general.
NonfictionAudioHistory

The Verge

Review by Deborah Mason

A Spanish queen. A Florentine printer. An English wool merchant. A disgruntled German monk. A Genoese explorer. According to Patrick Wyman, author and narrator of The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World (11.5 hours), these are among the actors who gave birth to the modern world. Wyman argues that from 1490 to 1530, a series of economic, religious and state-building revolutions transformed Europe from a backwater into the dominant global power. And like the song says, it was money—in the form of increasingly available credit—that made the world go round.

Creator of the podcast series Tides of History and Fall of Rome, Wyman is a skilled performer with obvious enthusiasm for his subject. His reading is also enhanced by the book’s structure: Each chapter focuses on a particular historical figure who in some way acted as a midwife to the new age, and Wyman’s narration emphasizes their humanity, warts and all. As a result, he makes this economic history of Europe an entertaining and informative audiobook.

Podcaster Patrick Wyman skillfully narrates his engaging economic history of Europe.
FictionAudioHistorical Fiction

The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All

Review by Deborah Mason

Thirteen-year-old Weldon Applegate (as remembered by 99-year-old Weldon Applegate) is the unlikely hero of Josh Ritter’s The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All (7 hours). Set in Cordelia, Idaho, a lumber town at the end of the lumberjack era, and populated by ghosts, witches and demons, this rollicking tall tale is as true and honest as the honed edge of a jack’s favorite ax.  

Ritter is a renowned singer-songwriter, and his language is exquisite, especially when describing the grandeur of a winter forest or the subtle evil of a greedy man. His nuanced narration gives an authentic voice to both young and ancient Weldon, endowing him with wisdom, humor and valor while never losing sight of the terrible beauty of his vanished world. Ritter’s talents as a ballad singer make this audiobook, which includes an original song, a special pleasure.

Josh Ritter’s talents as a ballad singer make this audiobook, which includes an original song, a special pleasure.
NonfictionHistory

Fallen Idols

Review by Deborah Mason

All statues are raised, but relatively few are razed; when they are, somebody is always upset. In recent years, statues have been vandalized, pulled down by crowds and plucked from public plinths and placed in secret warehouses in the dead of night—to both applause and outcry. Whenever a statue is removed, the same questions arise: Are we erasing history? Wasn’t he just a man of his time? Is this the beginning of a slippery slope?

In Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History, historian Alex von Tunzelmann addresses these questions by examining 12 different case histories of statues from around the world that fell (literally) out of favor. Tunzelmann makes the argument that statues are not history but rather representations of history. Josef Stalin’s statues were propaganda to justify his grip on the Soviet Union, for example, not depictions of historical fact. The statue of Robert E. Lee in New Orleans was erected as part of a deliberate campaign to rewrite the history of the Civil War by self-avowed white supremacists.

It’s clear from Fallen Idols that there are many reasons to tear down a statue. Removing Stalin’s statue in Budapest was the start of a revolution. Pulling down Saddam Hussein’s statue was a symbolic end to the Iraq War—a symbol that turned out to be disastrously wrong. Taking down a statue can also be an act of truth telling. Leopold II of Belgium was not a benevolent ruler of the Congo, for example, even though that’s how monuments depict him. Even during his lifetime, he was widely condemned for his bloodthirsty exploitation and colonization of the Congolese. In cases like these, Tunzelmann finds that, far from erasing history, the eradication of a statue can actually illuminate it.

In discussing these and other statues, Tunzelmann invites us to consider all public monuments. What are these statues commemorating? What are they hiding? Are there other, better ways to depict history in public spaces without resorting to images of great men (or women)? Fallen Idols is an illuminating guide to a much-needed discussion about history and how it is represented.

Historian Alex von Tunzelmann examines 12 different case histories of statues from around the world that fell (literally) out of favor.
NonfictionTrue Crime

Mad, bad scientists

Feature by Deborah Mason

The history of science and medicine is full of people who have done horrific things—and the bestseller lists are equally full of proof that we’re fascinated by them. Are they simply bad apples? Or are there darker forces at work that turn scientists into monsters? Two new books examine these questions in very different ways.

In The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer, Dean Jobb dives into the life of Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, aka the Lambeth Poisoner, who is believed to have killed at least 10 victims, including his own wife and the husband of one of his mistresses, in three different countries. Many of his victims were prostitutes or unmarried working-class women who sought abortions from the sympathetic Dr. Cream but received fatal doses of strychnine instead. Eventually he began stalking the music halls and bordellos of London in search of victims.

Cream was hardly a criminal genius. Tall with a distinctive squint and an equally distinguishing top hat, he had a bad habit of calling attention to his crimes. He nonetheless eluded Scotland Yard for months, primarily because of police indifference to the fate of “fallen women.” 

Raised in a wealthy but strict religious family, Cream seemed to be an archetypal Jekyll/Hyde character—Sunday School teacher and respected physician by day, poisoner by night. It would be easy to paint him as purely evil, but Jobb, a true crime reporter and teacher of creative nonfiction at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, creates a nuanced portrait of Cream that’s much more chilling than Mr. Hyde. Yes, Cream was a remorseless killer, but he was also warped by Victorian hypocrisy, misogyny and classism—the same factors that allowed him to hide his crimes while hunting for more victims.

In The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science, Sam Kean takes a more systemic approach to examining why good doctors and scientists go bad. Kean looks at 12 case histories of people in these professions running off the rails: patients needlessly lobotomized, individuals and communities destroyed in the name of research, thousands of prisoners convicted on the basis of fraudulent forensic evidence and worse.

Sometimes the crime was committed by someone who just happened to be a scientist, such as a Harvard anatomist who found a grisly but scientifically sound method of dealing with an annoying creditor. Others, like Thomas Edison, were indifferent to the pain of others in the quest for scientific glory and wealth. In many cases, the crime was the result of the scientist’s fanatical devotion to finding “truth,” no matter the cost. But the worst crimes included here weren’t even recognized as such at the time because society accepted them as normal, even moral. That was how Henry Smeathman, an 18th-century natural historian and abolitionist, became a trader of enslaved people to fund his expeditions.

Kean is a podcaster with a gift for making science understandable. His writing style is conversational and witty—but he never forgets the real human costs of these crimes. The more powerful science becomes, the more subject it is to abuse, he says. And yet, Kean remains optimistic about the potential of science and medicine to do good, if scientists and nonscientists alike take action. He argues that diverse voices, enforced standards and critical appraisal of scientific assumptions would make crimes like the ones in The Icepick Surgeon more detectable and preventable—and science more trustworthy.

Two nonfiction books delve into nefarious crimes committed in the name of science and medicine.
FictionAudioLiterary Fiction

Light Perpetual

Review by Deborah Mason

One fine day in 1944, a German V-2 rocket hits a South London Woolworths. Among the civilians incinerated by the bomb are five children. But in Light Perpetual (12.5 hours), Francis Spufford explores the tantalizing question: What if? What if these children had been war survivors instead of victims?

With such vibrant characters, all of whom have rich interior lives, Spufford’s novel is perfect for audio. Light Perpetual is an anthem to ordinary life—the joy and sorrow, the triumph and loneliness. Scottish-born actor Imogen Church, known for her performances of Ruth Ware’s audiobooks, gives a wonderful voice to each of the five as they progress from childhood to old age. 

The ending, when the now elderly characters confront their own what-ifs, faces the sorrow of death with true honesty while celebrating love-filled lives. Told with humor, affection and compassion, this audiobook is a powerful reminder that no life is futile.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of the print edition of Light Perpetual.

Featuring vibrant characters, all of whom have rich interior lives, Francis Spufford’s novel is perfect for audio.
NonfictionHistory

Chasing Ghosts

Review by Deborah Mason

As long as there has been death, there have been ghosts—or at least, ghost stories. Ghosts fascinate us. They star in cautionary tales, promise existence beyond death and provide glimpses of lost loved ones. For these reasons and many more, ghost stories have both frightened and delighted humans throughout history.

In Chasing Ghosts: A Tour of Our Fascination With Spirits and the Supernatural, Marc Hartzman, who has previously written about Oliver Cromwell’s embalmed head and sideshow performers, gives a lighthearted account of ghostly legends, haunted houses and other unearthly visits from beyond the grave. Using humor, fun illustrations and interesting anecdotes that will appeal to readers of all ages, Hartzman makes the serious point that ghost stories say as much about the world of the living as they do about the dead. After all, a good ghost story not only entertains the listener but also reminds them not to break their vow of chastity or forget to bury their dead relatives properly.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: The year’s best Halloween reads, ranked from slightly spooky to totally terrifying

The bulk of Chasing Ghosts is devoted to humanity’s attempts to reach out to the dead. There are hucksters galore in this entertaining book, and Hartzman goes into great detail about different mediums who used all kinds of gimcrackery and stagecraft to pull off their frauds. He also catalogs the lesser-known spirit photographers, levitators, automatic writers and other con artists who separated the susceptible, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from their healthy skepticism—and money. Hartzman also documents the serious scientists who, even today, use sophisticated equipment to explore the other world. Once the scientific method is applied, most “visitations” have reasonable explanations—but there are many others that remain mysterious and, well, haunting.

So, what are ghosts? Mass hysteria or hoaxes? Reactions to invisible environmental factors or the lingering embodiments of souls? Chasing Ghosts raises these questions but wisely avoids offering any definitive answers. So the next time you walk through a sudden cold spot on a hot, humid evening, you might want to consider the possibility that ghosts are chasing you.

Marc Hartzman gives a lighthearted account of ghostly legends, haunted houses and other unearthly visits from beyond the grave.
NonfictionHistoryEuropean History

The Dressmakers of Auschwitz

Review by Deborah Mason

Clothing can accomplish many things. It can bestow group identity or express individuality. Creating it can be both an artistic outlet and drudgery. It can reflect the highest standards of craftsmanship or be as simple as sewing a seam. It is both performance and practicality. And, as we learn from Lucy Adlington’s The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive, clothing can be a lifeline out of hell.

It’s difficult to imagine a more unlikely (or hideous) juxtaposition than a fashion salon in Auschwitz. But there it was: a fashion studio and workshop literally yards away from the interrogation block used to torture prisoners. Author and costume historian Adlington discovered the “Upper Salon” while researching a book on the global textile industry during World War II. Established by the larcenous and amoral Hedwig Höss, wife of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss, the salon’s official mission was to provide beautiful, haute couture clothing to the wives of top-ranking Nazis, female SS guards at the camp and, foremost, Frau Höss herself. The salon’s other purpose was to provide a safe haven for the enslaved female laborers who, under the supervision of Marta Fuchs, a Jewish prisoner from Slovakia, cut, sewed and altered the outfits that would adorn their tormentors.

Adlington does an excellent job of telling the story of Marta and all the other women whose lives were spared because they had the skills to work in the comparative safety of the Upper Salon. She also provides the greater historical context of how the Nazi government viewed fashion as both a powerful propaganda weapon and an important tool for funding the Holocaust.

This information is helpful in understanding the journeys these designers, seamstresses and cutters took to Auschwitz and the Upper Salon, and overall Adlington weaves historical information into the individual dressmakers’ stories well. But the most powerful lesson from The Dressmakers of Auschwitz is how the bonds of friendship, family and skill allowed these women to survive with humanity while resisting the brutality around them.

It’s difficult to imagine a salon in Auschwitz, but there was in fact a fashion studio mere yards away from the interrogation block used to torture prisoners.
Mystery & SuspenseAudioSuspense

The Maidens

Review by Deborah Mason

Grieving the sudden death of her husband, group therapist Mariana Andros drops everything when her niece’s best friend is brutally murdered on the grounds of a quiet Cambridge college. As more young women are slaughtered, Mariana realizes that their deaths are not frenzied acts of madness but rather a coldly calculated and purposeful series of sacrifices, with a charismatic murderer at the center.

In The Maidens (9.5 hours), Alex Michaelides draws heavily upon Greek mythology to create an absorbing thriller with more twists than the Minotaur’s labyrinth. The audiobook is narrated primarily by actor Louise Brealey, who has given life to complex female characters in the audio editions of The Girl on the Train and The Silent Patient, Michaelides’ first novel. Here, she does an excellent job of conveying Mariana’s confusion, courage and determination to solve the mystery at any cost. Actor Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s nuanced performance as the killer reminds us that monsters are made, not born, and that within even the most heinous murderer is a shattered, lonely child.

 Read our review of the print edition of The Maidens.

Actors Louise Brealey and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith narrate as an investigator and a killer in The Maidens, a thriller with more twists than the Minotaur’s labyrinth.
NonfictionHistoryEuropean History

The Gallery of Miracles and Madness

Review by Deborah Mason

In The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Modernism, and Hitler’s War on Art, Charlie English, former head of international news at the Guardian, tells the tale of two art critics.

The first, Hans Prinzhorn, was an art historian and psychiatrist. Employed by the Heidelberg University Psychiatric Hospital in 1919, he was given the task of cataloging and evaluating the patients’ artwork for diagnostic purposes. Prinzhorn quickly realized that these works were more than expressions of mental illness. They were art, filled with life’s horror, humanity and energy. He set about collecting more artworks from different clinics and asylums and, in 1922, published the influential book Artistry of the Mentally Ill. 

The second critic was a self-taught Austrian artist named Adolf Hitler. English explains that Hitler primarily considered himself an artist and thought his greatest work would be the German people. Creating “pure” German art would be key to the success of that project. Yet Hitler could not say what German art was; he could only say what it was not. And it definitely was not produced by people who were mentally ill.

To prove that point, Hitler ordered an exhibition of “degenerate art,” including works from Prinzhorn’s collection, to show how “corrupt” and “insane” modern art had become. For Hitler, an unworthy life was as disposable and valueless as unworthy art. Consequently, he went on to orchestrate the murder of tens of thousands of those whose lives he deemed “unworthy,” including people who were disabled and chronically ill—and at least two dozen of the Prinzhorn artists.

This is not an abstract book of ideas. The battle between these two views of art was, literally, a matter of life and death, so English uses the life and death of Franz Karl Bühler, the most accomplished of Prinzhorn’s artists, to frame his story. From master ironsmith to psychiatric patient to discovered artist, all the way to the terrifying details that led to his murder by carbon monoxide gassing, Bühler’s life and death illuminate the void at the heart of Nazism.

The Gallery of Miracles and Madness is profoundly heartbreaking, unexpectedly redeeming and immensely important.

In The Gallery of Miracles and Madness, Charlie English tells the tale of two art critics: Hans Prinzhorn and Adolf Hitler.
FictionAudioHistorical Fiction

The Rose Code

Review by Deborah Mason

Bletchley Park, the mansion where Oxford dons and crossword puzzlers cracked the German Enigma code, was so shrouded in secrecy that mentioning you worked there could land you in prison. In The Rose Code (15.5 hours), historical novelist Kate Quinn vividly conjures Bletchley through the tale of three unlikely friends from very different backgrounds: socialite Osla, social climber Mab and antisocial Beth. Quinn blends rich characterization, fast pacing and meticulous historical research to tell a story of friendship, tragic betrayal and treason. 

Award-winning narrator Saskia Maarleveld gives life to each of the friends, using realistic accents to underscore the class differences that would have made their friendship impossible in any other scenario. All the other characters, no matter how minor, receive Maarleveld’s full devotion as well, as she taps into the novel’s wide-ranging cast to audibly re-create the complexity and chaos of war-torn Britain. Her deep, husky, mysterious voice is perfect for a story that, after all, centers on an Enigma.

The Rose Code is a terrific story, brilliantly performed. Or as Osla would say, it’s a real corker!

The Rose Code is a terrific story, brilliantly performed by Saskia Maarleveld. Or as Osla would say, it’s a real corker!
NonfictionBiography

Napoleon

Review by Deborah Mason

There are hundreds of biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, each with its own interpretation of the man: Napoleon the military genius, Napoleon the megalomaniac, Napoleon the savior of the French Revolution and Napoleon the betrayer of the French Revolution. But Napoleon the gardener? This is a new Napoleon indeed.

However, as Cambridge University historian Ruth Scurr demonstrates in Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows, gardening framed every stage of Bonaparte’s life, from his childhood in Corsica to his death on St. Helena. Even his most critical battle, Waterloo, was lost because he miscalculated the strategic importance of a walled garden.

Looking at Bonaparte through the lens of his passion for gardens brings out new and fascinating details about his life, including his love of science and engineering, his obsession with botany and especially his desire to stamp order upon an unruly natural and political world. Gardens, as this book makes clear, are the ultimate symbol of Bonaparte’s life—especially at its end, when every attempt to bring life and beauty to his final exile ended in dust and futility.

Scurr is well known for her inventive and absorbing biographies. John Aubrey, My Own Life, her critically acclaimed 2015 book about the 17th-century biographer, was written in the form of her subject’s imagined diary. So her decision to use such an original perspective in her latest book makes perfect sense. What makes Napoleon so satisfying is that it illuminates not only the emperor but also people from his life who in other accounts are, at best, mere witnesses to the man’s ambitions and exploits. We learn that the naturalists at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris were among his most faithful and honest friends. Most surprisingly, we discover that his wife, Josephine, who is frequently depicted as an extravagant social climber, was in fact a keen and respected (if acquisitive) amateur botanist and zoologist.

Napoleon is a rewarding book that gives intriguing and novel insight into a man about whom we thought everything had already been said.

Ruth Scurr’s Napoleon gives intriguing and novel insight into a man about whom we thought everything had already been said.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

On Juneteenth

Review by Deborah Mason

Annette Gordon-Reed opens On Juneteenth by reflecting on her conflicted emotions about Juneteenth becoming a national celebration. It is, she notes, a distinctly Texan holiday, since it commemorates the day in June 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston to announce the end of legalized slavery in the United States—two months after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. It’s also a deeply personal holiday, one that Black Texans have celebrated with family and friends ever since Granger read out his proclamation. And yet, Gordon-Reed acknowledges, it’s also a profoundly American holiday, just as Texas is perhaps the most profoundly American state.

This ambivalence inspires Gordon-Reed to explore the significance of this holiday within the broader context of Texan history. On Juneteenth is a collection of historical essays, ranging from the Spanish conquest to the present, that investigates what it means to be Texan. Against the background of the archetypal white cowboy and the ten-gallon hat oilman, Gordon-Reed demonstrates how the history of Texas is also the history of African Americans, Native Americans and Mexican Americans. Indeed, slavery was integral to the formation of the Republic of Texas—as well as the state of Texas. Understanding this truth, Gordon-Reed argues, is key to understanding the role racism continues to play in Texas and, by extension, the nation.

As the Carl W. Loeb Professor of history at Harvard, Gordon-Reed is no stranger to illuminating the uncomfortable truths of our past. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, a groundbreaking multigenerational history of the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, an enslaved African American woman.

On Juneteenth is written on a smaller and more personal scale than her previous work, but it is no less powerful. Gordon-Reed’s essays seamlessly merge history and memoir into a complex portrait of her beloved, turbulent Texas, revealing new truths about a state that, more than any other, embodies all the virtues and faults of America. 

Gordon-Reed’s essays seamlessly merge history, memoir and family history into a complex portrait of her beloved, turbulent Texas.

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