She’s a 12-Year-Old Girl and Also a Spirit That Can See Into Her Family’s Past
In her debut novel, “Things They Lost,” Okwiri Oduor uses magical realism to explore toxic mother-daughter relationships.
Sadeq Hedayat, Iran’s Misunderstood Literary Modernist
“Blind Owl,” by Sadeq Hedayat, is a hallucinatory short novel that upends Persian artistic traditions.
Delia Ephron’s Memoir Could Be Called ‘Love, Loss and Love Again’
In “Left on Tenth,” the veteran author looks back on a series of life-altering events, including a whirlwind romance at the age of 72.
Star Spangled Scandal: Sex, Murder and the Trial that Changed America
UnCovered review by Frank Tomasello, ACLS Mays Landing
Branch
As an amateur Civil War historian of over two decades, I thought I knew all there was to know about a pre- Civil War scandal involving Major General Daniel E. Sickles. Conventional history records that Sickles’ beautiful young wife Theresa had an affair with U.S. Attorney General, Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key of National Anthem fame, which led to then New York Congressman, Sickles shooting Key in broad day light, on a public street, in Washington, D.C. He was then acquitted at trial in one of the earliest successful insanity defenses, represented by future Secretary of War under Abraham Lincoln, Edward Stanton.
In Star Spangled Scandal: Sex, Murder and The Trial That Changed America, author Chris DeRose has exhaustively reviewed newspaper accounts, personal diaries and letters, and trial testimony, to paint a truer picture of the events of the early spring of 1859. What emerges is a record that is so similar to today’s 24-hour news cycle that it begs belief. It had it all: a sex scandal involving high society elites/celebrities; homicide; press leaks; trial by media; anonymous letters; accusations of evidence tampering; show boating attorneys; political intrigue; and the list goes on.
The facts were never in dispute. The affair was admitted, as well as the shooting of Key by Sickles. The incident quickly evolved into a trial that would focus the attention of the world. In 1859, the telegraph was cutting edge technology. Newspapers at the time felt that its expense was not justified since there could never be any news that people would not be content in waiting a few days to learn. The Sickles trial shattered that notion, and the press became ravenous for news from the young Nation’s capital. Sordid details about the affair, the brazen way it was conducted, and the “roguish” character of Key filled columns of the newspapers of the day. Sickles was seen sympathetically as a victim and yet clearly culpable as a murderer. After a trial that lasted nearly two weeks, he was acquitted. His legal team, of which Edwin Stanton was but one member, had indeed argued “temporary insanity,” but the verdict would more accurately be labeled as “Justifiable Homicide” or what today is known as “Jury Nullification”.
DeRose is not wrong when he says
that the Sickles trial changed America. It single-handedly created what we now
call the aforementioned 24-hour news cycle, and also the “Unwritten Law” which
would acquit homicidal jealous lovers for decades thereafter. It is an
excellent work that sheds much light on a largely misunderstood event of much
historical importance.
Review: “Let There Be Light,” by Liana Finck
The cartoonist’s new graphic novel, “Let There Be Light,” recasts the story of Genesis with God as a neurotic artist a lot like Liana Finck.
Misty Copeland on ‘Serenade,’ Democracy and the Art of Movement
The ballet dancer reviews Toni Bentley’s sixth book: part memoir, part ode to George Balanchine and the art form he immortalized.
Fiction About Lives in Ukraine
The critic Jennifer Wilson discusses new books by Yevgenia Belorusets and Andrey Kurkov, and Ben McGrath talks about “Riverman.”
They Were College Friends. Now They’re Art Thieves.
Grace D. Li’s debut, “Portrait of a Thief,” is both a heist novel and a reckoning.
Immigrant Lives, Back to Back and Upside Down
Michelle de Kretser’s two-part novel, “Scary Monsters,” follows a young teacher in 1980s France and a bureaucrat in a dystopian future Australia.
New in Paperback: Haruki Murakami and Richard Thompson
Six new paperbacks to check out this week.
Transforming Britain From Brutality to Gentleness
Simon Heffer’s “High Minds” traces the impact of reformers on industrial Britain, and the beginnings of the welfare state.
Dragon Tales From the Authors of ‘The Girl Who Drank the Moon’ and ‘A Wish in the Dark’
Where Kelly Barnhill’s monster in “The Ogress and the Orphans” stands in for demagogy, Christina Soontornvat’s creature in “The Last Mapmaker” is a colonialist’s prize.
Even Margo Jefferson Sometimes Gets Sucked Into a Bad Thriller
“My ego says: ‘You’re better than this,’” says the Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic. “And my id says: ‘Not today. Deal with it.’”
Emily St. John Mandel tackles the big questions in 'Sea of Tranquility'
Mandel's latest work is an ingeniously constructed, deeply absorbing novel that summons up three fully realized worlds in three distinct time periods — including the 25th century.
12 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
There's no redemption to be had in Chelsea Bieker's 'Heartbroke'
The author of Godshot brings readers a new set of stories; Heartbroke unfolds in a chorus of yearning and sorrow, told in 11 different voices that Chelsea Bieker inhabits with perfect pitch.
(Image credit: Catapult )
U.T. Austin Acquires Archives That Give Insight Into the 1960s
The papers of Richard Goodwin, a speechwriter to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and his wife Doris Kearns Goodwin, a presidential historian, shed light on decision-making at crucial moments in American history.
What Can We Learn From Celebrity Couples of Yore?
In his new book, “Truly, Madly,” Stephen Galloway looks at the tumultuous, star-crossed marriage of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
'The Candy House' is a brilliant portrait of intersecting lives
In Jennifer Egan's novel, there is a persistent, lovely countermelody to the corporate project of mapping human experience; it's full of people engaged in a sweeter and more plaintive human algebra.
(Image credit: Scribner)
Book Review: ‘The Candy House,’ by Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan’s ambitious new novel — a sequel, of sorts, to 2010’s “A Visit From the Goon Squad” — riffs on memory, authenticity and the allure of new technology.
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