| | | Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley review – a dazzling debut | | by Kit Fan Jun 2, 2022 | | This chilling tale of power and corruption, based on a true crime involving brutality in the Oakland police department, announces a bold new voice When asked how to write in a world dominated by a white culture, Toni Morrison once responded: “By trying to alter language, simply to free it up, not to repress or confine it … Tease it. Blast its racist straitjacket.” At a time when structural imbalances of capital, health, gender and race deepen divides, the young American Leila Mottley’s debut novel is a searing testament to the liberated spirit and explosive ingenuity of such storytelling. Based on a true crime in 2015 involving institutional exploitation, brutality and corruption in the Oakland police department, Nightcrawling gives voice to 17-year-old Kiara Johnson, who, after her father’s death and mother’s detention in a rehab facility, becomes a sex worker to pay for rent hikes. She also needs to look after her disillusioned older brother Marcus, who spends his time on music, and Trevor, a nine-year-old left behind by a neighbour. Drugs, sex and power struggles are a familiar premise from television dramas such as The Wire. What makes Nightcrawling scarring and unforgettable as a novel is Mottley’s ability to change our language about and perception of the repressed and confined. She does this by entering the mind, body and soul of Kiara, one of the toughest and kindest young heroines of our time. Continue reading... | | | | | Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell review – the Genghis Khan of fashion? | | by Hadley Freeman Jun 2, 2022 | | A scrupulously researched attempt to explain fabled Vogue editor Anna Wintour fails to probe deeply enough Any book that claims to offer an insight into Anna Wintour, the longterm editor-in-chief of US Vogue, is a guaranteed bestseller. This is as true of fiction (The Devil Wears Prada, by Wintour’s former assistant, Lauren Weisberger) as it is of schlocky biographies (Front Row: the Cool Life and Hot Times of Anna Wintour by Jerry Oppenheimer) and hatchet jobs by those who know her (2020’s The Chiffon Trenches, in which her former close friend and colleague, the late André Leon Talley, claimed she is not “capable of simple human kindness”). No other magazine editor has ever held such fascination for the public. But why? According to Amy Odell in her semi-authorised biography, Anna (Wintour herself did not contribute, but Odell thanks her “for allowing me into her world”), the answer is sexism: “It is probably [Wintour]’s fearsome reputation that first comes to mind when her name is mentioned … Though if a man did her job as well and with similar affectations, his discipline and commitment would likely be celebrated,” she writes. This is a very zeitgeisty point to make, but is it actually true? If a male editor hired a female journalist, and then packed her off to get a haircut, a better wardrobe and skirts cut to “the regulation 19 inches”, as Wintour did according to Odell’s book, would that be celebrated? And if a male editor commissioned a puff piece about Asma al-Assad in 2010 and then, going against the advice of the writer of the piece, Joan Juliet Buck, and some of her staff, insisted on running it in the magazine just because he “liked the photo of Asma”, and then did not renew poor Buck’s contract when there was a public backlash, would that be applauded? (Full disclosure: US Vogue asked me, several times, to interview al-Assad for them in 2010. I declined.) Continue reading... | | | | | |
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