Œuvres de Megan McKinney
The Magnificent Medills: America's Royal Family of Journalism During a Century of Turbulent Splendor (2011) 40 exemplaires
Dead Paper Birds 1 exemplaire
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 2
- Membres
- 41
- Popularité
- #363,652
- Évaluation
- 4.0
- Critiques
- 2
- ISBN
- 2
• An entertaining perspective on US history from the Civil War through the mad early 1900s to modern day, including episodes that have been largely forgotten but that were famous/infamous in their day: the Great Chicago fire, the bloody Chicago circulation wars, the curious history of the Hope Diamond.
• Vignettes about America’s intellectual and social elite; through history, the fates/fortunes of the Medill clan intertwined with such notable figures as Abraham Lincoln, various Roosevelts (including FDR’s infamously wild daughter Alice), Vandebilts, Guggenheims, Hearsts, Fields, and other American luminaries from the world of politics, literature, entertainment, and “society”.
• The Medills themselves, as eccentric and dysfunctional a family as you’re likely to encounter in non-fiction. In addition to dabbling in journalism, various Medills wrote best-selling books and plays, won glory in WWI, rubbed shoulders with Russian royalty, dabbled in socialism, gained renown as big game hunters and aviators, hosted extravagant Gatsby-ish entertainments, built even more extravagant estates, became entangled in any number of scandals (usually sexual), and rarely missed an opportunity to destroy each other and themselves.
What you might find a little more taxing:
• So many Medills! All with them with more than one nickname and any number of marriages. Even though the author provides a genealogy, I had to take notes on the back pages of the book to keep all the personalities straight.
• McKinney faces the problem so many biographers face: the tension between maintaining thoroughness/accuracy while simultaneously spinning an interesting tale. For the most part she succeeds, but sometimes the details take over her overarching narrative. Alternating with the more interesting bits are long sections of decidedly less riveting information, including business maneuvers and buyouts, so many whirlwind trips overseas that I lost track, innumerable family spats, long paragraphs describing countless houses/estates/weddings, and dozens of friendships/love affairs that confuse rather than enlighten.
This wasn't the easiest read - partly because of the uneven pace of the book, partly because I had a hard time liking any of the main characters. Even so, I don't regret the time I spent getting to know the Medills, if only because it exposed me to chapters of US history I hadn't encountered before and deepened my understanding of a social class in the U.S. about which I knew little.… (plus d'informations)