While chockablock with colorful anecdotes and psychological insights, “Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life” isn’t convincing as the biography of a significant figure in journalism. Minutaglio and Smith fall short of making their case that she was, variously, “one of the best-known and most influential journalists in American history” and “a Texas Mark Twain.” Despite publishing some best-selling collections and several well-regarded magazine articles, and co-writing two slight volumes about Dubya, Ivins never wrote the big, important book about Texas that she’d always wanted to.
This isn't a convincing conclusion to the book review either. Apparently, reading the review, she is a great and admirable person and journalist, but something had to be tossed in at the end to show the reviewer's neutrality. Ivins, who knew that sometimes progressive criticism isn't bias, it is just fact, probably would have nodded knowingly.
I read those "slight" volumes, amounting to over five hundred pages total, and just the smaller first one succinctly provided a fair warning -- before he was elected (whatever) the first time -- of what his presidency would offer. Her not writing a major opus about Texas does not erase her place in political journalism. She surely is "one of" the best known and probably (I assume the book backs it up) is also quite influential to the style of many commentators out there. She surely is a pioneer for the modern female journalist / analyst and a model for dissenting voices of any political persuasion in that business.
Meanwhile, the NYT also has a positive review of Sue Grafton's latest alphabet novel. A quick check at the library suggests that about halfway through, the books started to get progressively longer, the first a crisp 250 or so pages, the most recent over 400. Her current practice of providing not just the voice of her thirty-something female detective from the 1980s (the books go in real time, which amounts to twenty-five years of publishing, but only five or so of plot) but other characters helps here, but only so much. Too much padding in both cases, plus some stupidity on her part.* A red pen would have been helpful here. The good stuff (including some of the flashbacks) is overwhelmed.
I read (well, listened -- not a good thing here, since it is best read quickly as a sort of beach read, audio dragging things out) all of her alphabet novels (and an obscure non-mystery ... she focused on television scripts in an earlier life), but this one was surely not her best. "U is for Unsatisfactory." Providing the perspectives of other characters in the mystery (will we hear the inner voice of her friends next?) has potential, but she seems to have a tendency thus far not to be able to hold it up for the whole length of the novel. She didn't help herself here by providing excessive details on multiple characters.
A bit tedious when it involves the detective, it truly is when we get to hear about someone else's urine taking.
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* The ending is particularly stupid on her part. The mystery and a parallel personal story has some interest, but overall, it also is a tad stupid. Well, you can't provide gems all the time on the road to twenty-six.