Word: stevenson
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Pacific shore would become the fated and fateful destinations of adventurous journeys westward by European settlers, cowboys, miners, Forty- Niners and dreamers. There the travelers would pass, or so they hoped, from their old lives -- and the Old World -- into a heaven on earth. As Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in 1879 at the end of a long trip West, "At every turn we could see farther into the land and our own happy futures . . . For this was indeed our destination; this was the 'good country' we had been going to so long...
...William Stevenson has worked up in the bomb bay, and he says softly, "It's eerie. There are not many artifacts about which you can say, 'That altered the world.' This one did." You know what Stevenson is talking about when you climb into the plane's greenhouse nose, and you try to imagine how the nuclear fireball must have etched the day with its hideous brightness...
...most riveting and explosive portion of this book deals with Johnson's 1948 campaign for the Senate. The favorite was Coke Stevenson, "by far the most popular Governor in the history of Texas, a public official, moreover, who had risen above politics to become a legend." As if beating "Mr. Texas" was not burden enough, L.B.J. developed a kidney stone. Daily he made speeches and shook hands and then collapsed in a car in agony. Eventually the stone was removed, and he was off again, against the advice of doctors. The suffering paid off: in the primary runoff...
Caro's treatment of this battle achieves poetic intensity. Stevenson ran the way he always had, driving into small towns, talking and listening to those who happened to gather. Johnson ran for his life, leapfrogging about in a helicopter (the "Flying Windmill"), blanketing the state with radio ads around the clock and throwing money everywhere. Despite all these frenzied efforts, initial returns showed Stevenson the winner. But L.B.J.'s campaign had not ended. Caro demonstrates how the Johnson organization, with the knowledge of the candidate, proceeded to steal the election. Late reports from southern counties in L.B.J.'s pocket continued...
Valerie Martin's grafting of a new novel onto Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) is cleverly done. But the best part of this engaging novel is the diarist herself. Spunky, passionate within the grinding limitations imposed by her station in life, Mary observes her employer's deterioration with a mixture of bafflement and good common sense. Why is this privileged gent making his life so miserable? If Dr. Jekyll had simply listened to Mary, unpleasant Mr. Hyde would have been cajoled right out of existence...