Product Description

"A splendid collection...Eloquent, powerful, compassionate and droll. There is considerable variety in the subjects she addresses....Compelling."
THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
Thinking out loud is what Anna Quindlen does best. A syndicated columnist with her finger on the pulse of women's lives, and her heart in a place we all share, she writes about the passions, politics, and peculiarities of Americans everywhere. From gays in the military, to the race for First Lady, to the trials of modern motherhood and the right to choose, Anna Quindlen's views always fascinate.
More of her views can be found in LIVING OUT LOUD, and OBJECT LESSONS.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #648047 in Books
• Published on: 1994-03-08
• Released on: 1994-03-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Concerned as she is with all manner of conflicts between public and private issues represented in this collection of essays from her syndicated New York Times op-ed column, Quindlen ( Living Out Loud ) admits to viewing even non-feminist topics through "the special lens of her gender." Sensitive to social and political trends and the "shifting sands of geopolitics" that propel events, she points out their cost in human terms, especially as they affect the excluded and abused. Violence, notes the author--sexual, racial or political, performed by individuals or in groups as members of sports teams, gangs, police or the military--is routinely glorified, whether in children's cartoons or adult soap operas. Equally effective are Quindlen's always superbly controled commentaries on lying, bigotry and moral hypocrisy among political, judiciary and religious leaders, and the cynical use of ideals to justify military incursions. Author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Quindlen introduces this collection of her recent Op-Ed pieces with Dorothy Thompson's comment that her strength as a writer was from being "altogether female." The same is definitely true of Quindlen, who says her husband once asked her, "Could you get up and get me a beer without writing about it?" No, she can't; even though Quindlen no longer writes the intensely personal "Life in the 30s" columns (collected in Living Out Loud , Random, 1988), her new "Public and Private" columns are just that: discussions of world events as seen through her prism as wife, mother, and woman. This dual perspective has both pleased and infuriated readers, who may question whether a discussion of Jo March as heroine deserves to be part of "all the news that's fit to print." Still, Quindlen has offered a welcome human voice to the Times pages, and some of her best columns--her courageous condemnation of her own paper's decision to print the name of the woman in the William Kennedy rape trial, for instance--prove that. Essential for any journalism collection, this will be enjoyed by general readers also. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/92.
- Judy Quinn, "Incentive," New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
In her second collection of New York Times pieces, Quindlen (Object Lessons, 1991, etc.) lets loose with her trademark intelligence, fervor, and personal focus on topics ranging from the Gulf War through absent fathers to the controversy over abortion. ``But is it really necessary for you to wear your gender on your sleeve?,'' an eager young journalist once asked the author. Citing her role model, editorialist Dorothy Thompson (who when told she had ``the brains of a man'' insisted she was ``altogether female''), Quindlen reiterates her belief that she owes it to herself, to the female reporters who broke ground for her generation at the Times, and to her readers to comment on world events from her underrepresented and valuable female viewpoint. Writing with greater maturity and depth than in her ``Life in the 30s'' column (Living Out Loud, 1988), she confidently proceeds to filter the abortion issue through her own experience as a Catholic mother of three; consider euthanasia from the perspective of a dying man's wife; observe her daughter's second birthday while considering that women as a whole still earn less than men; mull over the premature revelation of Arthur Ashe's case of AIDS from the point of view of a seasoned reporter; and lambast the Times, as a journalist and a woman, for revealing the name of the alleged rape victim in the William Kennedy Smith trial. Whimsical moments appear sporadically (Quindlen predicts the next movie blockbuster, Mom Alone), but rage surfaces more frequently from this woman writing in what she--perhaps optimistically--calls ``a world in which we can wear our gender on our sleeves.'' ``I'd love to run your column, but we already run Ellen Goodman,'' one newspaper editor candidly told Quindlen. Until the quota increases past one, here's a way for more readers to fall in love with at least one woman's very personal brand of passion. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A humanistic response to America's social issues
I picked up this book after hearing Ms. Quindlen speak at Barnard Collge, our alma mater. While I spoke to her briefly I must embarrassingly admit that I had not read her. After hearing her read one of her essays aloud, I rushed right out and bought the book and preceeded to have several sleepless nights as I fought to finish the book. This is not to say that her prose is hard to get through; quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Her points are made so clearly and judiciously that I was in a constant state of disbelief. It took me awhile to get through because I kept reading and rereading essays, each time thinking, "Wait a minute, that's what I think! (I just couldn't phrase it as well)" I also kept calling my best friend (also a Barnard grad) to read essays, passages, and even single sentences that I thought were amazing.

Above all this collection proves that there is a humanistic point of view that could serve as the basis of a presidential campaign platform, for it represents in its totality the true spirit of the American people. Ms. Quindlen's opinions seem driven by compassion and empathy, not the rules of religious institutions or political parties whose decrees rarely take into account America's pluralist history and unjust past. These essays should be read by all, especially junior high and high school students who are forming their beliefs about ethics, morals, religion, politics, etc. This would be a wonderful book for parents who want to raise intellectually, culturally, and politically aware children to read and discuss with their teens.

Strong-Willed, Sexy, Self-Confident Anna Quindlen -- A Feminist Firebrand For the Ages!
How appealing it is to read a serious work of political commentary by a woman as courageous and compassionate as Anna Quindlen. What sets her apart from other feminist authors is her grasp of middle-American values (love of home and family, reverence for the struggles of her immigrant ancestors and at least a qualified loyalty to the Catholic church) and her insistence on humanity and compassion as the supreme qualifications for political and cultural leadership in our society. She brilliantly assimilates the best of the Sixties counterculture, the Civil Rights Movement, and Feminism, (not to mention the traditional Democratic liberalism of FDR and the New Deal) and combines them in a distinctive voice that is always delightfully irreverent and accessible.

As playful and witty as Quindlen can be, however, it would be a mistake to assume that THINKING OUT LOUD is a frivolous book. Some of the essays collected here address crimes so horrifying and brutal that it's hard to imagine even Anna Quindlen being untouched by pessimism and despair. What's most extraordinary, however, is that even in essays such as "The Perfect Victim" (about the rape of the Central Park Jogger) and "A Changing World" (about the racially charged murder of a black teenager in all-white Bensonhurst)Anna Quindlen insists above all on celebrating the humanity of the victim. Quindlen is a genius at capturing the details behind the story, as well. From her point of view, the humanity and larger than life heroism of the Central Park jogger can be summed up in the fact that she was a Wellesley graduate, Wellesley symbolizing the ideals and aspirations of humanistic, upwardly mobile middle class feminism. Conversely, the brutality and subhuman cruelty of the Italian boys of Bensonhurst she automatically connects with the contempt for higher education and upward social mobility displayed by the proudly working class males in ethnic enclaves like Bensonhurst.

It's only natural, of course, that as a Barnard graduate Anna Quindlen sees higher education as valuable and rewarding in moral as well as material terms. Middle class kids who excell in academics are taught from a very early age to view working class kids with different skill sets as pathetic failures at best, contemptible losers at worst. These are clearly the values that Anna Quindlen accepted unthinkingly as a little girl. Still, it's regrettable that in her essay on the first Gulf War, "Summer's Soldiers," she refers to Gulf War soldiers (like myself) as "not smart, not rich, not directed enough for college." This is exactly the kind of thoughtless, dismissive, seemingly out of touch comment that can be twisted by a cunning conservative commentator (such as Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh) to suggest that liberals are smug elitists who hold all working class people in contempt. Such unfortunate gaffes undermine the anti-war movement in any war, because they widen the regrettable but undeniable gap between the progressive leadership of the anti-war left and the great mass of the American people.

Anna Quindlen dismisses the patriotism of more than a hundred thousand Gulf War veterans with a sneer, on the argument that they're not college educated and therefore can't understand the core values of a democracy. Yet she writes with almost religious fervor about her immigrant Irish ancestors, who came to this country not only ignorant of democracy but (for the most part) completely illiterate. Does she really imagine the soldiers who fought the Gulf War were any less patriotic or unselfish than the Famine Irish who came here unable even to write their own names?
My own ancestors were Jews from Eastern Europe. The literacy rate among the Jews at the turn of the last century was much, much higher than that of the Famine Irish of the 1840's, and the Jews never engaged in ethnic cleansing and mass murder of black women and children as the Irish did with astonishing gusto during the Draft Riots of 1863. Yet no one would suggest that Jews made "better" Americans than the Irish.

Anna Quindlen is a gifted, eloquent spokesperson for the values of democracy, yet she has a selective memory about certain aspects of the Irish experience in America. She condemns the violent racism of Italian Bensonhurst with regal hauteur and ice-cold contempt, like Queen Victoria turning up her nose at Jack the Ripper. Yet in another column she acknowledges with almost disturbing cheerfulness that she grew up in a neighborhood "where a Jewish family would have been a rarity and a black family an impossibility." The boys of Bensonhurst used murder to keep their neighborhood all white -- what weapons did Anna's parents use? Does she know? Does she even care? Perhaps in her mind, racism is okay as long as you "want better things" i.e. to send your daughter to college.

On repeated readings, one gets the impression that what Anna Quindlen finds most repulsive about the boys of Bensonhurst is not that they were willing to stoop to murder but that they were defending a working-class neighborhood, not a middle class one. Her loathing for the murderers of Bensonhurst is not really that of the Union Army soldier for the Confederate soldier, where both sides have clearly put everything at risk and are equally willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, but is more analogous to the slaveowner's snide contempt for the white-trash overseer. She has lived in all-white neighborhoods all her life, yet she almost unthinkingly scapegoats working class males, equating their class pride with racial hatred and racial violence. But the equation is not complete unless you factor in the fact that upper class whites take the right to live in "exclusive" neighborhoods for granted.

The subject of race is a constant thread in THINKING OUT LOUD. Anna Quindlen champions Affirmative Action with all the zeal of a Union Army colonel holding to the last at Little Round Top. Yet again, it's interesting that she sees no contradiction between her own girlhood -- all those years in secluded innocence at the all white, all girl, all Catholic private schools she so clearly cherished -- and the multi-racial future she wants for other people's children. I'm not saying I disagree with Anna Quindlen, not at all. I'm just thinking out loud that she didn't insist on going to public school when she was a teenager, in order to make friends with black kids (like my father) or Jewish kids (like my mother). I wonder exactly when it was she discovered that black women were her "sisters." It wasn't when she was serving as an infantryman in Vietnam, and it wasn't when she was a Freedom Rider in Alabama. Anna Quindlen writes about the Civil Rights movement as if it's "her" achievement -- as if somehow she deserves the credit. Yet all of her essays, even the most touching and entertaining, make it painfully clear that she is the product of racial privilege, and that her view of blacks is condescending and paternalistic, closer to that of an "enlightened" slaveowner like Scarlett O'Hara than that of a white-trash renegade like the notorious slave-stealer Huck Finn.

Excellent, concise, and thought-provoking essays
Anna Quindlen's collection of essays explores everything from raising children to the latest on Congress and the role of the government. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these outtakes from Quindlen's column in the N.Y. Times, and appreciated her insight and humor in what could be a mundane and highbrow column. I highly recommend it to those who want to learn how to write, those who want to read for pleasure, and those who want to think about the state of society... all at the same time