books Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free by Sarah Weinman Ecco, $28.99 In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in prison and sentenced to death for the murder of teenager Victoria Zielinski, struck up a correspondence with William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review. Buckley, who refused to believe that a man who supported the neoconservative movement could have committed such a heinous crime, began to advocate not only for Smith’s life to be spared but also for his sentence to be overturned. So begins a bizarre and tragic tale of midcentury America. Sarah Weinman’s Scoundrel leads us through the twists of fate and fortune that brought Smith to freedom, book deals, fame, and eventually to attempting murder again. In Smith, Weinman has uncovered a psychopath who slipped his way into public acclaim and acceptance before crashing down to earth once again. Fake by Erica Katz Harper, $26.99 Emma Caan is a fake. She’s a forger, an artist who specializes in nineteenth-century paintings. But she isn’t a criminal; her copies are commissioned by museums and ultra-wealthy collectors protecting their investments. When oligarch art collector Leonard Sobetsky appears with an invitation, Emma sees a way out—access to the kind of money she needs to support her unstable and recently widowed mother. But every invitation incurs an obligation—and Emma isn’t prepared for what’s to come. As she’s pulled further into Leonard’s opulent scene, she will discover what’s lurking beneath the glitz and glamour and wonder how much of her carefully curated life is just as fake as her forgeries. Davos Man by Peter S. Goodman Custom House, $29.99 16
ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM
The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism’s triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men”—members of the billionaire class–chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a 50year trend of wealth centralization. Goodman’s rollicking and revelatory exposé of the global billionaire class reveals their hidden impact on nearly every aspect of modern society. Love Unfu*ked by Gary John Bishop HarperOne, $23.99 No matter how much advice we get or how much work we do on our “stuff,” nothing ever seems to make the difference. The truth of it is, you’re woefully illequipped for one of the most life-defining things you will ever take on— being in a committed relationship. Whether you’re currently in one, want to be in one, half in–half out, getting over one, married, single, separated, divorced, or just overwhelmed with the whole thing, let’s cut through the morass of relationship schtick and put you back in charge. No flowery BS, no woo-woo strategies, systems, or techniques, just real talk, for real people who want a real relationship in their life that actually works. Defenestrate by Renee Branum Bloomsbury, $26.00 Marta and her twin brother Nick have always been haunted and fascinated by an ancestral legend that holds that members of their family are doomed to various types of falls. And when their own family collapses in
the wake of a revelation and a resulting devastating fight with their Catholic mother, the twins move to Prague, the city in which their “falling curse” began. There, Marta and Nick try to forge a new life for themselves. But their ties to the past and each other prove difficult to disentangle, and when they ultimately return to their midwestern home and Nick falls from a balcony himself, Marta is forced to confront the truths they’ve hidden from each other and themselves. Ingeniously and unforgettably narrated by Marta as she reflects on all the ways there are to fall—from defenestration in nineteenth century Prague to the pratfalls of her childhood idol Buster Keaton, from falling in love to falling midflight from an airplane—Defenestrate is a deeply original, gorgeous novel about the power of stories and the strange, malleable bonds that hold families together. Violeta [English Edition] by Isabel Allende Ballantine, $28.00 This sweeping novel tells the epic story of a woman whose life spans 100 years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the 20th century. Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional. n
