Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert S Levine

Review of: The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, by Robert S. Levine Reviewed by Stan Prager, Regarp Book Blog

This bonus episode features my full discussion with Professor Robert S Levine. You can find The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, everywhere books can be purchased, and you can learn more about Professor Levine on his site, https://blog.umd.edu/robert-s-levine/

This week we are bringing you what the people want, and have always wanted, Herman Melville's Pierre (1852)! Wait, you don't want to read a book about a guy who breaks up with his mom for his sister? But you haven't even heard about his dad yet! Technically it's more of a painting of his dad, but the painting has a mischievous stare that lets you know it's very into French ladies. And that's how Pierre got a secret sister. He likes her more than a friend. She likes hiding in her hair and playing guitar more than a friend. This makes Pierre's mom so mad she throws a fork into a painting of herself. We didn't make this up. Herman Melville did. Come take a ride with us. We discuss why Melville is so cool, the mom/dad/sister triad, artistic mediation, and the nation. This is a two-parter, so come back next week to find out how it ends! We read the Norton Critical Edition edited by Robert S. Levine and Cindy Weinstein. For more on this totally regular book, check out Gillian Brown's “Anti-sentimentalism and Authorship in Pierre” in Domestic Individualism: Imagining Self in Nineteenth-Century America. Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at betterreadpodcast@gmail.com. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

My guest is Robert S. Levine, author of THE FAILED PROMISE: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.  In the book he provides an absorbing account of the struggle between the great orator Frederick Douglass and President Andrew Johnson after their views diverged on Reconstruction. When Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, the country was on the precipice of radical change. Johnson, seemingly more progressive than Lincoln, looked like the ideal person to lead the country.  Despite this early promise, Frederick Douglass, the country's most influential Black leader, soon grew disillusioned with Johnson's policies and increasingly doubted the president was sincere in supporting Black citizenship. Levine  portrays the conflicts that brought Douglass and the wider Black community to reject Johnson and call for a guilty verdict in his 1868 impeachment trial.  Robert S. Levine is Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park.  He is the author of several books including Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity; and The Lives of Frederick Douglas.Diverse Voices Book Review is hosted and produced by Hopeton Hay.  Its theme music was created and performed by Wright Productions. To learn about upcoming interviews follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter under @diversebookshay.

The novelist Brandon Taylor, who has generated his own buzz with his debut novel, “Real Life,” and a collection of stories, “Filthy Animals,” visits the podcast to discuss the much-discussed work of Sally Rooney. Taylor recently reviewed her third novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You.” On the podcast, he describes Rooney's writing as an “intense, melancholic tractor beam.”“She has this really great, tactile metaphorical sense, but it's never overworked,” he says. “Her style is so clean. That is the word I come to most often in describing her style. It is so clean, so pristine.” Like her two previous books, this one is fueled by the vexations of intimate relationships. “Ultimately, if you're a Sally Rooney fan, I think you'll love this novel,” Taylor says. “And if you're a Sally Rooney skeptic, I think she will acknowledge your concerns but maybe not answer them in full.”Another Rooney, David Rooney, visits the podcast to discuss his new book, “About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks.”“There's something about clocks and watches,” he says.” They have more meaning to many people than other artifacts. I wasn't quite sure why. I was trying to get behind the faces of clocks and watches, to understand not so much how they work — although that's fascinating — but what they mean, and what they've always meant, through history, across cultures.”Also on this week's episode, Tina Jordan looks back at Book Review history as it celebrates its 125th anniversary; Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world; and Jennifer Szalai and John Williams talk about books that have been recently reviewed. Pamela Paul is the host.Here are the books discussed by the Times's critics this week:“The Failed Promise” by Robert S. Levine“The War for Gloria” by Atticus Lish“The Magician” by Colm Toibin