The Time of Our Lives

September 28, 2015
Noonan (What I Saw at the Revolution), a widely read columnist for the Wall Street Journal, collects 83 of those columns and other works, most of them superb, written from 1981 to the present. When Noonan is on—which is often––her insights are acute, sharply stated, and extremely moving. She can be wildly funny, noting that the Boomer generation, when it was “faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief or existential despair, chose... marijuana.” Having grown up in modest, slightly gothic circumstances, she seems delighted to travel in powerful, elegant circles, and she laments the coarseness of contemporary America compared to the society in which she was raised. Noonan’s attempts to project a sense of humility feel strained, as do her raptures over Ronald Reagan and Jacqueline Kennedy. Nonetheless, most of her essays are captivating. She idealizes institutions and everyday attitudes that she takes to preserve and protect America’s social fabric. She supports English as a universal American language, condemns illegal immigration, and detests Wall Street greed. A 2007 piece on Hillary Clinton and the visceral unease she provokes seems especially timely. In another piece, Noonan explores Obama’s singular loneliness in office. The lasting message of this powerful collection is that the bubble that today’s politicians live in, insulated from the people they govern, uniquely threatens the American commonwealth. Agent: Robert B. Barnett, Williams & Connolly.

October 1, 2015
A former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal assembles pieces from her long career as a conservative political voice. Noonan (Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now, 2008, etc.) never allows her political preferences to slip far beneath the flowing surface of her skillful prose. Although some of the pieces are from the early 1980s, most are fairly recent]or have some recent resonance. There will be some surprises for those who have not read her often. She loves The Sopranos, admires Jackie Kennedy and Tennessee Williams, praises President Barack Obama for a sensitive comment, and even zaps George W. Bush occasionally. She also chides the GOP for seeming to fall apart in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election. But she continually celebrates an American past whose virtues she highlights while ignoring the social failures of segregation, the denial of equal rights for women, and the vile biases experienced by people who were not fortunate to live their lives in Ozzie and Harriet's neighborhood. In one piece, Noonan discusses the GOP's taking the South from Democrats without mentioning much about the civil rights issues that triggered that transformation. The author writes in praise of men like John Wayne (we need more men like him, in all walks of life), calls Reagan a great president (and slams Edmund Morris' unconventional Reagan biography, Dutch, 1999), and blasts the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church for failures in the recent sex scandals. There are sharp words for Bill and Hillary Clinton and Obama, whose health care initiatives she calls a "blunder" and a "miscalculation." Her eloquence soars in her pieces about 9/11, and she disdains frequent polling and bemoans the loss of privacy. Noonan is quick to generalize, to soak sentences in nostalgia, and to ignore contradictory or uncomfortable evidence, but she does provide moments that pierce and sentences that linger.

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Starred review from November 15, 2015
Conventional wisdom assigns most ambitious women to a place on the political left. So how, then, has Noonan carved out a remarkably successful career as a journalist, presidential speechwriter, and author on the political right? In this impressive collection of speeches and journalistic commentaries, readers hear the convention-defying voice that has made Noonan a national presence as an exponent of conservatism. Readers hear that distinctive voice in, for instance, an elegiac reflection on the exceptional normalcy and fair-mindedness of fellow journalist Tim Russert, in an acerbic indictment of President Obama for not joining with other world leaders in a show of solidarity after the Charlie Hebdo killings, and in a hopeful prediction of the difference Pope Francis will make for Catholicism. Addressing other topicsincluding 9/11, the Iraq War, Obamacare, illegal immigration, the machinations of both Clintons, and internecine war in the Republican Partythat voice varies considerably in tone yet develops a coherent perspective of sober concern about the trajectory of American culture and politics. But readers may value most the exceptionally candid and capacious introduction, in which Noonan reflects on her childhood, her maturation as a journalist, and her philosophy as a professional writer. A refreshingly spontaneous and engaging collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2015

Once special assistant and speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan, Noonan is a Wall Street Journal columnist attended to by politicos of all stripes and a New York Times best-selling author (e.g., What I Saw at the Revolution). Here, she ferrets out her best work, offering annotations and analysis plus an introduction that tracks her career. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.