Value Judgments

Spanning the last four years, a collection of 120 pieces from the syndicated columnist covers the abortion wars, Anita Hill, William Kennedy Smith, the 1992 election, and other events of recent memory

True to her book's title, Boston Globe syndicated columnist Goodman makes many value judgments in this collection of some 130 columns. She advocates lifting the ban on gays in the military; gives credence to Anita Hill's sexual harassment charges against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas; and lashes Woody Allen for failure to distinguish right from wrong in having an affair with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter. Goodman's pithy style and keen insights inform her essays on money and marriage, race relations, overpopulation, teaching children about sex, and urban squirrels as exemplars of adaptabilty and flat-out nerve. Although topical pieces on Madonna, the William Kennedy Smith date-rape trial and other fleeting events have lost their fizz, the columns, on balance, hold up well as a search for values in an age when parents neglect or abandon their children and children legally "divorce" their parents.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Every five years, it seems, Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe puts her popular articles into an anthology that is a statement of the times. In her last collection, Making Sense (1989), she dealt with everything from AIDS to the 1988 presidential campaign; in the current batch, she deals with everything from AIDS to the 1992 presidential campaign--but the information is by no means redundant. Fortunately, her liberal slant on society and politics does not unbalance her discussions of such controversial topics as the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings; in fact, she backs up her views with a solid realism that even the most "left-wing" senators on the confirmation committee failed to do. But all the fare here is not so heavy as this. Goodman entertains as she informs and delights as she laments about all types of people, places, and things. Her concise yet thorough treatment of the "American experience" gives new meaning to such trivialized ideas as family values and political correctness. It's Value Judgments with real values and not a lot of judgment. Mary Frances Wilkens

Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist Goodman has produced her fifth volume of collected columns (following Making Sense , LJ 8/89; Keeping in Touch , LJ 10/15/85; At Large , LJ 9/1/81; and Close to Home , LJ 12/1/79). Goodman, who describes the primary subject matter of her writing as a search for or explanation of values, here strives to reclaim the importance and legitimacy of making value judgments for both individuals and the community. Ranging in her coverage from the political campaign of 1992 to living and dying in a high-tech age, Goodman explores the ongoing individual and social struggles over values. Readers familiar with her work will find the moderately progressive and feminist stance of her pieces predictable, though the works themselves are well written. Recommended for collections where Goodman's earlier works have circulated well and for journalism collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.
- Judy Solberg, Univ. of Maryland Libs., College Park
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.