62 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ JANUARY 27, 2020
Review_NONFICTION
ebullient and sometimes downright idio-
syncratic abstractions a bridge between
the prewar and the postwar possibilities
for abstract art.” In the 1960s, Calder
received titanic commissions at Spoleto,
Montreal’s Expo ’67, and 1968’s Mexico
City Olympics for his monumental
sculptural pieces. Calder admirers will
delight in this exhaustively researched
and illuminating retrospective. (Apr.)The Compton Cowboys:
The New Generation of Cowboys
in America’s Urban Heartland
Walter Thompson-Hernández. Morrow, $28.99
(272p) ISBN 978-0-06-298511-8
New York Times journalist Thompson-
Hernández debuts with an inspiring report
from Richland Farms in Compton, Calif.,
“a community within a community”
south of Los Angeles, where in the 1980s
real estate agent Mayisha Akbar founded
“one of the first black-owned horse
ranches in the United States.” With
funding from wealthy donors, Akbar also
ran the Compton Junior Posse, a youth
equestrian program that sought to divert
local kids from gangs by teaching them
horsemanship and to heal emotional
trauma through equine therapy.
Thompson-Hernández picks up the
ranch’s story in 2018, as a group of friends
and program graduates led by Mayisha’s
nephew, Randy, prepare to take the reins
from her. In addition to Randy, who wants
to make the ranch financially independent,
the Compton Cowboys include Charles, a
competitive show jumper with Olympic
dreams; Kenneth, who battles alcoholism;
and Keiara, who hopes to become the first
black woman to compete in the national
rodeo championships. Thompson-
Hernández weaves history lessons on
Compton’s shifting demographics,
Buffalo Soldiers, and famous black cowboys
of the American West into his account of
the ranch’s changing of the guard.
Though some readers may grow weary of
the book’s repetitions and meandering
threads, Thompson-Hernández succeeds
in capturing the redemptive powers of
this unique community and the human-
animal bonds it fosters. This feel-good
profile shines a spotlight on a worthy
cause. Agent: Chad Luibl, Janklow & Nesbit
Assoc. (Apr.)Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins,
Airplanes, and Two Men’s Epic
Duel to Rule the World
Alexander Rose. Random House, $30 (608p)
ISBN 978-0-8129-8997-7
Historian Rose (Men at War) chronicles
the early 20th century rivalry between
airships and airplanes for the future of
commercial air travel in this exhaustive
account. Building toward the 1930s
showdown
between Hugo
Eckener, head
of Germany’s
Zeppelin
Company, and
Juan Terry
Trippe, leader of
Pan American
Airways, Rose
tracks the devel-
opment of the
zeppelin airships and Eckener’s promotion
of them as “the silvery herald of global
travel” after he took charge of the com-
pany from Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
in 1917. Meanwhile, Trippe, a former
U.S. Navy pilot, realized that in order to
stimulate enough demand to fuel the
technological advancements needed to
make transatlantic passenger flights
possible, an airline needed “to own the
exclusive right to operate between given
destinations.” He acquired sole landing
rights in Cuba, and the first Pan Am
flight took off from Key West to Havana
in 1927, launching a competition
between the industries to win the political
and popular support necessary to build
fleets and open routes throughout the
world. In Rose’s retelling, the fate of the
zeppelin was sealed by the rise of the Nazi
Party and the 1936 Hindenburg crash,
which shifted international interest from
airships to airlines. Rose wades deep into
minutiae, but maintains a buoyant energy
throughout. The result is a dense yet
exhilarating history of the dawn of
modern air travel. (Apr.)★ Final Draft:
The Collected Work of David Carr
Edited by Jill Rooney Carr. Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, $28 (400p) ISBN 978-0-358-20668-2
David Carr (The Night of the Gun), who
died in 2015, was a consummate journalist
with a gift for memorable expression, asdemonstrated in this rewarding volume
edited by his widow. Its 56 columns and
features span his 25-year career and beats
that ranged from Minnesota to Manhattan,
where, from the New York Times’ culture
desk, he wrote “The Carpetbagger” film
industry column. The pieces include
celebrity profiles (such as of Neil Young
and Philip Seymour Hoffman), a look at the
fall of the Tribune Company’s newspaper
empire, and dissections of local
Washington, D.C., politics. The most
powerful selections, about Carr’s early
struggles with cocaine and alcohol addic-
tion, frequently serve up observations
stunning in their candor and self-aware-
ness: “Crack users are universally paranoid
consumptive eunuchs who show little
interest in things unrelated to their addic-
tion.” Throughout, Carr’s work is a model
of concision, demonstrating a skill at
crystallizing an idea in a single resonant
sentence as, when writing about 9/11’s
impact on New York City’s psyche, he
observes, “This is the place where the world
seemed to end in a single morning.”
Readers will appreciate having this wide-
ranging sample of Carr’s inimitable
perspective on American life. Agent: Flip
Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Apr.)Listening: Interviews, 1970–1989
Jonathan Cott. Univ. of Minnesota, $29.95
(360p) ISBN 978-1-5179-0901-7
Rolling Stone contributing editor Cott
(There’s a Mystery There) offers fascinating
insights into the minds and work of
renowned creative figures in this collection
of 22 interviews he’s done over the course
of his career. Cott speaks to Bob Dylan in
1977 shortly after the release of the second
movie directed by the singer, Renaldo and
Clara, drawing connections between the
film’s symbolism and Dylan’s lyrics. Chinua
Achebe discusses the importance of story-
telling and of
“preserving and
refurbishing the
landscape of the
imagination,”
while Elizabeth
Taylor, inter-
viewed in 1987,
recalls her early
stardom unsen-
timentally,
describing