Praise for Steven Levingston’s work:
Barack and Joe: The Making of an Extraordinary Partnership
“Levingston, a gifted diviner of our political ethos and an eloquent chronicler of our national tendencies, delves purposefully into the relationship between Obama and Biden, showing how it was the magical melding of two forceful personalities who were quite dissimilar in many ways, but no less capable of turning their differences into national benefit.”―Michael Eric Dyson, from the foreword of Barack and Joe
“Levingston weaves a lively narrative about an unlikely alliance between the taciturn Obama and gregarious, voluble Biden.” ―Kirkus Reviews
Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle Over Civil Rights
“Steven Levingston’s Kennedy and King is an unqualified masterpiece of historical narrative. Every page sparkles with literary verve, eloquent storytelling, and keen analytic judgment. It might be the best dual biography I’ve ever read. A landmark achievement which elevates civil rights history into a high art form.”
― Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author of Rosa Parks and The Reagan Diaries
“Levingston . . . contrasts the unstoppable forces of King’s soaring oratory, Christian principles, and moral authority with the immovable objects of Kennedy’s privilege, political calculation, and presidential power. Their push and pull unfolded in a cultural cauldron that encompassed the Montgomery bus boycott, the freedom rides, King’s stints in jail, the children’s crusade in Birmingham, Gov. George Wallace’s segregationist stand at the University of Alabama, and the march on Washington.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A riveting episode in American history.” —Booklist (starred review)
Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Époque Paris
“Levingston has unearthed a whopper of a story, and lovingly crafted a dense, lyrical yarn that hits the true-crime trifecta of setting, story and so-what. Such books remind us that times may change, but the human animal does not.”
—The New York Times
“Levingston, who is nonfiction book editor of the Washington Post and knows a good story when he sees one, has given it a richly enjoyable telling. Its lurid and improbable plot twists are expertly transposed into a breathless true-crime thriller set against a sumptuous evocation of the boulevards, nightclubs and boudoirs of Belle Époque Paris.”
—Wall Street Journal
“International journalist and Washington Post nonfiction book editor Levingston uses the story of a murder by a foolish girl and her lover to illustrate another side of belle epoque Paris. The author foregoes the tabloid excesses and exploitation of lurid details from that time and focuses on the debate as to whether a person is capable of committing a crime under hypnosis or even post-hypnotic suggestion.” ―Kirkus Reviews
Steven Levingston 