John Powers

Critic at large JOHN POWERS reviews the Library of America’s new collection of Maxine Hong Kingston’s major works.

The seven-part British TV series, which centers on a young doctor working in the OB/GYN ward of a London hospital, tells a painful story about the assembly-line nature of modern medicine.

The Staircase details the workings of a justice system filled with pricey lawyers, ambitious district attorneys, bickering experts and appeals to a jury's cultural biases that may have nothing to do with the evidence or even the case at hand.