Praise For Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life

“God I miss Molly Ivins! The Texas kicker spoke truth to power like nobody’s business. Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith have elegantly bottled up her enduring charm in this winner of a book. A real page-turning hoot.” —Douglas Brinkley

“I was lucky enough to be the publisher of Molly Ivins’ iconoclastic, outrageously funny, laceratingly pointed political and social commentaries that made most male contemporaries—hello sweet pea—seem like shrinking violets, and I never knew the half of what made her tick so gloriously. The deeply researched biography by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith, written with affection but unflinching candor, reveals a brave, resilient woman with a personality bigger than Texas whom hundreds of thousands of her readers, like me, will wish they’d known better.” —Sir Harold Evans

"Everybody loved Molly Ivins, except those who hated her. Neither group really understood her, which is why this book is essential. By far the best work on the woman who became an icon of liberalism in Texas—and in America." —H. W. Brands

“Aspiring journalists, read this—and then get to work.” —Kirkus

“Fans of Ivins's work and readers interested in feminist history, contemporary politics, and media studies will like this first full-length biography of Ivins.” —Library Journal

“One of the strengths of Minutaglio and Smith’s biography is its vivid evocation of times and places. In pungent prose worthy of their subject, they summon up the postwar Houston of Ivins youth.” —Steven Kellman, San Antonio Current

“Entertaining, readable.... Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life is a sobering account of the toll of addiction and cancer, but it's also full of wonderful stories about a complex, brilliant woman who will be remembered for her trademark wit and down-home wisdom.” —Dallas Morning News

“An inside look at the world of journalism while describing in moving detail Ivins’ struggle with cancer.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“For those who miss the wit and whip of Molly Ivins, the new biography of her life will make you laugh, cry, shudder and think.” —San Antonio News-Express

“Poignant… personal, empathetic.” —Austin American-Statesman

“But while her physical being might elude me, her voice never ceases to stomp its way across a page and in A Rebel Life, it is no different. It evolves and matures, but it is always hers, in letters and opinions that hang in the air. And even though I might have missed her when she was leaving, it's a comfort to get to see where she was coming from.” —Rachel Farris, Huffington Post

“Filled with first-rate analysis, leavened by plenty of local color.” —Newsweek

“This biography will be enjoyed…. It will help a new crop of readers discover an American original.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

 "Essential reading for anyone with a taste for the history of Texas politics and the glory days of Texas journalism."  —Bruce Davidson, www.mysanantonio.com

 “Meticulous…. A Rebel Life could easily have reduced Ivins’s life to a kind of ongoing dialectic: public persona versus private person, expectations versus here’s where you can put your expectations. It could have also devolved into a simple study of the journalist’s body of work. But thankfully, the authors resist reductive aesthetics in favor of something both more challenging and more rewarding: empathy. They provide a portrait of their subject that is loving in the most literal sense. They treat her simply as a person, with the attendant freight of ego and insecurity, strength and frailty… the biography is like its subject: unrelentingly honest, unapologetically filtered.” — Megan Garber, Columbia Journalism Review

Reviews

Troublemaker
THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW
By Lloyd Grove

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She was all that
Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life
SACRAMENTO NEWS & REVIEW
By Bob Schmidt

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Book Review: "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life"
WWW.DAILYKOS.COM
by SusanG

‘Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life’ captures the public and private side of a treasured American journalist
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
By Norman J. Glickman

Molly Ivins: A rich and complicated 'Rebel's Life'
SULPHUR SPRINGS NEWS-TELEGRAM
By Terry Mathews

Molly Ivins: a rebel life
A portrait of the rebel Molly Ivins
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
By Norman Glickman

Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life, by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith
EVERYDAY CITIZEN
By Darrell Hamlin

Rebel with a Cause
Molly Ivins in high definition
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW
By Megan Garber

No pedestal
Turns out it wasn't easy being Molly Ivins, a revelation that enhances her legendary status.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
By Brad Buchholz

Tough and tender
WASHINGTON POST
By Dennis Drabelle

Molly Ivins: Houston's favorite liberal
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
By Claudia Feldman

The Decider, Deconstructed: Molly Ivins Comes to Life in New Biography
THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Rachel Farris

Molly Ivins' life as colorful as her columns
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
By Bruce Davidson

The life and hard times of Molly Ivins
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
By Mandy Twaddell

Austin remembers outspoken journalist
Trailblazing firebrand's former colleagues team to host book signing
DAILY TEXAN
By Nehal Patel

Book review: 'Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life' by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
By Elizabeth Bennett

Paper trail:
Columnist Molly Ivins left rich documentation of her life, and the result is an illuminating portrait. 
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
By Carl Rollyson

Ivins loved role of rebel
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
By Jan Jarboe Russell

An alum's journey from the Sophian to the New York Times
THE SOPHIAN
By Alexis Marley

The scourge of the Lege
Remembering Ms. Molly
SAN ANTONIO CURRENT
By Steven G. Kellman