THE QUEEN

While the story of Linda Taylor is at once bewildering and tragic, there are millions of untold stories of people who suffered because of her infamy, and we may never know their names. But by reading about Taylor's life and the perplexing person she was, we may be able to understand people who live today in poverty. We can meet their challenges with compassion, and not lionize or demonize them, but see them as Linda was never seen in the eyes of the public-as a full person.

[A] rigorous new biography.Levin tells this story with a forceful combination of empathy and rigor. The Queen is... a powerful reminder to ask what stories lie behind the ones that catch the public eye. Read more...

A compelling new look at Linda Taylor. The Queen is a cross between true-crime story, biography and political history.

UK/Commonw.: Headline Wildfire

An upcoming biography by journalist Josh Levin about Linda Taylor, the Chicago woman whose complicated story was demonized and manipulated by politicians and press (namely, the Chicago Tribune, according to Levin's account) until she was Ronald Reagan's infamous 'welfare queen'. It's tempting to describe Levin's masterful book as alternate history of 1980s Chicago. But no - again, it's this Chicago, on this planet, not twisted on its head, only righted.

In re-examining the 'welfare queen' myth, Slate's Josh Levin tells a story about racism in America and the oversimplified narratives that still dominate political discourse.

It's about Linda Taylor, the 'Cadillac-driving welfare queen in Chicago'' that Pres. Reagan referenced in a 1983 speech about rampant defrauding of government anti-poverty programs. Her story helped popularize stereotype about lazy Black people on the dole. But the focus on her welfare grifting meant people mostly ignored the more sinister crimes she was implicated in - like kidnappings and murders! Anyway, it's a wild book.

Levin's work succeeds at untangling a complex life, both the actual facts of it - no easy task for a woman with dozens of aliases - and what she ultimately came to represent.

For decades, Linda Taylor has been demagogued by politicians and the press, reduced to a cruel stereotype: the welfare queen shamelessly leeching from government coffers. Through meticulous reporting, Josh Levin's THE QUEEN illuminates in full the story of a life far more complicated, cunning, criminal, tragic and fascinating than the historical stereotype would have ever allowed us to see.

The verve and humor of Levin's writing mirrors the brazenness of the crimes Taylor committed under various false identities... But there's a bigger, and grimmer, story here, and Levin gives it its due. Read more...

Highbrow + brilliant.

Another author would have used the 'welfare queen' as a jumping-off point to explore stereotypes, welfare politics and political rhetoric. Levin addresses all that, but his real goal is to put a face to Reagan's bogeywoman, tracking every alias, every scam, every duped husband and every dodged arrest. He presents Linda Taylor not as a parable for anything grand, but as a singular American scoundrel who represented nothing but herself. Part of the fun of Levin's book is burrowing inside his obsessive quest.

Levin's book is a moral seesaw. It's tempting to feel sympathy for Taylor, born into a society and a class calibrated to beat her down. Gaming the system is every American's dream, and Taylor achieved it with stunning ingenuity.

A presidential campaign, constructed from a scaffolding of bigotry. Unbridled backlash against the poor. Ideological agendas paving over the truth and ignoring real victims. Josh Levin's The Queen is both an unforgettable story and a vital way of understanding how we got to our current political crossroads. This is a crucial, important book.

Slate editorial director Levin's dogged investigative work in his impressive debut reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of [a] woman who called herself Linda Taylor (among numerous other names)

The strength of The Queen lies in Levin's meticulous scouring of the historical record to paint a picture of a woman who was infuriatingly difficult to pin down during her lifetime, resurrecting a biography of the person who would become the ur-welfare queen. By examining her reality, we can finally question the very concept of a welfare queen and deconstruct a myth spun out of selective details.

THE QUEEN: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth by Josh Levin is the winner of the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

The verve and humor of Levin's writing mirrors the brazenness of the crimes Taylor committed. Taylor is like a one-person, low-rent "Ocean's 11,"and you can't help but marvel at the ingenuity with which she kept it up for decades. Neither can Levin, who ends virtually every chapter with a cliffhanger, tantalizing us with clues to Taylor's next big scam. But there's a bigger, and grimmer, story here, and Levin gives it its due.

In his great work of investigation, Levin, who is editorial director of Slate, uncovers this [welfare queen] creation myth and argues that it hardened into a stereotype deployed to chip away at benefits for the poor. Levin has written a fascinating tale of how the myth was constructed, but he has also dug deeply into Taylor's story, revealing her as to be a grifter, a thief, and possibly a murderer - a woman who was victimized, but who also victimized those more vulnerable than she.

A deftly drawn, quick-paced police procedural...The Queen is a story of grand scale manipulation, both of Taylor's trail of brazen deceptions but also the role media and politics played in shaping a narrative - making all of us the victims of games of shadows and smoke.

Levin has managed to bring the human being out from under the stereotype. He does so in clear, concise writing that refrains from overwrought editorializing. Levin succeeds in always drawing readers back to his main subjects: systemic oppression, the rhetoric that feeds it, and how Taylor fits into both.

In his book The Queen, journalist Josh Levin tells the life story of this footnote character in American political history, and finds that the crime for which she is remembered was just a minor incident in a life of theft and deception.

It is impossible to read THE QUEEN without pausing every few pages to marvel at either the brilliance of Josh Levin's research or the sheer wildness of the tale. By pouring years of devotion into piecing together Linda Taylor's bizarre criminal odyssey, Levin has created a work of ... history like no other - an enthralling portrait of a nation whose splendid promise has too often been distorted by prejudice and political cynicism.

Levin writes with sympathy. Themes of rejection, racial confusion and possible mental illness create a strong undercurrent beneath this fascinating story.

Levin's story of Taylor, who went under numerous aliases, is an extremely well-researched and well-written account of her life and misdeeds, and of the glory-seeking legislators, prosecutors and reporters who were so quick to see a good headline and just as quick to ignore real malfeasance such as kidnapping, selling of children and almost certainly murder - times three. ... Levin spent six years researching Taylor, and The Queen is an excellent account of her life, her criminal activity and the politics of blame still with us today.

This is a highly recommended, fascinating examination of a prolific con artist, who by the end of her life may not have been able to distinguish between reality and her own lies.

Lee Daniels (Empire; The Butler) and his producing partner Pam Williams have optioned film rights to the book.

I am delighted to let you know that Josh Levin's THE QUEEN: A Villain, Her Victims, and the Power of a Lie was nominated for the very prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award in the biography category. (Winners will be announced at a celebration on March 12th.) THE QUEEN was also longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography.

The Queen is a rich character-study of a complicated black woman that Levin rescues from simplistic stereotyping. It's also an at study of the ways black women have been demonized in society.

There is something uniquely special about a work that sets out to re-examine the origin of an American social trope-the original "welfare queen"-and results in such a meticulously researched book that both complicates ideas of race and class many previously took for-granted and reads like one of the most outlandish true crime capers of the season.

Incredible excerpt in the New York Times Sunday Review. Read more...

It is a jaw-dropping, just astonishing feat of reporting... the sensitivity with which he writes about [Linda Taylor's] childhood and history... is fascinating.

Josh Levin's delicious deep dive into the true story of Ronald Reagan's welfare queen unwraps a bizarre and entertaining yarn of a grifter's journey through the infernal levels of racism, sexism, sensational journalism, slipshod law enforcement, and the twisted family values that brought us from 20th-century America to where we are now.

In the finest tradition of investigative reporting, Josh Levin exposes how a story that once shaped the nation's conscience was clouded by racism and lies. As he stunningly reveals, the deeper truth, the messy truth, tells us something much larger about who we are. The Queen is an invaluable work of nonfiction

The woman's name was Linda Taylor. And a new book, "The Queen" by Josh Levin demystifies who she was. Turns out her most egregious crimes had nothing to do with welfare scams...But those crimes didn't fit the lazy, trifling welfare narrative. By page 40 my mouth dropped at the audacity of con-artist Taylor. Levin, an editor at Slate, spent six years piecing together the life of a woman whose image demonized black women. She eventually dropped out of public sight and Levin's compelling narrative weaves Taylor's story inside public policy.

In The Queen, Slate editor John Levin takes a holistic approach to Taylor's story, relaying the details of her early life, her crimes, and her unexpected turn as a national debating point, exposing some uncomfortable truths about the era's attitudes, so many of which persist today.

Levin, the national editor of Slate, writes a stunning account of Linda Taylor, the woman famously tagged as a "welfare queen" in the 1970s. His powerful work of narrative nonfiction...demonstrates how a single distortion can ruin lives. Levin does a terrific job of balancing his portrait of a criminal, of the racism of police who didn't bother to solve the three murders connected to Taylor, and of the widespread stereotyping of Blacks that grew out of her crimes and a president's distortions.

Levin, an editor at Slate, returns us to a former era of uproar in doing so complicating political and cultural debates that have survived to this day.

[Levin's] portrait of [Taylor] is unflinching; so is his portrayal of the demagogues who profited from her story.

[A] fascinating portrait of a con artist and a nation...