By Josh Levin
How do you take one unusually disturbed individual and turn her into a stereotype to satisfy your political gains? Linda Taylor was portrayed as the Welfare Queen, and indeed she cheated the system on multiple occasions. But she also did much worse things than that, but those aspects of her crimes did not end up being hugely featured in newspapers, did not lead to cuts to welfare programs, and rarely even got her arrested. One wonders if she still would have hurt so many people if she grew up in a more welcoming environment, if she were allowed to go to school, if she didn't have to take her life in her own hands from early childhood. [non-fiction, 418 pp. including notes and index]
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