Category Archives: social justice

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond*****

Posted on by

EvictedI was cruising for something new to read, something that wasn’t yet another mystery or thriller. I ran across this title and requested it from Net Galley, then asked myself what I had been thinking! Who wants to read an entire book about eviction? What a grim prospect. I was even more surprised, then, when I opened it and couldn’t put it down. Desmond approaches his subject in a way that makes it not only readable but compelling. Thanks go to the people at Crown Publishing and Penguin Random House for approving my request for a DRC. This book is available to the public March 1.

Desmond undertook his study as part of his study of sociology while attending the University of Wisconsin, and continued it into his graduate studies at Harvard. The whole book is based on rentals among high-poverty families living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Desmond explains why this location is a good case study as regards the rest of Midwestern urban America.

Most of the text is told as narrative nonfiction, with the author shadowing eight families, some African-American, some Caucasian, through trailer parks and ghetto apartments in Milwaukee. There is a great deal of dialogue, all of which was captured with permission via digital recorder, so the text flows like good fiction. One Black landlord and one Caucasian landlord are also shadowed, and although I came away feeling that both landlords—one of whom, to my horror, was a former fourth grade teacher—were lower than pond scum, Desmond is careful to also demonstrate the ambiguities, the times when one or the other let things slide when an eviction could have been forced; brought over some groceries for a new tenant and did not ask for repayment; gave tenants opportunities to work off back rent to avoid eviction.

At the same time, we see how ultimately, almost all of what appear to be landlords’ small kindnesses are actually adding to their profit margins.

The text is nicely organized. The beginning and ending are expository in style, as a newspaper or magazine article would be, with the statistics that demonstrate how much more of a renter’s income is eaten by housing than was true in previous years; how a bad credit history can lead a low-income family into an apartment that is substandard and costs as much or more than a nice apartment of the same size in a calmer neighborhood that might be rented by someone with a good credit history; and the terrible dance that must be done to keep both heat and rent paid sufficiently to avoid being cut off with winter on the way, or evicted. It also points out that there are people living in low income apartments that should not even be living independently due to mental health issues or extremely low IQ; Desmond recognizes the times—though they are a tiny minority—in which someone takes that welfare check and does something tremendously stupid with it, not using it for housing, utilities, food, or even clothing for the kids.

He clues us in to the fact that while huge numbers of Black men are getting locked up, huge numbers of Black women, particularly mothers, are getting locked out.

Desmond discusses the various ways landlords manage to avoid fixing even the most desperate plumbing and structural issues in rental housing. He discusses the inevitability of eviction for a renter that calls police—or for whom someone else calls police—due to domestic violence. The problem is considered a “nuisance” by the city; three visits by cops in a month mean huge fines for the landlord unless an eviction is ordered, in which case fines are waived.

It’s enough to make you sick.

Particularly appalling is the situation in which Lamar (all names are changed ) is diligently scrambling to paint apartments and clean out a basement to avoid eviction. The man has no legs, but he can’t collection SSI, because theoretically, he could do a desk job. He crawls around on his stumps to paint the areas his elementary-aged neighbor kids have missed, climbs through filth and muck in a half basement, and is cursed at by his landlord, who says he is trying to disrespect her by doing such a terrible job.

He is evicted anyway, and the landlord becomes unavailable to do repairs for other tenants soon, because she and her co-owner spouse are off to Jamaica.

There are some people that would fit so cleanly into Dante’s seventh circle.

It is the individual stories of the eight families, the various fascinating rationalizations of the two terrible landlords, which keep this from simply becoming a dark place the reader would never want to go. Some of the cultural nuances were really interesting to me, and I have lived in some hard neighborhoods back in the day, and taught many high poverty students. I’ve been to some of their homes. Yet Desmond taught me a great deal.

For those interested in America’s housing crisis; for anyone that has ever been evicted; for those interested in sociology and culture, this book is a must-read.

Breakdown, by Jonathan Kellerman*****

Posted on by

BreakdownBreakdown is #31 in the Alex Delaware series, and Kellerman’s long-running series still has plenty of gas left in the tank. The premise this time is that six years ago, Delaware was called in to evaluate the parental fitness of a mother; custody issues have become his bread and butter, done on a case-by-case basis. The boy’s mother, Zelda, was an actress plagued by mental health issues, but seemed to be doing a competent job of raising Ovid. The actress’s psychiatrist wanted to be sure, so he called in Delaware to spend time with the child in question. Now things have gone downhill, and the psychologist that treated Zelda is dead. Zelda isn’t doing so well herself.

But the greater question for Delaware is…where is Ovid?

I received this galley in advance thanks to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine in exchange for an honest review. I rate the novel 4.5 stars and round it up. It’s a fast read, with lots of dialogue and a fair amount of action.

The most laudable aspect of this particular novel is the way it highlights the capricious, bureaucratic manner in which state and federal funds are disbursed to supposedly care for the mentally ill. Delaware is called to what is supposed to be a temporary facility where the mentally ill are kept just long enough to be evaluated as to their own capacity to care for themselves and live independently. The place that passed for a transitional medical setting was appalling; even worse, I suspect it may have been based on something close to the truth. A couple of decades of working with at-risk teens, combined with having loved ones that have struggled with mental health issues, has left your reviewer with a dim view of the care offered to those that cannot care for themselves. If there were such a thing as an award for mental health awareness in fiction, Kellerman would be a contender.

But let’s get back to the contours of the story itself. I appreciated the level of anticipation the author built without departing so far from reality as to breach believability. Whereas previous Alex Delaware novels sometimes strained the credulity of the reader—just how much gun play and tearing after bad guys does your average kiddy shrink do, even if his best buddy is a cop?—this one was much more realistic in terms of Delaware’s role, and the light jokes made by the protagonists about having invented enough ideas for a TV miniseries brought the credibility gap out into the open, gave us a chance to laugh along with the author and better yet, with his characters. Well played!

Brief mention of headaches and personal struggles with claustrophobia make Delaware a more tangible, less Olympian personality, and of course also provide us with some foreshadowing for things to come in future novels. This is one of the better aspects of a long-running series with a faithful readership, the ability to run a thread from one novel within the series forward into another one. He’s done it before, most notably with relationship issues, and done it well.

This book is available to the public February 2, 2016, and if you enjoy a good psychological mystery, you should get a copy and read it.

The Longest Night: A Novel, by Andria Williams***-****

Posted on by

This one’s been a long time coming, and today it has been released to the public, so I’m reblogging it. Enjoy!

seattlebookmama's avatarSeattle Book Mama

thelongestnightanovelIn her debut novel, Andria Williams gives a fictionalized account of a meltdown that occurred (in real life also) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The narrative is intimate, the characters palpable; all told, this was a strong read. Many thanks go to Random House and Net Galley for this galley, which I was given free of charge in exchange for an honest review; I rate this novel 3.5 and round it up. The book becomes available for purchase January 12, 2016. You’ll see this post again sometime nearer publication.

Those of us that lived through the 1960’s will recognize how authentically Williams renders even the smallest details in setting, both the physical and social, of the Unites States during that time period. Home, clothing, and point of view are rendered expertly. This writer personally loved the depiction of a blend of meat, starch, and dairy with some canned fruit tossed in…

View original post 357 more words

The Flood Girls, by Richard Fifield*****

Posted on by

TheFloodGirlsIf Fannie Flagg worries that she has no heir, she can relax; Richard Fifield is here. The Flood Girls is his brilliant debut, and you have to read it! Fifield will cut out your heart and feed it to you with a rusty spoon, and he’ll make you like it, too. Hell, he’ll even make you laugh through it. I got the DRC free via Net Galley and Gallery Books in exchange for an honest review, and I’m going to read it a second time before I archive it as I am supposed to. This is only the second time I have done so after hundreds of galleys have come my way; that should give you a measure of how impressed I am with this title.

From his arresting first line to the deeply satisfying ending, I was completely bound up in this book, only setting it aside as a reminder to myself to delay gratification and make it last a little longer. In the end my e-reader had 177 notes and marks, and every single one of them was there to highlight outstanding imagery, a passage in which yet another character was developed, a place in which he had shown us something important while saying something else, or a place in the text that was drop-dead funny. I would guess the last of these accounts for 100 of those 177 notes.

Let’s start with the premise: Rachel Flood has returned home to Quinn, Montana after many years away. She is here to make amends. It isn’t easy: “A small town never forgets, or forgives.” It’s a tough town, full of people that have survived dozens of harsh 6 month winters. Its people are abrupt and sometimes rude; they don’t suffer fools here.

Rachel’s sponsor has assured her that she doesn’t have to move back to Quinn to make amends; she isn’t here to do penance, after all. Offer the amends and then, whether or not they are accepted, hit the road! But for several reasons, not all of which Rachel understands herself at first, she chooses to stick around, and it isn’t easy. Ultimately, she is cornered into playing in the outfield of The Flood Girls, the local softball team sponsored by the mother she has wronged. She becomes a friend and mentor to Jake, a quirky twelve year old with a fondness for fine fabrics, wardrobe and design, and an intolerant right-wing Fundamentalist stepfather.

Perhaps the most technically impressive aspect of this work is the way Fifield differentiates a very wide cast of characters. I cannot think of any other novel among the 151 books I read and reviewed over the past year in which there were so many characters that were juggled so deftly. When I put down the book, I did a quick finger count of how many characters I could actually name and identify without looking. I stopped at 21, and I didn’t try long or hard. Every single one of these characters, most of whom are wonderfully eccentric, stood out in my mind, apart from two small groups (the silver miners and the Sinclairs) that are treated as such in the text.

It isn’t only the eccentric characters and the small town setting that makes me think of Flagg’s masterpiece, Fried Green Tomatoes; it is also the message. Fifield wants us to know that intolerance will kill us. It is only by accepting and celebrating one another’s differences and quirks that we become part of the human family. We must learn to help and rely upon each other, because we are all we have. That said, The Flood Girls shares Flagg’s spirit, yet it is not derivative, but wholly original.

You don’t have to like baseball to enjoy it.

This hilarious, engaging new novel is for sale to the public February 2, 2016. Very conservative evangelical Christians won’t enjoy it, and it wasn’t written for that audience anyway. It is highly recommended to everyone else. This book will be talked about, and you’ll want to be in on it from the get-go! Put this one at the top of your list.

Blanche On the Lam, by Barbara Neely*****

Posted on by

BlancheontheLamI was already a Barbara Neely fan when I received this DRC, courtesy of the Brash Priority Reviewers Circle, in exchange for an honest review. I’ve been reviewing books for Brash Books and others for the past couple of years, and had read three other Blanche White mysteries out of order, so when I saw that the first in the series—which I think was the only one I hadn’t read yet—was up for grabs, I nailed it right away. It’s available for purchase now.

The amazing thing to me is that although these novels were originally published in the ‘90s, they are extremely relevant right now. For those new to this Anthony, Macavity, and Agatha Award winning book and series, Blanche White is author Barbara Neely’s foil for a number of social issues that are best approached with humor, yet also with absolute, stark clarity. Those that have supported the #BlackLivesMatter movement should order this fantastic book right away. It’s a double win, treating those of us that favor social justice and also enjoy strong fiction. On the other hand, those that don’t understand the current of Black anger that pumps through the small towns, fields and cities of the United States may want to read this book and catch a clue.

She makes everything crystal clear.

Here’s the premise: Blanche, who does domestic work and also has custody of her late sister’s children, is in trouble with the law. She has written some checks she can’t cover, and the fact that they’ve all been paid in full by the time she stands before the court doesn’t make much difference to the judge. She is given two months in the slammer, but a much greater disturbance distracts the officer who’s supposed to lock her up, and without a moment’s hesitation, Blanche slips out a side door to freedom. She knows she has to get gone and figures on leaving the state as soon as she has the money for travel, but in the meantime she escapes by using the greatest camouflage possible…because nobody looks a domestic worker in the face.

The family that has hired her has problems of its own, and Blanche can’t leave once the shit hits the fan, because if a domestic worker suddenly disappears when a crime has been committed, the thing will automatically be blamed on them. Instead, she is pinned like a butterfly, stuck in the kitchen of a horribly dysfunctional—and criminal—family. But Blanche is a born survivor, and the cynical things she does in order to keep herself from harm’s way, and ultimately to avenge the death of a nice man that didn’t deserve his fate are both amusing and riveting.

It is here that we meet Mumsfield, an engaging character who will turn up later in the series.

Blanche’s attitude toward the sheriff and the situations that feature him made me want to stand up and cheer!

I took the opportunity to read Blanche White mysteries as they became available, and I am glad I did. Reader, you have the chance, if you haven’t begun the series yet, to read them in order. Neely’s writing is both politically on-point and also seriously funny. What more could you ask for? Once you read this one, you’ll want to continue the series.

Highly recommended!

The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film, by Bruce Chadwick****

Posted on by

thereelcivilwarI found this gem at my favorite used bookstore in Seattle, Magus Books, which is just a block from the University of Washington. Its strength, as the title suggests, is in tracing the story of the American Civil War as told by the cinema. Those interested in the way in which movie impacts both culture and education in the USA would do well to find this book and read it.

Chadwick spends a considerable amount of time and space carefully documenting the myth produced by Gone with the Wind, a completely unrealistic, idealized portrait of the ruling planter class of the deep South. Many of us would, in years gone by, have been inclined to dismiss this concern by saying that after all, the book and movie were primarily intended as a love story, but Chadwick demonstrates that this is not so. He ferrets out actual interviews with Margaret Mitchell herself in which she insists that this is exactly the way it was. Her sources? Former plantation owners, of course.

To this day, if an avid reader goes to Goodreads.com and under the caption “explore”, goes to “listopia” and from there selects a list of readers’ favorite Civil War titles, GWTW will place within the top ten, and sometimes be the foremost title, selected over nonfiction as well as more accurate fiction. I find this horrifying.

The research regarding the Civil War itself is nothing I haven’t seen before, but Chadwick makes excellent use of strong secondary sources to document the fact that Black folks in the pre-war South were neither happy nor well treated. He takes apart the myth Mitchell constructed in a meticulous manner, one damn brick at a time. Hell yes. About ten percent of the way into the book, Chadwick’s removed, scholarly tone changes to one of articulate outrage, and I found this tremendously satisfying.

Chadwick follows Civil War films forward, after first also examining Birth of a Nation, a painfully racist film which was famous at the time because of its length; its original claim to fame was not content, but technology. For those that have not seen the film, this will be interesting reading also, and those that have seen it may pick up some new information as well.

A couple of generations later, the more realistic and highly acclaimed Roots television miniseries told the story of Black America in a way that hadn’t been represented on film before. Chadwick is again careful in his documentation and clear in his explanation.

The book’s final film treatment is of the most positive and accurate film depiction of African-Americans is the film Glory. This reviewer used this film in the classroom. It depicts the Black Massachusetts infantry that tried to take Fort Wagner and in doing so, inspired President Lincoln to order more Black troops to be armed and trained for combat in the American Civil War.

For those interested in the connection between film and American history, and of the American Civil War in particular, this book is recommended.

W.E.B. DuBois Speaks: Speeches and Addresses, by WEB DuBois*****

Posted on by

WEB DuBois SpeaksI read this book about 2 years ago, and then found I was intimidated by the 60 multicolored sticky notes that I had used to flag all the brilliant passages, and so I told myself I would review it…later. I didn’t have a DRC this time; I bought that book fair and square at full jacket price from Pathfinder Press many years ago, and then my life was too hectic for me to find time for it. And make no mistake, this is not a collection you want to take on while multitasking. This is deep, serious, articulate writing from one of the most brilliant civil rights leaders the world has yet known. And so although he has been dead for a long time, like Dr. Martin Luther King, his words have made him immortal. I recently read and reviewed another title about this luminary scholar and class fighter, and that reminded me that I had some unfinished reviewing to do for him…or maybe for me. Here we go.

It was DuBois that wrote The Souls of Black Folk, a wrenching reminder that even those Caucasian folks up north that think they have no racial biases, often have some issues they haven’t yet faced. It was true when he wrote it, and I’m sorry to say it is largely true today as well. In the letters and speeches, he takes the pain laid bare in that famous book and explains what the source of racism is, and what we can do about it.

Dr. King wrote the intro to this series of speeches and letters, and I actually liked that introduction better than I like the Dream speech. It has more substance. When you get this book, for heaven’s sake, don’t skip the introduction. In fact, the book is worth having just for the introduction.

Because it is a collection rather than a memoir, it isn’t linear. The opening text is a short overview of his own life, and so when we come to the second piece in the book, the reader steps backwards in time. Although it’s harsh and hard to read in some places because of the writer’s capacity to convey the pain that he and other Black folk have endured so that everyone can at least taste it for a moment, there is more to it than that. This volume is singularly useful, because in addition to laying America’s problem out bare and plain, DuBois has concrete recommendations for change. They are radical, but then we’ve seen what band-aid measures and the electoral process has done for Black folk, and anyone that regards the matter with any degree of seriousness has to recognize that what’s happened so far is a train wreck, primarily for African-Americans and other people of color, but also for all Americans, because those of us that have lived here for our entire lives have been denied the capacity to find out what it’s like to live without racism.

Is that asking too much?

DuBois became a deeply political individual, a Marxist that founded the NAACP, and eventually left that same organization because of political disagreement. He provides a thorough explanation of his experiences and reasoning. When he presents the problem as an economic one, it provides a path forward, and although he is gone now, it isn’t too late for the rest of us to climb on board, if we care deeply enough to do so.

DuBois’s speeches and letters reflect the progress of his thinking, and so some of what he says toward the end is very different from the ideas set forth earlier. It’s a good idea to read it in order, even though it’s a collection, because then the reader can see his personal and political evolution. I don’t think there has ever been anyone more articulate, more brilliant as a writer and speaker, than DuBois.

If you agree that the USA needs big change in order to end the institutions and practices that have created second-class citizenship for African-Americans, and if you want to see justice done for the families of all the men, women, and children that have lost their lives at the hands of racist cops and vigilantes even during the tenure of America’s first Black president, then you ought to get this book. It’s radical, but maybe it’s time to consider radical measures. Because the government and the elected officials that run it won’t correct this problem for us. We can’t leave it in the hands of others; we have to do this ourselves.

And DuBois explains it better than anyone else.

Blanche Passes Go: A Blanche White Mystery, by Barbara Neely*****

Posted on by

blanchepassesgo“Blanche’s mind rang with remembered slights and taunts, and echoes of that awful, heartbreaking instant of fear that was a part of every trip into the white world—a fear of being refused or given poor service because she was black, stopped by a cop because she was black.”

I finished reading Blanche Passes Go on the second anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, who was shot dead by a cop for jaywalking. Bernie Sanders, the candidate who fancies himself the liberal savior for all progressive-minded Americans, spoke here in Seattle that day. The purpose of his talk, apart from campaigning and fundraising, was to celebrate the birthday of Social Security. The speech was disrupted by a pair of African-American women who took exception to his myopia.

So I guess you could say that everyone, even those that don’t generally enjoy mysteries, ought to be reading this book right about now. In particular, if the reader is still trying to figure out why so many people, particularly people of color, get upset with the clueless slogan “All lives matter”, this book is here, just for you. Neely approaches issues of race, class, and gender in a way that is clear but not unkind. It’s her best work to date, and could not have been published by Brash Books at a more appropriate time. My great thanks go to them and the people at Net Galley for providing me with a DRC, and to Neely for laying it all out so that anybody who has a willing heart can get the picture.

In this fourth Blanche White mystery, Blanche has gone home to Farleigh, North Carolina for a vacation, and to try partnering a catering business with her best friend, Ardell. But Farleigh is a small place, and she can’t avoid running up against David Palmer, a Caucasian man that raped her. She never reported it, of course; were they really going to haul the well-heeled, powerful white man for a sperm sample, given the long history of Caucasian men raping Black women with impunity? Not likely! So when her long-simmering rage is ignited by the sight of him, she vows to not only get mad, but to get even as well.

Blanche White novels always have multiple threads that weave in and out of the plot line, but this is the most complex and impressive yet. Not only does Blanche have to grapple with Farleigh and Palmer, she is back in her home town, and her mama is still here. Like many women, Blanche has hit middle age and menopause with a renewed, powerful yearning to know more about her mama, who never stops talking but never gives away the personal information Blanche is almost begging for, and about her father, about whom virtually nothing has been told her. Blanche decides that once a person has children, their privacy is no longer as sacred as it was before, and a lot of personal information becomes family property. I loved that.

Well into the book, Ardell accuses Blanche of sounding exactly like her mother, and Blanche is dumbfounded to realize it’s true. I threw back my head and laughed out loud. It’s the rare woman that doesn’t hear her own mother coming out of her mouth sooner or later, and the moment was built so deftly and executed so well that it landed hard on my funny-bone.

Other Blanche novels have accentuated the protagonist’s tightly held independence. Here, she meets a fine man named Thelvin on the Amtrak coming into Farleigh, and at some point, she has to decide just how flexible (or inflexible) she is going to be.

Another component is Mumsfield, an acquaintance that has Down’s Syndrome and is about to be married to someone who may be after his money. This aspect of the story, like the others, is skillfully crafted. Mumsfield is not completely helpless, and the fact that he has Down’s does not make him Blanche’s friend, as he claims to be. There is still that division of white privilege. It’s not that Blanche could not have a white friend, but it would have to be someone with ownership of what that means.

Because all of these components are told in the third person omniscient, and because the writer is a complete badass, we are privy to all the intricacies involved here. Add a problem with domestic abuse next door to the Miz Alice where Blanche is staying, and you have an interesting stew indeedy.

Highly recommended.

One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon, by Tim Weiner*****

Posted on by

onemanagainsttheworldQuestion: What do an old typewriter, a copy machine, Scotch tape, and a razor blade share in common?

Answer: They were all tools used by White House employee Howard Hunt, at President Richard Nixon’s request, to forge a cable that would make (dead) President JFK appear to have ordered the assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.

My, my, my. The things you can learn once you start digging. This is by no means the most important part of the Nixon story as told by veteran political writer Tim Weiner, nor even the most humorous, in a grim, gallows sense; it’s just a small sample of the bizarre, the paranoid, and above all, the crooked, reprehensible deeds committed by Nixon and his creepy co-conspirators during his administration. And by now I am already supposed to have told you that I read this book free, thanks to Net Galley and Henry Holt Company.

So, can we find a way to go back and make it look like I told you during the first paragraph, like I was supposed to? And for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone.

How much will it cost to keep this thing quiet?

I was just a kid during Nixon’s first term. But as young as I was, I have to tell you, dear reader, that the times were so polarized, so politicized (not unlike the time in which we now find ourselves) that issues like Civil Rights and the Vietnam War could not be relegated to the more traditional venues, such as the evening news or the newspaper. As soon as someone opened the newspaper, or turned on the television, or started to talk about something they had seen on the news, everyone within hearing range erupted in one direction or another. It happened at home; it happened at school; and it probably happened in workplaces. Even if I hadn’t been so fascinated, there was no getting away from it.

During the time Nixon was in office, most of the media criticism of his behavior was initially soft-pedaled out of respect for his office. It took awhile before anyone in the journalistic community used the word “lie”, for example. The words I heard were “discrepancies” and “evasions”. And all of us, kids and adults alike, were stunned by the number of times the words “expletive deleted” were used.

The fact that President Nixon referred to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall as “black of course…dumb as hell” was redacted until after Marshall’s death. The horror.

All that was a long time ago, of course, and Weiner is unfettered by any of the above considerations. His story is remarkably complete yet succinct, and oh so darkly funny. Even though others in my household do not share my absorption in things Nixon-related, I can’t get through more than three pages of this book without having to stop and repeat something on the page to whoever is walking through the room. For example, after having invaded Cambodia without the consent of Congress, and in direct violation of every US and international military law on the books, Nixon announced the invasion to the American people on television thusly:

“This is not an invasion of Cambodia.”

One more thing: Nixon’s cover up; the vast number of dead people, mostly young, who should have emerged alive and unhurt rather than killed against their will in an unjust war; the outrageous wrongdoings that unfolded in our capital and that were paid for with our tax dollars; and the outright theft of Federal monies for personal gain…the parallels that shake out between Nixon and Stalin, whose biography I reviewed two weeks ago, are disquieting.

And that much really isn’t funny.

Weiner, whose journalistic pedigree to date may make him America’s finest living political writer, does an outstanding job of eloquently stating what needs to be said and its significance without tossing in a lot of arcane trivia to muddy the water. Unlike most that have written about Watergate, he had no role in the crimes that took place and has no personal ax to grind. So if you want to just read everything that gets printed about Watergate, as I have so far, then read this along with everything else. But if you weren’t around during this time in American history and want to read one—and just one—book about Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation, then let this be it.

At the end of the book is a treasure trove of web links that will take the reader to primary resources, very valuable to those doing research.

Read it for your own political education, or look at it as grim, terrible humor, whichever suits you. For me, I guess it was some of each. But if you want to avoid stepping into the abyss, whether here in the USA or in whatever nation you call home, you’re better off being aware of what took place in the past.

Because it’s better to be watching, participating, and engaging in honest dialogue, and better to back your statements with actions that demonstrate integrity, than it is to hide in the fucking basement and scheme against enemies, real or imagined. Honest social and political discourse carried out as citizens of the world are what keep the rest of us from going down that rabbit hole.

Weiner’s masterpiece will be available starting July 21, but it’s probably best to order your copy now. So much of the future depends on what we know of the past.

Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights, by Susan Straight *****

Posted on by

blacker than a thousand

Susan Straight is one of my favorite authors. I wish she had written more, but I suppose if you want quality, sometimes you have to sacrifice quantity.

As the parent of a young Black man, I recognize the fictional character Darnell’s dilemma: how do you play it straight while keeping it real (in other words, without playing the White man’s game to where you find yourself betraying some of your family and old loyalties)? How do you keep your friends from the neighborhood where you grew up and went to school, without landing your butt in jail right along with them? Remember that the US “justice” system is far from colorblind.

Darnell is tangible and believable. I came away feeling as if I knew him.

This is made all the more brilliant by the fact that Straight is a Caucasian woman. How dare she write in the first person as a Black man? Yet she carries it off, in my opinion, with grace and dignity. Her bio says that she grew up in an area in Riverside, California that was almost exclusively Black, so it may be that she considers herself culturally Black as well. That would explain a great deal.

Regardless of your political views, though, on race and everything else, this is strong writing, a character portrayed with immediacy and dignity. I like the way this woman writes, every single time.