Anyone who thinks slavery was useful to slaves needs to read this personal account. By the time Frederick Douglas was in his mid-20s, he had worked for several different people as a slave. Some of these people were decent given the circumstances and helped him learn to read. Others performed acts of abject cruelty. The latter far outnumbered the former. In the past I have read a number of slave narratives. However, he so eloquently describes the beatings, shootings, and other atrocities that it is horrifying to read. The fact that he endured so much at such an early age and became the famous abolitionist, orator, and writer later in life speaks to his remarkable intellectual abilities and emotional strength.
A 450 mile stretch of highway runs between two cities in British Columbia, Prince George and Prince Rupert. As part of the Trans-Canada Highway, it was completed in 1969. This event increased the disappearance and murder of First Nations (indigenous) women which began in the 1800s with the influx of miners near First Nations lands. More than 1200 First Nations women have disappeared or been found murdered in recent years. These women are 7 times more likely to be raped and/or murdered than any other group in Canada.
The United States fares no better. Approximately 7000 Native women have gone missing since 2016. If a non-Native person murders a Native person on tribal lands, tribal police cannot arrest the person; other law enforcement often fails to respond. In the US a Native women is 4.5 times more likely to be raped and/or murdered than any other group.
4 out of 5 First Nations, US Native, and Alaska Native women report experiencing violence.
For more information see “Hunted” on Al Jazeera English, powwow times.com, cnn.com, YouTube: Searching for America’s Missing Women. There are many other sources as well.
A theological treatise, a family history, and a love story, this winner of the Pulitzer Prize, left me wondering. It is nothing like any of the other books I’ve previously read. As a long letter from an aging preacher to his young son, it contains family stories of his pacifist preacher father and his violent preacher grandfather, an ardent abolitionist who knew and aided John Brown, theological religious analyses and musings, personal beliefs and doubts, and his own unlikely love story only found at the age of 67, and his views and feelings toward the Iowa prairie and the tiny town where he lives.
For a substantial portion of this letter, the narrator discusses the mixed feelings he holds toward his namesake, the wayward son of his best friend, another local preacher. In the paperback version I read, the first 215 pages continue, no breaks, no chapters. Then, suddenly, there is a blank page and the narrator relates some rather unexpected new information about his friend’s wayward son and his own reactions to this information. In the last two pages, the narrator discusses his love of the prairie and the town and why he never left.
I read several reviews on Amazon and find some do not really review the book but rather rant about their religious opposing views to what the narrator relates or criticize the style and subject matter with which they disagree. For me I can read a book and even though I may disagree with some of the material, if it is well written. Well, this novel is well written. The prose is lovely, often poetic, and some of the descriptions remain memorable. However, if you want a traditional plot, do not want to think about religious views and philosophies, then this novel is not for you.
The third novel I’ve read by McBride in the last year, “Miracle At St. Anna” brings to life a little know part of WWII. Toward the end of the war, the US sent the Army’s Negro 92nd Division to Tuscany. Due to the ineptitude of one of their superiors, several soldiers find themselves behind enemy lines. This is their story–they sneak through dangerous mountain passes and ravines and find themselves in the tiny village of St. Anna di Stazzema where the peasants take them in and treat them more respectfully than they had been treated at home. It is also the story of this village, the residents there, and an orphan boy one of the soldiers rescues, a story of the tragedies of life and war and the miracles the villagers, the soldiers, and the boy experience.
While heart wrenching, it also inspires.
Note: I read this book last week and started on two others, one of which is the original “The Little Review ‘Ulysses'” which is how the first copies of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” were published. From March 1918 to December 1920, the Little Review published chapters of “Ulysses” in serial form. They had to quit because the material was considered obscene and censored. My reading of this is a long work in progress. This copy is not edited; the original spelling and other mistakes remain.
It takes genius to write a novel about serious topics, e.g. racism, poverty, addiction, drug dealing, crime, which is also very funny. This is the first book I’ve read this year where I found myself frequently laughing out loud. In the projects of South Brooklyn in 1969, an elderly church deacon shoots a young drug dealer, who is also a star local baseball pitcher. Thus begins a saga about the Black and Hispanic residents who live there, the cops who patrol the area, the Italian mobsters who control the docks, and the church where the shooter is a deacon. The “New York Times” listed this as one of the ten best books of 2020. Indeed it is. This is the third book I have read by this author, and I will soon progress to another one.
A heart wrenching Prologue begins this contemporary novel about race, family, and friendship. Two children, one white (Jen) and one black (Riley), became best friends in kindergarten. Their close friendship endures to adulthood and through distance. Finally, once again in the same city, their bond is tested when Jen’s husband, a police officer, shoots an unarmed 14 year old black boy. Riley, a TV reporter, is assigned to interview the boy’s mother.
Their story, told from the viewpoints of both women, covers the effects of such a tragedy on family and fellow police officers and the community, illustrates the trauma of current events, and demonstrates how such a disaster tests all involved.
If you LOVE the West, but sometimes struggle with its violent history, this is the memoir for you. Here is a quote from page 178: “I’m embarrassed at how long it has taken me to notice that a rancher’s view of the natural world is blindered in comparison to the hunter’s perspective; that driving livestock from one field to another is nothing like stalking free-ranging herds; that finding, gathering, and preparing a hundred different wild plants bears no resemblance to growing alfalfa or oats…”
Andrews also discusses the difference between sustainability and reciprocity. Before reading the book, I had never thought about this. He notes that sustainability is taking without damaging. Reciprocity entails giving back, e.g. nature, asking, “What can I give back? What can I do to take care of this place that feeds and shelters me?” This is quite different from “How much can I sustainably take?”
Andrews grew up in the West. However, after cowboying on several ranches in Montana, hunting annually, and later inheriting his grandfather’s Smith and Wesson revolver, he begins to question the gun violence and destructiveness of Western culture. This book details his journey. He continues to live on a farm in the Montana mountains, slowly transforming the land to make it profitable but also a place for nature, for wildlife to prosper.
What an amazing story collection!! As I read these incredibly diverse stories featuring so many different types of people, I kept wondering how does he know so much about different sorts of individuals:
-An older white lady in a tiny town in Idaho who runs a little restaurant.
-Chicanos in San Diego–this one I “get”; he grew up near there in Tijuana.
-A divorced white guy, wandering aimlessly cross country.
-A teen in Arizona who loves a nice girl from a dangerous family.
-A “weird” old man in a Mexican village.
-A young man trying to save his dead dad’s possessions from questionable friends.
-A strange magical realism Mexican story. I love magical realism so if I think it strange…
-A kids’ trip to a water museum ( the title) in the drought ridden plains.
-A sad South Dakota story of a white man married to an woman from Pine Ridge.
-In Iowa a widowed farmer trying his best to befriend and understand his Mexican neighbors.
Even though the events described in this non-fiction work occurred exactly 22 years ago in May in southern Arizona, not much has changed except the nationality of the immigrants. Few Mexicans try walking across the Arizona desert these days. Now it’s mostly people from certain Central American countries, Venezuela, and various other countries, generally places where the climate of the Sonoran Desert is unknown.
In 2001, a group of men, mostly from the state of Veracruz, tried it. More than half died and the coyote who led them remains in prison. This book tells their story. It also describes in detail the networks that lure immigrants to attempt the long journey to the US border, who benefits, who gets paid, the geography and climate of the desert–a true tale of deceit, disillusion, desperation, and loss.
4000 migrants have died in the last two decades trying to cross the Arizona desert. This number equals bodies found; many tell tales of others whose bodies remain lost. 2021 saw a record number of deaths. 2022 data is not yet published.
Note: I like Urrea’s books and have read most of his novels. I recommend starting with “The Hummingbird’s Daughter”.
A unique and sometimes frightening story with a surprising ending, this is another tale of the lengths to which people of color will go to pass for white to gain the benefits of whiteness. For one New England family this has succeeded quite well by sending a too dark daughter back South to live with relatives and never allowing her to come to the town where the rest of the family lives. It fails when a too dark child is born and the parents keep her with them. It is also a tale of gender identity and how rape and abuse can destroy and deform and of resilience in the face of endless obstacles. This is not an ordinary novel.
writingontherim 