The Other Side: A Memoir by Lacy M. Johnson

November 16, 2018November 15, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

D7021D0D-B352-4B25-963A-7E9C3C0DE909 — The Stacks received this book directly from the author in exchange for an honest review. *For more information click here.*

I picked up this book, The Other Side, so I could read the semi-prequel of The Reckonings. I wanted to get a sense of Lacy M. Johnson before I read her newest book. It wasn’t quiet accidental, but it was certainly not planned. This book turned out to be one of the best surprises of my year.

Here is more about The Other Side

Lacy Johnson bangs on the glass doors of a sleepy local police station in the middle of the night. Her feet are bare; her body is bruised and bloody; U-bolts dangle from her wrists. She has escaped, but not unscathed. The Other Side is the haunting account of a first passionate and then abusive relationship; the events leading to Johnson’s kidnapping, rape, and imprisonment; her dramatic escape; and her hard-fought struggle to recover. At once thrilling, terrifying, harrowing, and hopeful, The Other Side offers more than just a true crime record. In language both stark and poetic, Johnson weaves together a richly personal narrative with police and FBI reports, psychological records, and neurological experiments, delivering a raw and unforgettable story of trauma and transformation.

So what do you make of a book about a violent rape and kidnapping? Aside from that it is terrible and horrible and a total nightmare? What do you do with this traumatic story? If you’re Lacy M. Johnson, you turn it into a powerful reflection on relationships, memory, body, self, motherhood, growth, vengeance. You turn it into art. That sounds corny. The Other Side is not. It is a dynamic book that leans into to the complexity and contradictions of trauma.

Lacy M. Johnson is the kind of writer that makes words make sense. Her use of language moved me as a reader, it felt specific, and like every word was in place, without feeling overworked or tedious. Johnson writes freely and with purpose. The book is poetic in one moment and clinical in the next. There is a quiet balance to this book.

If I learned anything from this book, it is that memory and truth are often at odds with each other. Not in a linear way. In a way that involves layers of memory and truth mixing with one another and turning muddy. That some memories are strong and wrong, and others are faint and almost unknowable. That the brain fills in the gaps and creates a narrative. The story. The story as we have come to know it. Our truth. What Johnson points out, and doesn’t want us to forget, is that this truth, this story, is just one version. That we all have our own story, and the people around us have their own. That these versions, these truths, all exist in the world at once. That none of this is real or true, not completely. That is terrifying and comforting at once. The Other Side is a memoir that grapples with these types of ideas, The Other Side is an outstanding book.

The Other Side is triggering (rape, emotional abuse, physical abuse). You should be fully aware before you pick it up. That being said, this book handles the trauma with dignity. It is not sensational. Johnson is unique in her experiences and never once attempts to turn her journey into anything universal. It is this specificity that keeps The Other Side from feeling common or precious. That is extremely clear from the first pages of this book. It holds true through the end, and even into the notes section (of which I read every word, I simply didn’t want this book to end) where Johnson mixes science and poetry.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the fluidity of language, the self reflection, the pain and the calm. I know it could be an extremely tough read for many people. If you can, read this book, it is worth reading. It is worth thinking about. It is worth your time.

Paperback: 232 pages
Publisher: Tin House Books; 1 edition (July 15, 2014)
5/5 stars
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The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

November 13, 2018December 12, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

7796075C-DD3E-4D0A-8259-4C8E5A469D83 I’ve been lying to the world. I’ve been proudly boasting that I love Malcolm Gladwell and that I’ve read all his books, and that he’s just the best. Turns out, thats a lie. I thought I had read all his books, but I had never actually read his first book, The Tipping Point. It has been a point of shame for me, I felt a little depressed that I wasn’t as much of a super fan of his work as I thought. But now, I can go back to my unabashed bragging about my love for Mr. Gladwell, because I have finally read The Tipping Point.

If you’re not familiar, here is more about The Tipping Point

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

Malcolm Gladwell is a thinker. Sure we all think, but we’re not all professional thinkers. His brand is his thought process; critical, obscure, individual. He has become known for taking an idea we think we understand, and flipping it on it’s head. Showing us the complexities of life, and often time the simplicity of it as well. The Tipping Point is his first book, and is perfectly in line with Gladwell’s brand and subsequent books, and podcast, Revisionist History.

I really enjoyed this book. Gladwell takes his time explaining his points, without laboring any one idea to death. The book is the right length, long enough to make sure you understand what a tipping point is, and how it works, but not so long that you’re skipping ahead because you’ve got it already. This is hard to do. Many books make a point early on, and work through it so many times it becomes redundant and stale. Gladwell uses a variety of examples, from crime in NYC to Hushpuppy shoes, to Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood, to illustrate his points, and this variety keeps the reader interested and engaged.

The later edition of The Tipping Point has an afterword that shows how ahead of conventional thinking Gladwell is. In the afterward written in 2002, a few years after the original book (2000) Gladwell makes a few predictions about the future as he sees it. One thing he discusses is school shootings as an emerging epidemic afflicting American teens, all before many of the most notorious school shootings of the last 20 years. He also forecasts a growing apathy toward email, and how we will become immune to the power of email, which of course in 2018 is expressly clear. Gladwell’s thinking is ahead of his time.

There were moments where Gladwell lost me in his train of thought. I wasn’t sure what point he was making, or the difference between certain categorizations he had laid out (i.e. maven vs sales person), or the connection between two seemingly unrelated topics. This happened a few times throughout the book and I had to go back and draw the connections in a second (or sometimes third) pass.

I listened to the audiobook of The Tipping Point with Gladwell narrating, which is well done. While he isn’t as animated as as he is on his podcast, you can hear his passion for the work he has done. He is convincing and clear. I also happen to enjoy the smooth sound of his voice. But again, I am huge Gladwell fangirl.

I recommend this book. I recommend just about everything Malcolm Gladwell does. Have I mentioned how much I love and admire his work? I don’t always agree with him, but I appreciate his thinking and his ability to shift the way I think and perceive the world around me. He is a provocateur in the best way.

Audiobook: 8 hours and 33 minutes
Publisher: Hachette Audio (December 31, 2006)
Paperback: 301 pages
Publisher: Back Bay Books (January 7, 2002)
4/5 stars
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A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley

November 10, 2018November 28, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

68C2C3AE-243E-4EA6-BCFC-61B4BAE32120 — The Stacks received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *For more information click here.*

I had heard so many amazing things about A Lucky Man from a variety of people and when I saw it long-listed for The National Book Award, I had to pick it up and start reading.

More about A Lucky Man

In the nine expansive stories ofA Lucky Man, fathers and sons attempt to salvage relationships with friends and family members and confront mistakes made in the past. An imaginative young boy from the Bronx goes swimming with his group from day camp at a backyard pool in the suburbs, and faces the effects of power and privilege in ways he can barely grasp. A pair of college boys on the prowl follow two girls home from a party and have to own the uncomfortable truth of their desires. And at a capoeira conference, two brothers grapple with how to tell the story of their family, caught in the dance of their painful, fractured history.

Jamel Brinkley’s stories, in a debut that announces the arrival of a significant new voice, reflect the tenderness and vulnerability of black men and boys whose hopes sometimes betray them, especially in a world shaped by race, gender, and class―where luck may be the greatest fiction of all.

When you encounter a writer that takes the path less traveled, sometimes the work can feel overwrought and self-important. You sense the labor that went into being clever or different, as if the author is showing off how unique their thinking is compared to everyone around them. That is not the case with Jamel Brinkley and A Lucky Man. Brinkley instead proves himself to be authentically singular with these stories. His characters and events feel fresh and effortless, as if there was no other thing in the world for him to do but write these stories.

I have not read many short story collections and I think there is certainly a muscle needed to switch ones mind quickly between stories, a muscle that allows you to move on seamlessly from one set of characters to the next. I have still yet to develop that muscle. That being said, these stories are strong on their own, they are vulnerable and rich, and tell of life as a Black man in ways I’ve never seen depicted. There are no two dimensional characters in this book, there are no stereotypes. Everyone is layered and nuanced in a way that left me wanting more from many of the stories. I could easily imagine many being turned into movies. Brinkley obviously loves his characters, at times I felt that there is no way he created these people out of thin air, they felt like his loved ones, his real life friends and family somehow turned into fiction. I have no idea if that is true or not, but either way, you could feel the deep connection Brinkley has to the people in his book.

I often struggled transitioning between stories, and sometimes felt like too little happened. I felt unfulfilled. Sometimes so little happened I have forgotten what happened at all. This book is all suspense and sometimes there wasn’t enough payoff. I felt disconnected from the emotion of some of the stories. However, for a debut collection, I am thrilled to see what will come next as I thoroughly enjoyed the process of reading this book, even if it doesn’t stick with me down the road.

My personal favorite stories were “A Family” and “Everything the Mouth Eats”. This book has received much praise from critics and readers alike, I would not hesitate to recommend this book to you.

Hardcover: 264 pages
Publisher: Graywolf Press; First Edition, First Printing edition (May 1, 2018)
3/5 stars
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Richard III by William Shakespeare

November 4, 2018November 4, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

8853EBC9-8629-4FB1-B2FF-2C6E331176EE This month, for the #ShaketheStacks challenge I read one of my most favorite Shakespeare plays, Richard III. It is the fourth and final part of the Henry VI tetralogy. For as much as I enjoyed Henry VI Part III Richard III is leaps and bounds better.

In this final chapter of the bloody war of the roses, the House of Plantagenet finally ascends the throne, putting our anti-hero, Richard, a stones throw from the throne. This play chronicles Richard’s assent from Richard Duke of Gloucester to King Richard III. It is full of blood and lies and fantastic wit and dialogue. Richard has all the things you want from a bad guy, he is clearly the smartest and most detestable person in the room. I won’t give anything away, but he is delightfully terrible.

I was lucky enough to be in two different productions of Richard III, and grew to learn about the text intimately. Shakespeare layers so much in each line, drawing back to the three previous plays, and verbal sparring that is thrilling to read, let alone watch. As with all his plays, Shakespeare has a point of view on what we’re watching. He centers the play around a corrupt ruler and his unchecked power and entitlement, not to mention his deep seated misogyny. Sound familiar? Richard III still holding up hundreds of years later.

My favorite scene in the play encapsulates all that is good (not morally) in Richard III, Act IV Scene 4. The scene is led by the women of the play, of which there are four insanely amazing independent and vibrant women characters, and it weaves from cursing to courting to sorrow and rage. The scene is dynamic and is the one moment when truth is spoken to power. It is powerful and exciting and smart. A total force that sucks the air out of the room, weather you’re reading or watching the play.

If you’ve yet to read this play, you should. Or better yet go see a production or watch the film. If I’m ranking Shakespeare’s plays it is in my top five (so far, but if I’m being honest I haven’t read them all yet).

Next month I leave the histories behind and read The Taming of the Shrew. I hope you’ll read it with me.

Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (June 13, 2017)
5/5 stars
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The Library Book by Susan Orlean

October 30, 2018October 30, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

00CBA955-3F6C-480D-A4EB-49140901E480 — The Stacks received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *For more information click here.*

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Library of Virginia Literary Awards this year. It is a wonderful night that celebrates authors from Virginia, and books that are set in the state. This year, their honored guest was Susan Orlean, and so I read her newest book The Library Book in anticipation of meeting Ms. Orlean. I can say both the book and the woman were a delight.

Here is more about The Library Book:

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.

If I’m being honest, I’ll admit I had no idea there was a massive fire in the Los Angeles Public Library’s central branch in 1986. Just hearing about it made me nervous and intrigued. I still remember my childhood library and how cozy it was and hearing about this fire sent chills up my spine. The thought of hundreds of thousands of books burning, and the destruction and closing of a city resource made my stomach feel uneasy. Before I read the book, I’m not sure I understood intellectually what my body reacted to when hearing about this fire. Susan Orlean helps to explain that and so much more with The Library Book.

If you love books you’ll appreciate this one, it is a total treat. It reminds the reader what it is they love about books and libraries, and then it does a whole lot more. The Library Book is part true crime investigation, part how libraries work, part deep dive into Los Angeles history, and part conversation about the changing role of books and libraries in our lives. Again, if you’re a book lover, you’ll love this book.

Susan Orlean does a fantastic job of moving the book along and around, never dwelling for too long in any one moment or on any one person. This book is about the greater institution and concept of libraries, and she probes the idea of libraries from many different angles. I loved hearing about the little details of the library, like how long a book stays in circulation and the kinds of inquiries the library info desk fields. I also, predictably, loved the investigation of the 1986 fire in Los Angeles, you know, the true crime part.

There were certainly parts of this book that drifted into areas I was less interested in, however in these cases that says more about me than the book or Ms. Orlean’s writing. For the most part I was captivated by the story Orlean was expertly weaving. I didn’t know you could make a book about libraries and librarians seem exciting and fresh, but she does.

If you’re reading this blog, you most likely like books, so I would think you would appreciate if not swoon over this one. The Library Book feels like being in a hug of bookish nostalgia. If nothing else, it will remind you how important libraries are to the fabric of society, and maybe it will make you want to flaunt your library card.

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st Edition edition (October 16, 2018)
4/5 stars
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Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper

October 22, 2018October 22, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 2 Comments

ADA6ECB3-A56D-4D66-BBDE-E73C105136E8 I requested this audiobook from my library months ago, I forgot about it. Then I got an email saying it was on my phone, and I’m so happy that I did.

A little more about Eloquent Rage

So what if it’s true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.

Far too often, Black women’s anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women’s eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It’s what makes Beyoncé’s girl power anthems resonate so hard. It’s what makes Michelle Obama an icon.

In Brittney Cooper’s world, neither mean girls nor fuckboys ever win. But homegirls emerge as heroes. This book argues that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one’s own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.

Brittney Cooper has made the case that she is the smartest (and most articulate) person in the room, especially when it comes to Black Feminism. Eloquent Rage is a force of passion, intelligence, history, and of corse, rage, and it totally works. Cooper’s points are razor sharp, and she walks us through her thinking time and time again.

Eloquent Rage is committed to Black Girl Feminism. It centers women of color. Dr. Cooper comes back to Black women over and over again in this book, even when she leaves them to discuss Hilary Clinton or Black fathers. When she strays to follow a line of thinking, she always comes back to the intersectional point of Black women. She is never distracted or dissuaded.

I am struck by how smart Cooper is. Not because she holds her intelligence over the reader, but because she is able to distill complex ideas down to a place where any reader can hear her and understand her. That is not easy, and Cooper does it with, what feels like, ease. She takes feminist theory and transcribes it over Michelle Obama’s ponytail, or Beyonce’s song “Formation”. She dissects the bible’s thoughts on sex along side her own grandmother’s thoughts on sex. Only someone with a strong hold on the theories behind Black feminism and the depth of mind to grapple with these theories could create such a complex, and yet still simple book. She hits the pains and pleasures of being a Black woman on the head. It was wonderful to see my life and struggles reflected in Cooper’s writing.

There were moments in this book where Cooper lost me. Not because I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but more because I couldn’t always follow how she got there. And to be fair, I listened to this book as an audiobook, so some of the lack of comprehension could be blamed on focus and not flow. Dr. Cooper narrates the book, and she does a wonderful job. Its not too familiar and not too academic. Again, she strikes the perfect balance.

I can not suggest this book more to anyone interested in intersectional feminism. I can not suggest this book more to anyone interested in feminism, period. You’ll walk away feeling like you have a new and deep understanding of what life for Black women is like, even if you already are a Black woman.

Audiobook: 6 hours and 57 minutes
Publisher: Macmillan Audio (February 19, 2018)
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (February 20, 2018)
5/5 stars
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One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson

October 13, 2018October 12, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

AB672DE6-31D6-4244-A920-9DE7657CE834 — *The Stacks received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.* *For more information click here.*

This is the kind of book that is also on my radar, political, racial, and nonfiction, yes please. To move it to the top of my my read list, all I needed to see was that it was long-listed for the National Book Award. So I picked it up, and read it in about two sittings.

Here is more on this book

With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice.

Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans as the nation gears up for the 2018 midterm elections.

If you’re not familiar with voter suppression and the ways that it has been enacted in the past and continues to be used today, this book will feel like a whole new world opening up in front of you. If you have read about disenfranchisement of Black and Brown voters, along with those of the poor, young, and elderly, this book will sum up most of what you already know. Either way, this book provides a detailed account of these tactics, and clearly lays out facts versus fiction around voter fraud. It is smart and specific, if not a little dry.

The most powerful thing this book does is erase the narrative that many people of color, poor people, elderly people, etc. do not vote because they do not care. Anderson lays out the obstacles that have been placed in these voters’ way. She describes what people face just to get registered, and what more lays in their way of getting to the polls. She explains that many of these new barriers to voting have sprung up since 2013 and using the voter turnout from Obama’s elections (2008 and 2012) vs 2016 are disingenuous and place unfair blame on Black people’s “apathy” and not the systemic suppression of the Black vote. Dispelling this myth was powerful, and needed, especially as we approach the 2018 midterm election.

In One Person, No Vote, Anderson is relentless in hammering home just how many voter laws have been passed that are racist, but more than that, extremely deliberate. The voter ID laws, redistricting, and reduced early voting, voter roll purging, and more are all targeting specific racial and demographic groups with surgical precision. Anderson does not allow us to forget that for one second. She does not feel the need to give credence to fabricated claims of voter fraud, instead she choses to debunk these theories, and call them outright lies.

Toward the end of the book, Anderson takes us through the election of Doug Jones in Alabama, and the work that was done by Black organizers and political organizations to re-enfranchise voters who had been taken off voter rolls, who had been told they couldn’t vote, and who didn’t have rides to the polls. She explains to us the ins and outs of their playbook that took voter disenfranchisement head on. It is powerful and gives hope, but not hope without a lot of hard work and good organizing.

There is a lot of information in this book, and while the book itself is short, it is written a very straight forward non-fiction style. I appreciated her directness and ability to draw straight lines between actions and fallout. White supremacy functions within the confines of American law, and it functions in the shadows. Anderson shines bright lights on the White supremacist agenda of stealing votes. I suggest you read this book.

Hardcover: 228 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing; First Edition edition (September 11, 2018)
3/5 stars
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Heads of the Colored People: Stories by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

October 5, 2018October 11, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

A3411286-4FB2-4539-A492-455E39E36876 — The Stacks received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *For more information click here.*

In my quest to be a “good and responsible” book reviewer I am reading my way through many of the long listed books for The National Book Award. I know I won’t read them all any time soon, but I’m making a major effort to read a chunk of them. I love book awards, even if I seldom agree. Heads of the Colored People is my third book from the fiction long list.

Here is more about this book

Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous—from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids’ backpacks, to the young girl contemplating how best to notify her Facebook friends of her impending suicide—while others are devastatingly poignant—a new mother and funeral singer who is driven to madness with grief for the young black boys who have fallen victim to gun violence, or the teen who struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with black culture.

Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship. Her stories are exquisitely rendered, satirical, and captivating in turn, engaging in the ongoing conversations about race and identity politics, as well as the vulnerability of the black body. Boldly resisting categorization and easy answers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires is an original and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.

There is so much to enjoy about this book. It is smart, and dark, and funny, and really well done. The stories feel well thought through and edited. I never lost interest, often times I wanted more. Her characters were specific and their desires clear. She breathed deep full breaths into each of her characters.

Heads of the Colored People excels at humanizing Black experiences. Not in the way that we see that Black people have feelings too, but in a way that allows Black people the privilege of being wholly individual. They get to care about stupid things like fluorescent lighting. They get to do odd things in the privacy of their own homes. They get too have control issues. They get to exhibit the mundane personality flaws that we so often see represented through Whiteness. Thompson-Spires gives Black characters the space and freedom to be unique, idiosyncratic, particular, neurotic, and vulnerable. All the things we often associate with Whiteness. Her characters are free to be alive and to have non life threatening issues. She makes space at the table for individuality in Blackness. Heads of the Colored People is a reminder that Blackness is not a monolith, and it never has been. This type of representation matters.

What Thomspon-Spires is doing with Heads of the Colored People is almost more important than what she is saying; no one story stands out as more valuable than any other. Rather, they all work together to paint elaborate tableaus of modern Black life. There is now a book in the world where these stories of Black people being human exist. I don’t know that the specifics of the majority of these stories will sick with me. I think that is okay. What will stick with me is that this book happened and I read it and it was good.

If you like fiction short stories, dark humor, and want to examine people’s quirks this is your book. The writing is well crafted and intentional. It tackles themes of what it means to be Black in new ways. It hits all its marks and works on many levels. It is short and sweet, and I certainly look forward to what more Nafissa Thompson-Spire brings to the table.

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Atria / 37 INK; 1st Edition edition (April 10, 2018)
4/5 stars
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Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.

October 1, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ 1 Comment

E4FA3654-5315-4685-8748-2A65FF1D6F41 Every year I try to read at least one or two Pulitzer Prize winners, while I generally don’t enjoy the fiction books for a myriad of reasons, I have found some of my favorite nonfiction books have won or been short listed for the Pulitzer (Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson, sticks out a recent favorite). It was a no brainer to pick up Locking Up Our Own, it won the Pulitzer in 2018 for general nonfiction, and had a subject matter that excited me.

Here is a little more about this book

Former public defender James Forman, Jr. is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand the war on crime that began in the 1970s and why it was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers.

Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness―and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods.

This is a smart and thoughtful book. It highlights the role Black politicians, officials, and community members have had on mass incarceration. I appreciated Forman’s in depth look at this small and specific group of people. There are many nuances and subtleties in the giant machine that is the prison industrial complex, and this book zeros in on one of those nooks, especially from the vantage point of a defense lawyer.

The book mostly focuses on Washington DC (a majority Black city), and places a lot of blame on Black leaders, which Forman explains in detail. However, found myself questioning how different these laws were in other cities with large Black populations and White elected officials. A lot of the blame is laid at the feet of the African Americans who run DC, but it isn’t clear if this is unique to DC. If these trends were seen nationwide, including cities with few Black leaders, the case made against the Black leaders in DC is significantly diminished. I didn’t feel that I understood if the movement toward stricter laws was truly being led by Black folks, or if it was more a national trend in cities with large Black populations. Said another way, sure, Eric Holder enacted harsh search and seizure initiatives in DC, but was this any different than stop and frisk in Giuliani’s New York? This makes a huge difference in the argument, and these questions were left unanswered.

The writing style of Locking Up Our Own was mostly straight forward, nothing particularly fancy or noteworthy. Forman does include the cases of his past clients to connect the laws in theory to the lives they affected in practice. This didn’t feel like a priority for the book, but rather an after thought, and therefore these stories fell flat. They functioned more like interludes than anything else.

I enjoyed learning about the role that Black people have played in the mass incarceration crisis, even if it wasn’t clear if they were following trends versus creating a road map for The United States. I appreciated a much more subtle look at something that has become a topic that engenders a lot of debate.

If you find nonfiction to be a little dry, this isn’t the nonfiction book for you, I might suggest Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, because it has a much more human element (thought it is more focused on death penalty law). I would suggest you read this book if you’re like nonfiction, even when it is not story based, and are well versed in mass incarceration. It is a great compliment to The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reprint edition (February 6, 2018)
3/5 stars
Buy Locking Up Our Own on Amazon

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

September 27, 2018September 26, 2018 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

5B406AF2-3110-4638-BAB4-0A0DA194B8CA — The Stacks received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *For more information click here.*

I was so excited to read and discuss Less for The Stacks Book Club this week. I got to dive into this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner in Fiction with the smart and thoughtful Zeke Smith. You can listen to our full conversation here, however, be warned there are spoilers on this episode.

Here is a little more about Less

Who says you can’t run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes–it would be too awkward–and you can’t say no–it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.

This is a perfectly lovely book. There is nothing hurtful or offensive or troubling or even deeply thought provoking. The writing is simple and fluid, the characters are human, the plot moves forward, it is for all intents and purposes a perfectly lovely book.

Less did not excite me, it did not challenge me, it did not make me think. I found it to be an easy read and once I got to the end, I thought “why did I read this book?” There was no really passion in the book, and I didn’t connect with the humor.

My biggest challenge with reading this book was the feeling that I did not care about the main character, Arthur Less. I found him whiny and average (and not in a good way), he didn’t charm me, he didn’t evoke pity from me. He just was. Another book about another White man who I am supposed to empathize with, and I didn’t relate. I didn’t even want to relate.

I have to admit, before I read this book I was shocked that it won the Pulitzer Prize. A book written by a White man in 2018, about another White male writer. What is the point? Then I read the book, and while I would not have awarded Less with the Pulitzer, I understood the book a little better, and the love other people have for Greer’s work. Mostly, I think this book is a nice distraction from the craziness that has overtaken The United States. This book is not focused on racism, sexism, abuse, trauma, or anything that many people are struggling through (and in many cases very publicly). This book is easy. It has very nice things to say about life, and humanity, and love. It is a distraction from pain, and that can be a good thing. It is not the thing I would chose to award, especially in times like these.

One thing that deserves praise in this book is the centering of a gay character that is neither the stereotypically flamboyant nor the deeply suffering . There is no AIDS epidemic there is no glitter speedo. There is real life that happens to a gay man, and that is not something we are presented with as often as we should be. Gay people deserve the diversity in their stories that heterosexual people are given. LGBTQ stories deserve the space to be just as average and mediocre as White cis-gender heterosexual males.

I did not love this book, I liked it just fine. It didn’t speak to me in any meaningful way, and some books just aren’t for me. There were a few moments throughout that were cute or smart, but nothing sustained me. I appreciated the ending. I wouldn’t rave over this book, but I wouldn’t tell you not to read it either. It is a well written book about a man that I didn’t care about, and it is a perfectly lovely book.

Don’t forget to listen the The Stacks with Zeke Smith discussing Less.

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (May 22, 2018)
3/5 stars
Buy on Less Amazon