BLL Book Reviews - April 2017

Brewster Ladies Library, 1822 Main Street, Brewster, MA 02631

In this issue… Egg (Picture Book (for 4-8 year-olds) by Kevin Henkes (Nori Morganstein) America's War for the Greater Middle East by Andrew Bacevich (Doug Wilcock) A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier by David Welky (Jim Mills) Carve the Mark (Young Adult) by Veronica Roth (Angie Howes) The Huntress: The Adventures, Escapades, and Triumphs of Alecia Patterson by Alice Arlen and Michael Arlen (Don Boink) The Book that Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation by Randall Fuller (Doug Wilcock) The Voyeur’s Motel by Gay Talese (Jim Mills) The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson (Susan Carr) The Whisperer by John Grisham (Don Boink) The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End by Robert Gerwarth (Jim Mills) Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance (Don Boink) We Are Still Right--They Are Still Wrong by James Carville (Don Boink) The Best Years of Our Lives directed by William Wyler (Jim Mills)

Egg (Greenwillow Books, 2017) Picture Book (for 4-8 year-olds) by Kevin Henkes reviewed by: Nori Morganstein, Youth Services Librarian/Assistant Director

Egg is sure to bring smiles to a lot of kids’ faces. Based off on the cute, pastel illustrations, I wrongly assumed it would be an Easter book. This bright, pastel book is actually about eggs hatching and friendship. It’s a very simple book with few words, but filled with humor and charm. It starts with pictures of four different colored eggs. Three of the colored eggs show cracks. Out of the cracked eggs, come 3 different colored birds. The one, smooth (non-cracked) egg remains the same. The birds wait, listen, and peck at the remaining egg until finally it cracks. The birds are shocked to see a baby crocodile hatch. The crocodile is sad and alone because the birds flee. Eventually, the birds return to all sit with the crocodile. They all become friends. The birds sit on the crocodile’s back as he goes out into the water to watch a sunset. The sun of course looks like a giant, orange egg to all of them. My favorite page is the one that shows the birds shocked reactions to finding the crocodile in the last egg. The expressions of the birds is priceless and sure to bring a few laughs from a younger audience. I also love watching them watch the sunset at the end also. The story is told in a rather unique way for a picture book. A lot of the illustrations are separated by panels, like a comic book might be. However, these are much larger panels than one would typically see in a comic book. At first each page has four panels (for four eggs). When the birds are waiting for the last egg to hatch, there are 16 panels of the same egg with the same word written at the bottom of each: waiting. Sometimes a full page is taken with illustration too. When the birds leave the crocodile, he gets one whole page to look sad (no panels at all). The story is told by the pictures, and by the transitions between one panel and another. By telling the story this way, the author is able to express emotion (ie: boredom, sadness, and happiness) in a very clear, succinct way that kids will have no troubles picking up. This can work as a great tool for talking about feelings. Kevin Henkes is a pro. He’s been writing wonderful picture books for decades. He’s won awards and recognition for many children’s books. It’s no surprise that this is another great one. He knows how to create books and book covers that children will automatically reach for. And he writes such simple stories that are meant to be read over and over again. This is made to be read over and over. All in all, this is a light, fun, easy picture book perfect to read in preparation for Spring. The story is simple and sweet. The illustrations make this book special. The comic book-like paneling, the fun Spring colors, and the emphasis on emotion should work as major draw for a young audience.

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America's War for the Greater Middle East byAndrew Bacevich reviewed by Doug Wilcock

Early in the Iraq war a soldier being interviewed said that he was in Iraq with his unit to complete their mission. When pressed, the soldier was relatively inarticulate about was what that mission was. In America's War for the Greater Middle East, Andrew Bacevich suggests that the interviewed soldier had much in common with his commanders, that the top brass who took these soldiers off to war were clueless about what their goals were and what strategy might get them to those goals. Bacevich suggests that even higher up the chain of command, all the way to the Commander in Chief, the same foggy notions about what the United States can accomplish in the Middle East is a bipartisan muddle. America got into the Middle East almost without thought, and now it doesn't know how to extricate itself. Beginning with Jimmy Carter and continuing through Barack Obama, all presidents have misjudged the Middle East. Bacevich, in taking us through a laundry list of failed efforts to exert U.S. influence over the region, sees a pattern. The U.S. first enters as liberators, removing some oppressive regime or faction. But then, as American troops stay on the ground, they are seen as occupiers and oppressors, and become the target of local ire. Such was the pattern in Beirut, Mogadishu, and throughout Iraq. Even seemingly short term "victories" ultimately had longer run negative consequences. For example, Bacevich asks whether a high point of the Clinton administration, ending a nasty Balkan conflict by protecting Moslem victims of Serbian violence, can be considered a victory when from those rescued Balkan countries has come a steady stream of fighters ready to join radical actors like ISIS? Bacevich is bipartisan in his scorn for U.S. Mideast policy. In his view, every President has been wrong to think that the application of military power, especially military power designed to fight a conventional land war, will work in the Middle East and in the context of non-state actors. Furthermore, as we have moved through the various Presidencies, these efforts have resulted in ever-greater levels of manpower, material, and cost. He concludes that the war for the Greater Middle East has become a very expensive diversion, that there are much larger problems that need to be addressed. While he rightfully acknowledges the courage that American soldiers have displayed on the battlefield, he disparages the notion that the U.S. military possesses the capacity to 'shape' the course of events in the Greater Middle East. While America's War for the Greater Middle East consistently highlights American shortcomings in the region, Bacevich says little or nothing about the Iraqi Kurds who are perhaps the one example that things can get better in the Middle East. Whether they are an example of intentional policy or not, they are the one shining star to come out of the Iraq War. What was done there, or what the Kurds were allowed to do for themselves, deserves mention. Anyone with an interest in history, an interest in the Middle East, and an interest in America's relationship with that region will find that Andrew Bacevich has written a thought-provoking book. It should be on everyone's reading list both as an antidote to hubris and as a caution against thinking that a military solution to a problem will yield a clean solution to that problem. For those of us who were alive through the events he chronicles, Bacevich, with an almost encyclopedic approach to the region, tweaks our memory and provides details that we had either forgotten or were never aware of.

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A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier by David Welky reviewed by Jim Mills

In 1906 the American arctic explorer, Robert Peary, had just completed an unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole. While waiting to return home he made a trek across the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, Canada’s most northern arctic island. While climbing a 2,000 ft peak on the island, Perry spotted what appeared to be a large mountainous land to the north in the Arctic Ocean. Trying to ingratiate himself with a wealthy donor, William Crocker, he christened his new discovery, Crocker Land. Three years later, on a new expedition, Peary was the first person to reach the North Pole, or so he claimed. His key deputy on this trip was a native of Provincetown, Donald MacMillan. MacMillan was not in the small group that made the final push for the pole, since he and his support party were directed to turn back around 86 deg N. Retuning to the US, MacMillan shared in Peary’s fame as a successful polar explorer and was considered to be the prime candidate to lead another expedition to explore Crocker Land. Difficulties involved in acquiring adequate funds, primarily through New York’s Museum of Natural History, delayed the start of MacMillan’s Crocker Land expedition until 1913. That summer a group of seven Americans were delivered by a small steamer in the far North. Their intention was to set up a base on the north-east coast of Ellesmere but ice condition forced them to make their base on the opposing coast which was Greenland. This unfortunate event increased the difficulties, the next year, in reaching Crocker Land requiring the group to cross the frozen bay separating the two islands. The base that the group set up was the most sophisticated and advanced ever built in the far North. An immense quantity of coal was deposited by the steamer providing adequate heating through the winter in the large frame building that was constructed. An electric generator was used for electric lights to brighten up the long arctic night (3 or 4 months). Also a two ton radio transmitter was brought along to maintain communications with the rest of the world during their multi-year sojourn. During their time in the arctic, the radio was never made to work, so the group was as cut off from civilization as all the earlier explorers had been. One key aspect of these later American arctic explorers was their almost complete dependance on the native population, the Eskimo or Inuit. The Americans learned the crucial skills, while on the trail, to build shelters (Igloos) and to live off the land hunting wildlife such as caribou, bear and rabbits and to navigate successfully through their frozen world. The Eskimo also provided the necessary motive power, the dog teams, for the trips of exploration. In the late winter of 1914 the group started out with several dog teams on their quest for Crocker Land. After an abortive start the group was able to cross Ellesmere braving some of the most horrific combinations of sub-zero temperatures and high winds. They missed the mountain overlook on the Ellesmere coast and continued out 150 miles onto the Arctic Ocean ice. When the pervasive fogs cleared their was no sighting of the island or continent of their quest. Crocker Land just didn’t exist probably a product of a northern mirage (Fata Morgana) or, even worst, deception on the part of Peary. On the return the group broke up temporarily into several groups to explore the area. On one group with an American and his eskimo guide had a falling out and the American ended up shooting and killing his guide. on the return he tried to justify his action. MacMillan, from that point on, was very wary of his friend. The two concocted a story for the Eskimos saying that the event was an accident. After the failure of their prime mission to explore this new world, the group continued exploring until their expected recovery in 1915 making additional forays about the region. Two events, the late clearing of ice in the northern waters and the start of WW 1 prevented their rescue until 1917. By this time the group had largely broken up with several individuals attempting to rescue themselves by working their way southward along the Greenland coast. Eventually all of the participants returned to the US alive thanks in great part to their support from the native tribes. Only Macmillan continued on with a life of Polar exploration. He died in Provincetown in 1970. The town, in his honor, changed the name of one of their piers to its current name, MacMillan Pier. The author has created a fascinating story of these arctic explorations. The over 400 pages of text fly-by readily. A few years after the events portrayed, the advent of long range aircraft proved conclusively that Crocker Land did not exist and that no other islands inhabited the central portions of the Arctic Ocean.

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Carve the Mark (Young Adult) by Veronica Roth reviewed by Angie Howes

Carve the Mark, the latest dystopian novel by Veronica Roth, is an exciting follow-up to Roth’s Divergent series, which captivated teens and adults everywhere. Dystopia refers to a certain genre of teen lit that has become increasingly popular since the release of The Hunger Games in 2008. Tropes of the genre include a fallen world, a corrupt government led by a cruel dictator, and a youthful protagonist looking to right wrongs and start a revolution. In most YA dystopias, crime and violence abound, only to be conquered by the indomitable power of young love. We’ve reached a point in young adult literature where dystopias are dominating the scene, and originality within the genre can be hard to come by. But there is a freshness to Carve the Mark that sets it apart from most YA dystopias, and that freshness lies partly in the sci-fi element of its setting. The story takes place in an other-worldly galaxy run by the current, a source of power that binds all people. In this universe, everyone has a currentgift, an ability that makes them unique. One character can absorb pain without feeling it. Another can see into the future. And still another can cause pain with her touch. This is the currentgift of the novel’s central heroine, Cyra, and it proves to be both a gift and a curse. Cyra’s ability forces her to live in constant pain, and it’s only through touch that she can temporarily relieve herself of the pain by transferring it onto another. Cyra’s brother, the leader of the nation of Shotet, is the brutal tyrant we’ve come to expect of the dystopian genre. But what we don’t usually see is our female heroine taking part in the cruel activity herself. When we first meet Cyra, she is a dark figure, haunted by the pain of accidentally murdering her mother with her own currentgift when she was just a young girl. She allows herself to be manipulated by her brother, who uses her like a weapon to threaten his people into submission. Cyra’s arm is covered in kill marks, a Shotet ritual that requires citizens to carve a line into their skin for each life they take. But unlike her brother, Cyra treats each mark as a way of memorializing the dead, rather than celebrating her victory over them. She is plagued by guilt, marred by constant pain, and desperate for relief. Which is where Akos comes in. The most likable character in the novel, Akos is a sweet boy whose only goal is to rescue his brother after they’re both kidnapped by the Shotet people. Akos also has a currentgift, and his gift allows him to silence the current completely, thereby disrupting the currentgifts of others. He becomes employed as the solution to Cyra’s pain, and overtime, he evolves from reluctant prisoner to friend, confidante, ally, and lover. The bond between Cyra and Akos, while typical of the genre, is one of the highlights of Carve the Mark. Both characters are richly developed, uniquely flawed, and when paired together, a force to be reckoned with. Roth imbues her hero and heroine with witty dialogue while avoiding the temptation to become sappy, and what results is a romance that readers can, and will, root for. At 468 pages, Carve the Mark is not a quick read by any means. The story drags at times, and it can be difficult to keep track of plot points from beginning to end. The characters have wild names that will make you stumble as your brain tries to pronounce them, but this book is worth the effort. With a suspense-ridden plot that keeps you guessing at every turn, strong characters that speak in unique voices and act on their desires, and a world that feels fully fleshed-out in every detail, this book is a refreshing addition to the YA dystopian genre.

Veronica Roth

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The Huntress: The Adventures, Escapades, and Triumphs of Alecia Patterson by Alice Arlen and Michael Arlen reviewed by Don Boink

The title pretty much encapsulates the entire book. The era and people involved are the upper crust of Chicago society during the prewar period. The Patterson – Medill publishing dynasty was one of the country's most powerful and influential newspaper families. Joe Patterson was Alicia's domineering father, the founder and editor of the New York Daily News. Alicia was his second child and the second disappointment at not having a son. She was also a rebellious, hard to handle youngster from the beginning. Her rebellious nature continued through her school years were she was rejected by a series of schools for misbehavior. She, like her father, was fascinated by flying. He encouraged her to pursue the difficult training for a air transport license: and in 1934 she became the 10th woman in America to receive one. Early on she was introduced to the larger world. Her father took her to London to meet Lord Beaverbrook. They went to Italy to meet Mussolini and in Berlin they attempted to meet with Hitler. Then on to Moscow and met Stalin. Father Joe wanted to see these people to size them up. There his daughter also met a young American diplomat, George Kennan. He took her under his wing, wink wink. Her father encouraged her to write up her travel experiences and she found she enjoyed writing and she wrote for Liberty magazine – an offshoot of Daily News. As a youth, Alicia, living on a farm, an experiment of her father's, became an excellent equestrian, winning many prizes. She was also fearless and adventuresome. On a trip to French Indochina she exhibited her hunting skills and being a good shot she made the Sultan of Johor an ardent admirer. Another trip was to India and she participated in an event called "pigsticking" which was actually wild boar hunting, an extremely dangerous hunt from horseback using a lance type pole. She even participated in a tiger hunt in which her younger sister Josephine killed a tiger with one shot and Alicia shot a jaguar, a lesser trophy. Having married reluctantly twice before for rather short-terms, she then married Harry Guggenheim, a wealthy mining owner-executive, of an on-again off-again nature, that did last, and with him she started Newsday on Long Island. Along the way she had a series of admirers.. The last one was Adlai Stevenson, Governor of Illinois and two-time presidential contender. They had an ongoing relationship of several years. Her success at establishing Newsday was due to her persistence and intelligent management. It had a payoff too. After writing an editorial very complementary to J.F. Kennedy, during his campaign for president, he quickly responded to her request for an interview. When a former airbase on Long Island was felt necessary for a rapidly growing population housing. Kennedy invited her to lunch the next day to which she eagerly accepted. After discussing many topics she mentioned the desire to obtain the airbase. His response was to pick up the phone calling the head of FAA and. saying "Jeeps we don't need that Mitchell Field do we? Let's shut it down."" Despite the fact it was a complicated process with many loose ends she had convinced him to skip the loose ends and just do it. She was a very persuasive and powerful woman. Alicia Patterson Guggenheim was born in 1906 and died in 1963 at the age of 56. I was very impressed with Alicia and came to like her very much. The book is well-written and fills in many vignettes of an extremely interesting life. There is an extensive background of her family and its prominence in Chicago history. Joe Patterson her father is also an important and interesting personality. It was fun reading to see what would happen next. I felt quite sad at her abrupt demise.

Alicia Patterson

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The Book that Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation by Randall Fuller reviewed by Doug Wilcock

On January 1, 1860 at a gathering in Concord at the home of Bronson Alcott, Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children's Aid Society and of the "orphan trains," brought out a well-annotated copy of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. Introducing that book to the gathering was the equivalent of dropping a match on tinder. For the attendees that evening--Brace, Alcott, Franklin Sanborn, and Henry David Thoreau--and for the larger Concord community, steeped in Transcendentalism and abolitionist politics, Darwin's book served as a lightning rod for controversy. As Randall Fuller tells it, Darwin's depiction of the "constant struggle and endless competition in the Origin of Species perfectly captured what it felt like to live in America in 1860." Throughout The Book that Changed America, Fuller shows how Origin of Species sparked debate across American society. Within the refined atmospheres of Concord and Cambridge the book was not received with unanimity of opinion. For those who understood the implications of Darwin's thesis, his ideas threatened to upend the world as they knew it. Some proved brave enough to follow Darwin to his revolutionary conclusions, others followed him to a point, often drawing the line at pushing God out of nature, while a third group rejected Darwin outright. Louis Agassiz belonged in the third group and, as a member of the Harvard biology faculty, was an influential voice in opposition. But, from that same faculty, Asa Gray supported Darwin's ideas. Within three months of the January 1 gathering, Gray had written a series of articles that soon appeared in The Atlantic, as well as a lengthy review that was featured in the March edition of The American Journal of Science. The debate was on. Gray's ideas were radical for 1860 America. He suggested that to read Darwin correctly, one had to "follow the evidence where it led, ignoring prior convictions and certainties or the narrative one wanted to confirm," and that following the evidence was an empirical endeavor rather than one built on belief or faith. Gray suggested that by adhering to this scientific method one had to be open to the possibility that everything one assumed true was incorrect. Gray did however waver somewhat in support of Darwin. While Darwin's theory could explain much, could it explain all? As has been the case numerous times in the debate about evolution, the eye became the focus of attention. Gray was skeptical that natural selection could produce something so perfect as the eye. Fuller suggests that there was an overriding concern that Gray did not want to address: acceptance of Darwin collided with his religious faith. Ultimately, Gray could only take natural selection to the point of being God's method of creation. What he could not acknowledge was that the perfect eye that he described was not meant to enjoy the sky on a beautiful summer day, but to aid whales, hawks, and humans "to plunder, pillage, and overpower: to enable their particular species to survive in the competitive struggle of life." Fuller, an English professor at the University of Tulsa writes beautifully: In describing Darwin's attention to detail, Fuller calls these observations "the very warp and woof of nature, diverse threads woven together to create a beautifully complex tapestry of life." In describing a lecture by Thoreau entitled "The Succession of Forest Trees," Fuller suggests that what audiences listening to Thoreau did not comprehend was "the influence of Darwin, which courses like a subterranean stream through the loamy prose of Thoreau's lecture." Darwin's greatest influence may have been on Thoreau, who found Origin of Species humorous and humane, stubbornly rigorous, breathtaking in its originality. After reading Darwin, Thoreau went back over his journals, cataloging his observations, creating a spreadsheet of nature, in effect making the study of nature a fine grained observation, a template that would be adopted by later naturalists. But, as was the case with so many others reading Darwin, Thoreau felt the tension between science and religion. "What sort of science is that which enriches the understanding but robs the imagination?" Thoreau dreams of two fractious, ungovernable horses that he attempts to keep separated and yet pulling in the same direction, a metaphorical attempt to resolve his transcendental idealism with scientific empiricism (page 72). There are many characters that enter the book. For Bronson Alcott's daughter, Louisa May Alcott, Darwin struck a resonant chord that persisted throughout her writing. Much the same could be said for Henry Adams, drawn to the book because "he wanted to be in the vicinity of destructive power, close to an idea capable of 'wrecking the Garden of Eden.'" Frederick Douglass embraced Darwin's vision of common inheritance, but purposefully evaded that portion of evolutionary theory that linked human to nonhuman species. Fuller introduces others, but the point is made: Origin of Species was a controversial blockbuster. (continued on the next page)

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Randall Fuller has written a beautiful book. While he deals with a subject that has been written about numerous times and in numerous ways, by embedding Origin of Species within the national debate about slavery and abolition, he has lent immediacy to the text. Fuller's writing crackles in much the same way that Darwin's did for the 1860 United States. As we try to make sense of our contemporary troubled times, reading The Book that Changed America will remind us that there are historical antecedents. Randall Fuller has done us a great service by writing this gem of a book.

The Voyeur’s Motel by Gay Talese reviewed by Jim Mills

In 1980 the non-fiction author, Gay Talese (Honor Thy Father, Thy Neighbor’s Wife), received an anonymous letter from a Denver area motel owner. In this letter the owner told the story of his activities for the last 15 years. He had used false vents, that he had installed in a dozen or so of his motel rooms, to secretly view the presumably private activities of his guests. Provided with contact information, Talese flew out to Denver and was taken on a tour of the motel’s attic so that he could see for himself what had been, up to this time, the owner’s covert voyeuristic activities. The owner had been keeping a daily journal over the entire period of his observations. His wife was the only other person who was aware of his activities. He considered that he was a researcher of sexual activity in the manner of Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson. He felt that his observations were more reliable since he had actually observed this behavior rather than accepting the oral reports of subjects describing their own behavior. The motel owner, Gerald Foos, over a period of time, sent Talese a copy of all his multi-year journal, swearing the author to secrecy. In addition to witnessing various sexual practices, Foos also observed various criminal activities including attempts to defraud the owner, drug sales and in one case a murder. His overall view of humanity declined as he observed people when they did not know that they were being observed, feeling that their public persona did not always match who they really were. Over the passage of time, Foos observed gradual changes in sexual practices through the late 60s and the 70s. One time he almost blew his cover when he saw one man sitting on a bed eating Kentucky Fried Chicken then wiping his hands all over the bedsheets. Foos emitted a loud expletive. The patron was suddenly alarmed and looked out the motel window to see where the sound had originated. The patrons exhibited blatant behavior, frequently damaging motel property and voicing the view that they were cheating the owner. Such behavior was a continual irritant to Foos. Foos’ voyeuristic activity continued until the mid to late 1980s when he sold the motel, buying a motel with more units. In 2013 Foos, feeling that the statute of limitations on prosecution of his activities had expired, contacted Talese saying that the author was released from his secrecy agreement and that Foos was ready to go public with the story of his activities. Last April a condensed version of this story was published by Talese in the New Yorker magazine with The Voyeur’s Motel being published last summer. The story that Talese tells is a fascinating one but the reader is warned that the book is more explicit about the details of Foos’ observations than was the New Yorker article.

Gay Talese Gerald Foos’ Manor House Motel

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The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson reviewed by Susan Carr African Americans have suffered every manner of insult since the first days that Europeans set foot on American soil. Through the years of slavery, Reconstruction and its aftermath, the establishment of legal segregation with Plessy v Ferguson, in 1896…the tragic story continued. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v Board of Education, that segregation was unconstitutional. This unleashed a new wave of terrorism toward blacks. The author, Tyson, reported:

” … a Mississippi Circuit Court Judge, speculated that the mandate to integrate public schools would compel right-minded white men to commit violence against fool-hardy black boys.”

Kidnapping, beating, torturing, lynching, killing of African Americans was not uncommon. Very little was done to find the perpetrators; many officials covered any evidence in order to protect the killers. Emmett Till, a 14 year-old African American boy from Chicago, was visiting family in Mississippi in August, 1955. Just before he was scheduled to return to Chicago, he bought some candy at a rural grocery store. As the story goes, Carolyn Bryant, who sold him the candy, went to her car, and Till whistled at her. Two days later, he was kidnapped by Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband and his brother, J.W. Milam. Emmett’s swollen and broken body was found in the Tallahatchie River three days later. The two men were accused of kidnapping Emmett Till and murdering him. They confessed to kidnapping but not murder. Carolyn Bryant testified that in the store, Till took her hand and asked her for a date, stating that he had experience with white women. She pulled away from him, he chased her and grabbed her around the waist. His cousin came into the store and led him out. The young woman went to her car (to get a gun to protect herself) and Till whistled at her. A young African American man, Willie Reed, bravely testified to having heard Till’s being beaten and seeing one of the defendants leaving the barn. But still the all-white jury found them, not-guilty. Very shortly after the discovery of the body, Mamie Till was notified of the death of her son. She travelled to Mississippi and identified the body. The authorities were ready to bury the body immediately but she insisted on bringing him home to Chicago. Assisted by the NAACP and her friend Medgar Evers, she decided to display her son in an open casket…

”I knew I could talk for the rest of my life about what happened to my baby, I could explain it in great detail, I could describe what I saw laid out there…I could do all of that and people would still not get the full impact…They had to see what I had seen. The whole nation had to bear witness to this…”

And the nation did. Thousands of people from Chicago viewed the body. Television coverage sent the story around the world. Mamie herself spoke at rallies all over the country. A few months later, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr. established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, essential to the founding of the civil rights movement. On the surface, it seems that considerable progress has been made as a result of the martyrdom of Emmett Till. On July 2, 1964, The Civil Rights Act was signed which protected people against discrimination on the basis of, among other things, color. Millions of African Americans have been able to register to vote. An African American was elected President of the United States. But, does the feeling of white supremacy still reign? The words of J.W. Milam, one of the defendants, in 1955 ring in my mind:

“Just as long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are going to stay in their place. Niggers ain’t gonna vote where I live…They ain’t gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger even gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he’s tired o’ livin’”

Changing the minds of people like that, doesn’t happen overnight. And in Charleston, SC in 2014, nine black churchgoers were killed while the murderer said: “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country.” The Ku Klux Klan still has a membership that espouses white supremacy principles. 60 years after Emmett Till was murdered, the author sat down with Carolyn Bryant, the woman who was “offended” by Emmett Till, for a “first-ever” interview. Part of sorting all of this out involves, what happened inside Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market? Carolyn Bryant confessed to Tyson that the hard words of her testimony, i.e. that Till had grabbed her, were not true, which of course begs the question…What then, did happen? The lines of acceptable behavior were so tightly drawn then, that Till’s even looking at her might have been an “attack”. When she testified she may have believed what she said. Perhaps she was so traumatized by her fear of blacks; perhaps she wanted to provide justification for her husband’s action; perhaps she was fearful of what would happen if she didn’t support her husband. The facts might have been that their hands touched (continued on the next page)

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when the candy and money were exchanged. And perhaps she has spent her life wondering what did happen, suffering for her part in it all. Yet Tyson recounts her murmuring, “They’re all dead now anyway.” However, such cruel and heinous acts as the killing of Emmett Till or the churchgoers in South Carolina, can’t be entirely blamed on a few people. As Martin Luther King said in his ”Letter from a Birmingham Jail”: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Tyson tells the terrible story of our country’s attitudes and actions toward African Americans in the 20th century - with meticulous research and detail, yet without the ponderous wording of an historical tome. Although it’s non-fiction, it reads like a detective story. How smoothly Tyson, who grew up in No. Carolina, weaves together the background of black/white relations, details of the events, descriptions of the people, and pictures of the scenes, as only a native could. Obviously, this is a very poignant and timely book. As the killing of Emmett Till was the event that sounded the alarm for the Civil Rights movement, The Blood of Emmett Till provides essential information and raises critical questions for every citizen of this country.

Emmett Till

The Whisperer by John Grisham reviewed by Don Boink

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board of judicial conduct. She is also a lawyer, not a cop, and her job is to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. There are few corrupt judges. Some are incompetent but not very many. She has been at the job nine years. In this instance a previously disbarred lawyer who is back in business and has a new identity, going by the name of Greg Myers, files a complaint claiming he knows of a Florida judge who has stolen money, a large amount. The source of the funds is mainly a large casino on Native American land. The Coast Mafia financed the casino and now is skimming from each months cash intake. The judge is getting a cut and looking the other way. The lawyer filing the complaint has only one client, an anonymous person who knows what is going on and hopes to cash in on exposing the crime by blowing the whistle and collecting millions under Florida law. The complaint is given to Lacey to investigate to determine if there are sufficient grounds to proceed with the case. Her associate is Hugo, a big black man, a lawyer and former college football star. When dealing with the Mafia it can be dangerous so they were leery and wanted to call the FBI. Greg balked at that and insisted they do it themselves. In making a midnight visit to the reservation, which is really off-limits to the investigators, Lacey and Hugo met briefly with an anonymous person hoping to gain some information. On the way out there was a horrible accident. It was a head-on collision by a larger vehicle which apparently purposely crossed the middle line in order to hit them. Lucy was driving and the airbag exploded in her face. Causing severe injuries. Hugo was thrown forcefully into the windshield because his seatbelt and airbag were not functioning. It turned out they were tampered with. Lacey was in a coma for a few days and Hugo died of his injuries. Now they realize that there was definitely some dirty work going on. It was decided they must turn it over to the FBI. At this point the pace of the story picked up quite a bit. Various things began to happen that you anticipated from earlier clues. There was a great deal of suspense when the kingpin’s hit man came looking for the key witness. John Grisham has written a large number of such stories over the years and frankly I tended to steer clear of them expecting the plot and scenarios to be formulaic. This story however was a very satisfying suspense tale. The characters were well developed and maintained their authenticity to the end. I enjoyed the book and read it in four sittings.

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The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End by Robert Gerwarth reviewed by Jim Mills

The Great War, the war to end all wars did not. Two decades after what is now known as World War 1, another more destructive war struck Europe and also engulfed the Far East. The author of The Vanquished gives a detailed description of the repercussions of the first war and how the enmities so engendered led to the second conflict. World War One created immense turmoil on the European continent and resulted in the collapse of several empires. The Romanov in Russia, the Ottoman in the Middle East, the Hapsburg in Austria- Hungary and the Hohenzollern (Kaiser Wilhelm II) in Germany were all destroyed in the conflict. What remained was a shambles of conflicting interests and national and ethnic demands. Many new states were created, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary and a rump German Austria were created out of the breakup of the polyglot Austro -Hungarian Empire. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland became independent states. An independent Polish state had not existed since 1795. All of this turmoil had its long lasting effects. The largest single result of the War was the creation of the world’s first Communist state in Russia, the USSR. The consolidation of this state took the better part of a half a decade with the Red forces fighting the Whites (former Czarists and western power interventionists). The USSR also battled to recover parts of Russia lost in the peace treaty with Germany in 1917. The Ukraine and a few other regions were recovered but the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) and eastern Poland were not. Other European powers such as Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy and Hungary battled to incorporate land portions that each felt belonged under their control. The creation of new states and protectorates, Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Turkey from the Ottoman Empire has had long lasting ramifications that lasting to the present day. Greece, which until recently had been part of the Ottoman lands, invaded Turkey with other portions of Turkey being placed under western state protectorates. The rise of the military leader Mustafa Kemal (known as Ataturk) turned the battle in Turkey’s favor with the Greeks and the western powers expelled. Other divisions of the Middle East were made by the western powers as a result of the Versailles Treaty (1919) as well as other conferences. In all of this decision making the defeated powers, Germany, Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, had no say and were presented with a fait-accompli. So the fighting in Europe and Turkey did not end on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. The battling continued, including massive genocides of varying population groups within each country. Time after time the dominant ethnic groups would try to eradicate other groups by evicting them from the country or by killing them off. Most of this turmoil had ended by 1923 but the advent of the Depression in 1929 brought back much of the turmoil. Fascism started with Mussolini in Italy in 1923 and with Hitler in 1933. Uprisings in both Portugal and Spain led to the dictatorships of Salazar and Franco with the Spanish Civil war running right up to the the start of WW2 when Germany invaded Poland. So the period between the wars was not really a respite to the conflicts plaguing Europe. The end of WW2 resulted in a freeze of these ethnic conflict for 45 years. The end of the Cold War in the 1990s saw a resumption of hostilities breaking up the Yugoslavian union into six new nations. The consequences of the First World War and of the makeup of the nations that participated, are still with us today. The extended period of relative peace since 1945 is encouraging but eternal vigilance is needed to consider ethnic grievances and nip any future conflicts in the bud. The Yugoslavian experience of the 1990s is a warning that all is not always as peaceful as it seems. The Vanquished is a very important and interesting book. I did encounter some difficulty in keeping track of all of the leaders, the regions and ethnic groups that contested for power in each country

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Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance reviewed by Don Boink

Elon Musk is an extremely singular character. Very few industrialists in history can match his relentless drive and ingenious vision currently you might put him in a category with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. There are many similarities, those people were extremely focused and consequently rude and hard for anyone to get along with. In Musk’s case, coming from South Africa, he had a domineering male attitude. He even eventually grew impatient with his wife of five years and stated that he was the alpha male and did not care for her disagreements. She had her own attitude and declined the ultimatum. He filed for divorce the next day. Besides that he obviously is a brilliant guy. He founded eBay and PayPal when still in college. When he sold his interest in that he was an instant millionaire. He and his brothers saw the value in solar energy and established Solar City, and upon leaving that field he became many times richer. His ability to envision radical changes led to his starting the Tesla Electric Car Corporation. He was frustrated with available batteries so he devised his own manufacturing facility to ensure a supply as well as supplying other electric car manufacturers. Space travel was his next goal with the ultimate intention of setting up a colony on Mars. Space X has become the leading edge in this field outdoing NASA. Seeing advantage in reusing booster rockets he designed, with a carefully selected group of scientists, a recoverable booster that will return to earth and land safely, vertically. He did just that recently when launching a supply rocket to the orbiting space station from Cape Canaveral. To accomplish his Martian goal he envisions sending rockets carrying 100 persons at a time. He realizes this will not happen in the real near future but he thinks he can do it in his lifetime. Along the way he has had many detractors but it has not deterred him. His Tesla car will be one of the first driverless cars if he has his way. I’m glad I got acquainted with him as he has set a new record for ingenuity.

We Are Still Right--They Are Still Wrong by James Carville reviewed by Don Boink

Perhaps you remember James Carville. He is the strange looking, baldheaded, guy who was Clinton’s campaign manager way back when. He is still a staunch Democrat from Louisiana and calls himself a Creole. This book was written during the last presidential campaign but did consider the possibility that Trump could win. Which he did. What the book attempts (and does) is bring out the stark differences between the two main political parties and their agendas. It is written in a humorous vein and contains very crude language, which he makes no apologies for. It goes along pretty much in keeping with Trump’s poor vocabulary. I confess to agreeing with his point of view very much. If you are a Fox “News” fan or Tea Party conservative you will be exasperated at the manner in which Carville demolishes the Republican responses to pretty much all of the efforts of the Democrat administration’s effort to improve the lot of the American people. Beginning with the Affordable Care Act he quotes numerous Republican legislators who predicted dire consequences from the act. Then item by item he refutes these predictions. Likewise with the Dodd-Frank Bill that was designed to counter the effects of deregulation, and the collapse it brought about. Interestingly Carville’s wife, Mary Matelin, is an ardent conservative. They must have some interesting discussions over the barbecue. The book is a comprehensive summary of the vast differences in political philosophy that is not merely a small disagreement but has become a plague on our nation that has created dysfunctional government. This partisanship has existed now for decades and has only intensified. This has led partly to the rebellion of the electorate to the extent that we now are experiencing the most extreme administration that has ever existed. The effect this will have not only in the US but the entire world, is one no one can predict and most are holding their breaths while the new scenario plays out. Heaven help us because there is no earthly means so far discernible.

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The Best Years of Our Lives directed by William Wyler reviewed by Jim Mills

As a variation on our standard book review, I’ve taken the liberty of reviewing a classic Hollywood film, one with a special Cape Cod connection. The Best Years of Our Lives, which tells the story of three GIs returning home at the end of WW 2, received an Oscar as the best film of 1946 along with seven additional Academy Awards. The director, William Wyler, was named Best Director as was Fredrick March as the Best Actor. The film has such a warm spirit to it and it just perfectly captured the mood of America after the end of a long devastating war. One of the actors who played one of the returning Service Men, Harold Russell, was a real Army veteran who had lost both of his hands while in the service. Russell was not a career actor but his performance was so real and convincing that he was the only performer to ever receive two Oscars for a single role, one of which was the Best Supporting Actor award. I had always been so moved by Russell warmth and genuine compassion in his memorable performance. Almost twenty years ago I was having my car worked on in Yarmouth. As I paid my bill in the office, I noticed a photograph on the wall of what appeared to be an older Harold Russell sitting at a desk with two Oscar statues in front of him. When I asked, I was informed that yes it was Harold Russell and that he lived in Hyannis. A couple of years later, in 2000, I learned that there would be a special showing of The Best Years at the Cape Cod Community College and that Harold Russell would be there. That was one show that I could not miss. Prior to the showing, Russell spoke about his experience with the film. The director, William Wyler, had seen an Army film that featured Russell providing encouragement to other handicapped GIs and was impressed by his film presence. While in Hollywood, Russell decided to take some acting lessons. When Wyler found out he asked Russell to take no lessons, he wanted Russell just as he was. At the end of the shooting film Russell asked the director if he should pursue an acting career. Wyler’s response was that he would find that very few roles would be offered to him. Taking his advice, Russell had a long career working for the Veteran’s Administration. This reviewer found Harold Russell to be a very brave and charming person. When he autographed one of his photos for us he used what appeared to be the same prosthetic hooks that he employed with such dexterity in the film. The impact of The Best Years of Our Lives has survived the seventy years since its release. Very little of the movie seems dated today. The film captures the very human reactions of families dealing with returning GIs with many touching scenes. The first thirty minutes off this show are just golden. Having seen this film countless times, I never grow tired of seeing the film’s opening over and over again. There are several additional scenes later in the film that are also very emotional. Harold Russell played in a film that employed many veteran actors, Fredrick March, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Hoagy Carmichael, Virginia Mayo and Dana Andrews, and more than held his own in that competitive environment. The film is frequently shown on Turner Classic Movies and is available on DVD from Netflix and on DVD, Blue-ray and VHS tape from CLAMS.

Harold Russell

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