Southern Bookman

Respected anchorman John Pruitt's "Tell It True" explores 1960s racial violence, Atlanta's emergence

Longtime Atlanta news anchor John Pruitt's debut novel "Tell It True" examines Atlanta's rise as a major American city in the early 1960s, prevailing against Georgia's ingrained racial violence.

Published by Mercer University Press, the book hinges upon the brutal Klan slaying of a black Army reserve officer and Baltimore businessman. Driving through rural Georgia on his way home from his annual tour of duty at Fort Benning, Jarvis Pendry is killed late at night by a father and son consumed by racial hatred.

The fictional murder is loosely based upon the 1964 killing of Washington educator and Army officer Lemuel Penn, slain by a shotgun blast from a passing car while driving through Madison County, Ga, just outside of Athens. Pruitt as a young TV newsmen covered the Penn murder case and trial, in which three Klansmen were acquitted by an all-white jury.

Pruitt's crime takes place in the fictional Pickett Country, named for the Confederate general who led the failed Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, known as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. That historical echo of the South's "lost cause" effectively sets the stage for Pruitt's exploration of white resistance to the civil rights movement, black demands for equal rights and Atlanta's emergence as the leading Sun Belt city.

Drawing upon his career as a TV journalist, Pruitt views the novel's key events following the murder through the eyes of his alter-ego, the young TV cameraman Gil Matthews. Gil is joined in his dangerous pursuit of the truth by Mindy Williams, an AP reporter eventually hired by Mathews' WDX TV station, modeled after Atlanta's WSB. 

Gil and Mindy's partnership and perhaps budding romance provide an entertaining rom-com counterpoint to the book's dramatic moments. The young journalists encounter a rich cast of fully imagined characters.

An Atlanta executive resembling business leader Robert Woodruff works behind the scenes to influence a fictional 1964 gubernatorial election, seeking to engineer the victory of a moderate candidate over an avowed segregationist. In another insider reference, the wealthy Buckhead power broker bears the name Devereaux Inman, echoing the real-life names of two old Atlanta families.

The fictional gallery based on historical models includes a black minister and civil rights leader, a satirically flamboyant defense attorney, young black radicals at Morehouse College who reject the slow pace of change accepted by the older generation, a respected TV anchorman and Georgia politicians, prosecutors, journalists and law officers.

As in the Penn trial, the Klansmen accused of killing Pendry are acquitted by an all-white male jury. Showing an impressive talent for dramatic set-pieces, Pruitt brings alive the rural courthouse and the trial's testimony, judge's directions and closing arguments. In a historical parallel to the Penn case, the first in which those accused of racial murders could face federal charges of violating the victim's civil rights, the book foreshadows a federal probe of the Pickett County murder.

Pruitt ends the book with a poignant racial reconciliation between the white Pickett County sheriff and Pendry's widow, a memorable minor character. Sheriff Lucas McSwain overcomes his white supremacist heritage in an uplifting subplot.

"Tell It True" closes with the moderate candidate's election and a foreshadowing of Atlanta's vibrant future as "the City Too Busy to Hate." Tragically, the rest of Georgia and the South found plenty of time for racial hatred. Pruitt's message of racial healing appears fragile after the Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd killings, and retreats on black voting rights.

Like the best historical novels, "Tell It True"  reveals hard truths of the  present and future through the lens of the past.

 

All of those books in a lifetime of reading

Whenever I finish a book, I wish I knew how many I've completed in a lifetime of reading.

A few books stand out: Kerry the Firedog, another early picture book about a truck delivering coal, Alice and Jerry's adventures revealing the wonders of language in my first grade class taught by Miss Coates, whom I still remember. The Golden Books, with their distinctive gold-leaf binding, opened a world of enchantment.

My youth was filled with the Hardy Boys, Chip Hilton and the Western novels of Zane Gray. Our mother took us for summertime visits to the air-conditioned bookmobile, where I checked out stacks of baseball, football, golf and boxing histories.

I also loved a series of biographies about famous Americans in their youths, such as "Ernie Pyle, Young Reporter." My favorites were lives of Lou Gehrig, Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin.

Carlos Baker's early biography of Ernest Hemingway stands out as one of the first "serious" books I finished. From there, I discovered Hemingway's novels and short stories, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" and "Tender Is the Night," Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" and James Joyce's "The Dead." I also fell under the spell of J.D. Salinger's short stories and Glass Family saga and James Joyce's "The Dead."

William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" and short stories were a major touchstone of my reading life.

From my college years, I treasure the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volumes 1 and 2, to which I often return. For years, I consulted my college Webster's dictionary, although it lacked a few contemporary words. In recent years, I've gone to the Internet for definitions.

In college, I began a lifetime passion for the poems of Keats, Eliot and Donne and the poems and plays of Shakespeare.

Sometimes the titles on my bookshelves look like tombstones. I wonder why I'd ever acquired some of my more esoteric titles. Reading often seems futile these days. But it's as essential to me as breathing.

I'll keep reading until I finish my final book.

 

 

 

 

Eudora Welty would weep at Jackson's water apocalypse

Eudora Welty understood the tangled paths of Southern history.

The 180,000 residents of Jackson, Welty's home, lack water to carry out life's basic functions.

Mississippi can never escape its tortured past. White flight in the 1950s and 1960s in opposition to public school integration decimated the tax base of the state's capital city, where Willie Morris lay in state after his death. The state's majority white government, now ruled by the GOP, refused to invest in the city's infrastructure.

The bill came due this week when the city's water system failed, leaving the predominantly black city without water for bathing, drinking, cooking, flushing the toilet. Many of the residents live below the poverty line.

GOP Gov. Tate Reeves said "ain't it a shame?" and promised to take action. But the people of Jackson live without water.

Eudora Welty wrote a short story based on the murder of Medgar Evers in Jackson.

Birthplace of writers and city of music, education, government and commerce, Jackson has been killed by neglect.

 

 

Farewell, Chattahoochee Review

The Chattahoochee Review began the careers of many acclaimed authors.

Founded by Lamar York in 1989 at what was then Chattahoochee Community College, now Georgia Perimeter College, the small but vital journal published early work by an impressive list of writers. The journal's short stories, poems, author interviews, book reviews and art set a high standard.

AJC book columnist Suzanne Van Atten reported Tuesday that the review has stopped publication, a victim of the covid pandemic and financial setbacks.

Countering that sad news, Van Atten announced that the Townsend Prize for the best fiction book published in Georgia will again be awarded after a two-year hiatus. The Atlanta Writers Club, which took over the prize from the Chattahoochee Review, will announce the winner in April.

On a personal note, I published two pieces in the Chattahoochee Review a number of years ago, a book review and a critical essay on the work of the late Atlanta poet Turner Cassity, who served for many years as Emory University's chief librarian.

The Chattahoochee Review was a literary beacon. Its demise is a loss for Atlanta as a literary center.

Washington Post, New York Times rivalry heats up in books coverage

The Washington Post and New York Times are engaged in a book culture war.

In welcome news for readers, the Post recently announced the revival of its Sunday book review section, which returns Sept. 25. The Post in 2009 quit publishing its Sunday Book World, dismaying book lovers. The newspaper's book reviews were spread across different sections.

Along with competing with The New York Times' Sunday Book Review, the Post hired longtime Times critic John Williams to edit its new section, which will feature essays and reviews by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Dirda and standout critic Ron Charles along with author interviews and publishing news.

Similar to a blockbuster sports trade, Williams' arrival at the Post followed Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic Carlos Lozada moving from the Post to the Times, where he will write a literary-focused op-ed column.

Before the Post's announcement of its revived Book World section, the Times appointed Gilbert Cruz as its new book editor, replacing Pamela Paul, who now writes an op-ed column, disappointing so far. Cruz's mission is to revitalize the Sunday book review for the digital age, broaden publishing industry coverage and improve readers' service features.

The Times-Post literary skirmishes come after the Atlantic disclosed its increased coverage of books. The venerable magazine dealt a serious blow to literary culture years ago when it stopped running short stories and moved from Boston to Washington to give more attention to politics. Founded in the 19th century in Boston, then the center of the nation's literary life, the Atlantic was known for publishing many of the country's leading writers. Broadening book coverage represents a return to its literary heritage.

Along with a precipitous decline in circulation, major newspapers drastically cut back or eliminated book reviews in recent years. The Post's shuttering of its Book World under former publisher Lally Weymouth was a devastating loss to the nation's literary culture.

Announcing the Washington Post's new book section, Charles in his newsletter heralded the return of cover illustrations and other print publication attractions. My first thought was to see if I could subscribe to the new section for mail delivery. If not, I'll look forward to enjoying it digitally.

The renewed commitment to book coverage by the Post, Times and Atlantic might bring at least a small revival in book readership, which has declined in recent years, and boost the renewed popularity of traditional print books.

While local newspapers have alarmingly disappeared, the Times and Post have increased revenues through a boom in online subscriptions as print circulation and traditional advertising declined.

A few ironies arise in the book coverage revival. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, whose Amazon disrupted the publishing industry. Atlantic owner Laurene Powell Jobs is the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Apple, along with Microsoft and Google, fueled the Internet age, revolutionizing reading and the gathering of information.

With all of the disruptions, book culture hangs on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Maraniss' "Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe" gives full portrait of Indian sports legend

Jim Thorpe's life brings together a twisted strand of American myths. 

Still acclaimed as the country's greatest athlete, the Native American Thorpe's greatest triumph, winning the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics, was unjustly stolen from him. Applauded for his sports prowess,Thorpe suffered from exploitation and the racism of pernicious Indian stereotypes.

For years, he was one of those essential famous Americans whose story was taught to schoolchildren, along with Ben Franklin, George Washington, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and a few others. Thorpe's fame has faded in recent years, but his name remains legendary.

Noted biographer and journalist David Maraniss's "Path Lit by Lightning, a Life of Jim Thorpe" will generate renewed attention to Thorpe's life. With deep research and engrossing writing, Maraniss examines Thorpe's legacy in the broader context of American society. From Thorpe's experiences, he looks at American injustice against Indians, early 20th century sports and journalism, Hollywood and the costs of fame.

Along with college football and Olympics mastery, Thorpe was also a National Football League pioneer, and had a brief career in the Major Leagues. Maraniss entertainingly recounts Thorpe's days with the Canton Bulldogs, one of the first NFL teams. Named the first president of the fledgling league, Thorpe give the NFL and its predecessor initial credibility.

Thorpe's baseball career is also examined, including a fascinating worldwide tour he made with John McGraw's New York Giants. His major league career unfairly thwarted, Thorpe played for a number of years for minor league teams.

Maraniss' biographies of Barack Obama, Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente presented careers of continued triumph. In contrast, Thorpe suffered years of downfalls after his early successes. The author mostly succeeds in upholding the interest in Thorpe's last 30 years of disappointment.

Battling chronic alcoholism, Thorpe drifted from job to job, and unsuccessful sports promotion schemes. He was cheated by promoters, and often gave away money he couldn't afford. Married three times, Thorpe also was a neglectful husband and father, often traveling with sports teams or other promotional ventures.

Thorpe also attempted a career in Hollywood, but was reduced to bit roles, including an appearance in James Cagney's "White Heat." With his enduring fame, he spoke out for Indian rights in the film industry.

Maraniss gives a full account of the production of "Jim Thorpe: All-American," an inaccurate and melodramatic film starring Burt Lancaster as Thorpe. Thorpe's paltry payment for the film is one of the many injustices Thorpe suffered through the years.

Born in Oklahoma to the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was one of the Native Americans sent to the Carlisle Industrial Indian School in Carlisle, Pa., whose goal was to "kill the Indian and save the man," or eliminate all vestiges of Indian culture and replace them with white civilization. Under the guidance of famed coach Pop Warner, Thorpe gained fame as a football dynamo for the Carlisle Indians, who played against Harvard, Yale, Penn and other leading college football powers of the day.

Starring as a defensive and offensive halfback, Thorpe also punted and drop-kicked field goals and extra points. Also a prolific passer, he could boot the ball 80 yards and score field goals from long distances.  He was named a first team All-American by Walter Camp in 1911 and 1912. Famous sportswriter Grantland Rice in the 1950s called Thorpe the all-time greatest football player.

Under Warner, he also excelled in track and field at Carlisle. Thorpe qualified for the 1912 U.S. Olympics team in the pentathlon and decathlon. Warner was the coach of the team that traveled to Stockholm, Sweden for the Games. In a stunning dominant performance, Thorpe won both multi-event competitions, receiving special trophies from the king of Sweden and the emperor of Russia along with the two gold medals.

After the Olympic performance, Thorpe returned home to great acclaim, including a ticker tape parade in New York City. Heading back to the gridiron that fall, he led Carlisle to victory over Army at West Point in one of the greatest all-time college games. Maraniss makes a point of mentioning that the West Point stadium lies in the shadow of Custer's tomb. Dwight Eisenhower played for the Army squad, and remembered Thrope's prowess throughout his life. Thorpe and his Carlisle teammates celebrated the win as revenge for the U.S. Army's destruction of Indian tribes.

In 1913, newspaper reports disclosed that Thorpe had received payment for playing semipro baseball in 1910 and 1911 in North Carolina. Declared a professional in violation of the Olympics' then strict amateurism rules, Thorpe was stripped of his medals and trophies, beginning a controversy that generated heated debate for years.

Maraniss presents convincing evidence that Warner and Carlisle President Moses Friedman knew about Thorpe playing for Rocky Mount and Wilmington in the league, which went defunct after several years. College athletes playing minor league baseball was an accepted practice. But Thorpe unlike the others didn't use an assumed name.

Warner denied knowing about Thorpe playing in the minor league, and condescendingly blamed Thorpe for the transgression. James Sullivan, the head of the American Amateur Union, also refused to defend him.

Thorpe lost his medals and trophies although the rules for the Stockholm Olympics stipulated that any charges of professionalism had to be made within 60 days. The newspaper reports about Thorpe's minor league play arose 180 days after the Olympics ended.

But the International Olympics Committee decided to strip Thorpe of his medals and trophies, a decision that Sullivan refused to challenge. Sullivan ordered that the medals and trophies be quickly sent to the IOC, which also removed Thorpe from the record book. Maraniss gives an inadequate explanation of why Sullivan took such hasty action, and how the AAU could take ownership of what might be considered Thorpe's personal property.

Longtime American Olympics Committee and International Olympics Committee head Avery Brundage for years refused to restore Thorpe's victories. Castigated by Maraniss as a Nazi sympathizer who supported the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Brundage competed in the 1912 decathlon, withdrawing after a few events. The book indicates that Brundage might have been moved by resentment over Thorpe's success.

After years of protest by Thorpe's family, and Rice and other sportswriters, the IOC in 1982 partially restored Thorpe's triumphs, declaring him a co-champion with the runners-up. His family received replicas of his medals, which were somehow lost over the years. Maraniss doesn't say, but the trophies, a sculpture and a sterling silver Viking ship, presumably remain at the Olympics headquarters in Switzerland.

Just before the publication of Maraniss' book, the IOC announced the full restoration of Thorpe's victories.

Thorpe's greatness transcended a few medals, even in his most desperate days. Maraniss portrays a resilient man who never lost his champion's heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attack on Salman Rushdie recalls appearance at Emory

The stabbing of Salman Rushdie over the weekend brought back memories of seeing Rushdie at Emory University along with the late Christopher Hitchens.

Rushdie's presence before an appreciative crowd was a triumph of free expression years after he received a Muslim death sentence for writing "Satanic Verses." After the novel's publication in 1989, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a "fatwa" against Rushdie, branding the book "blasphemous" against Islam.

After a couple of years of hiding, Rushdie resumed his public life, including a high-profile professorship at Emory. Although the fatwa was never rescinded, the threat to Rushdie seemed to have receded, until a 24-year-old Islamic fanatic attacked Rushdie Saturday before a scheduled lecture at the bucolic Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

Rushdie was rushed to a hospital, where he remains in critical condition, although he appears likely to recover. He was removed from a ventilator and was conscious and making jokes, according to reports. He's likely to lose an eye.

The 75-year-old Rushdie's tenure at Emory elevated Atlanta's literary profile. Rushdie during his time in Atlanta heightened his public presence, championing freedom of expression and the literary imagination. The appearance with Hitchens, an outspoken atheist who attacked religious fanaticism, was a memorable event for the city.

Such an open public debate appears more and more endangered these days, with attacks on freedom of speech from the left and right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oxford, Miss. bookseller Richard Howorth speaks out against Penguin Random House-Simon & Schuster merger

Richard Howorth, the renowned founder of Square Books in Oxford, Miss., and a national spokesman for independent bookstores, Friday made the most convincing case yet against the Penguin Random House purchase of Simon & Schuster.

In a New York Times op-ed article, Howorth outlined the dangers from further publishing industry consolidation. The knowledgeable article examined book industry battles, including Barnes & Noble's blocked effort several years ago to purchase a book warehouse company that supplies independent bookstores and continuing conflicts with Amazon.

Howorth pointed out that his wife, Lisa, published a novel with Simon & Schuster and that Random House published books by famed Oxford native William Faulkner.

Yet writers like them would be less likely to have their books published under the Random House-Simon & Schuster deal, he said. With mergers reducing the number of independent publishers, more resources are given to best-selling celebrity authors. Mid-list authors who write important books are not allowed to develop their careers.

Howorth, the subject of a recent engaging profile in the New Yorker by Harper Lee biographer Casey Cep, has proven that readers will purchase interesting books by writers who don't produce best-sellers.

Increased publishing industry consolidation will block those writers' books from ever reaching the public.

 

 

 

Ralph Fiennes to read T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" on 100th anniversary of poem's publication

T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" reaches its full power when read aloud.

An actor reciting the modernist masterpiece brings out its different voices, rising into a mesmerizing and overwhelming drama echoing Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists. Jeremy Irons' performance of "The Wasteland" on a recording he made of Eliot's poems reveals the aural majesty of Eliot's words.

Ralph Fiennes will read "The Wasteland" Dec. 5 at New York City's 92nd Street Y, marking the 100th anniversary of the poem's publication. Eliot read the poem on the same stage on Dec. 5, 1950. The 92nd Street Y, now called 92NY in a bit of marketing excess, announced the reading as part of its fall season.

Like James Joyce's "Ulysses" published in 1922, "The Wasteland" describes a lost European civilization devastated by World War I. The narrator wanders like a shell-shocked soldier, or ghost, through a ravaged London. Other voices recall a vanished culture, defined by childhood joy. For all of its despair, the poem has a vitality of working class characters, jazz motifs and black humor.

Ezra Pound, also a friend of Joyce, edited Eliot's poem. Later, Pound was imprisoned as a traitor for supporting Hitler's war effort. Now Pound's hate-obsessed agenda spreads across the globe.

"The Wasteland's" relevance is undiminished as the world's climate collapses and political violence rises.

A national broadcast of Fiennes' reading would be a light shining in the darkness.

 

 

 

Patrick Radden Keefe's "Say Nothing" reveals horrors of Irish guerrilla war against British

Patrick Radden Keefe's "Say Nothing" uncovers in pulsing detail Britain's 30-year war against Irish Catholics in Belfast.

Keefe acknowledges that the book's not a comprehensive history of the "Troubles," the sectarian violence that shattered Northern Ireland from 1968 through the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998. He discloses little about violence carried out by Protestant groups against their Catholic enemies.

Instead, Keefe examines the increasing brutality and nihilism of the guerrilla war between the Catholic Irish Republican Army's militant "provos" wing and the British army, which occupied Belfast. Instead of enforcing peace, the British soldiers carried out ruthless violence against the Catholic resisters.

Crushed by social and economic discrimination and mired in poverty, the Irish Catholics are sympathetic figures at the start of the book. Keefe with spellbinding power traces the IRA freedom fighters' transformation into terrorists and murderers.

Keefe reveals the appalling death toll of the British-IRA war. A mass bombing in London carried out by the Provos brings multiple deaths, unintended, the Provos claimed. Those suspected of betraying the IRA to the British are "disappeared."

One particular case represents the Irish fighters' descent into cold-blooded criminality. The murder of Jean McConville, a 38-year-old mother of 10 kidnapped from her home while her young children watched in December 1972, is the book's overriding narrative element.

McConville, a Protestant who married a Catholic who died of cancer, was falsely accused of spying for the British.

The McConville children's story of growing up in poverty and searching for the truth of their mother's disappearance alternates throughout the book with the broader history of the British-IRA conflict.

After years of heartbreak, McConville's body is at last discovered in a seaside grave, and key IRA figures, paricularly Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, are implicated in her murder.

Adams, one of the Catholic leaders whose rise and fall are documented by Keefe, denied his involvement with the IRA. Keefe builds an ironclad case that Adams led the Provos and ordered McConville's murder. Other once endearing Catholic leaders carried out her slaying.

Based on impressive research, especially tapes made by a Boston College oral history project, the book shows how desperation pushes humans into extreme behavior.

With the suspense of a thriller and murder mystery and the epic power of the best historical chronicles, "Say Nothing" says everything about the savage war between the British and IRA.