Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape (Shehadeh)

“Remember the joy” was one my takeaways from a summer workshop. I took this to mean that we should not only study and teach the struggles of a particular group of people, but we should also celebrate the joy. I chose this book because I thought Shehadeh would give me a greater appreciation of Palestine by guiding me on his walks through it. He does that, to be sure. He evokes a tremendously beautiful and powerful landscape, but it was probably naive of me to think that any discussion of Palestinian land would not be accompanied by an account of how it has changed because of Israeli settlements. It has become dangerous and, in at least one case, illegal, for him to take the kinds of walks he enjoys. It is disheartening to follow Shehadeh’s loss of faith in his legal efforts to stop Israel from “legally” seizing more land, but it’s more than understandable. The system, at least as he paints it, is very much rigged, and his legal work seemingly ends up helping to legitimize the land seizures. I hadn’t really thought of how much the increasing number of settlements would have to be accompanied by intensive road building, and how the constant construction is not only taking land from the Palestinians, but is also damaging the land and the ecosystems of what remains.

This book was published in 2007. I wonder how many of these walks he and his fellow Palestinians can still take.

Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (Brown)

I used to work at a school that gave a lot of awards. Our awards assembly rivaled the Oscars. Throughout the year, each senior gave a speech at an assembly, and so naturally, there was an award for Best Speech. Over the years, I became concerned that the Speech teacher was choosing the awards based on the personal and emotional content of the speeches and not really considering whether they were good speeches.

This brings me to the decision by the Anisfield-Wolf committee to give this book an award for nonfiction. When Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. blurb the book and call it “brilliant” and “groundbreaking,” it is not really for me to question the contributions that Brown has made to our study of history. I trust them. Here’s the issue, though. I don’t think this is a very well-written book, at least for someone outside of academia. Having read the 250 pages slowly and carefully, I can’t really articulate Brown’s thesis. If this is it – “The relative obscurity of the Coromantee wars in the historiography of early America and the Atlantic world is also due to the reluctance to acknowledge slave revolt as an act of war” – then the problem is that Brown’s narrative has gone in so many directions and moved so often from the broad to the specific, that I don’t think he’s made his case. When he does narrow in on his argument, the verbs – as they sometimes have to in these cases – become conditional (“would have been,” “most likely knew,” etc.). I was fully ready to embrace slave revolt as an act of war, but was left wading through minute details of the conflict in Jamaica to guess why this could possibly matter. I have some ideas now, but they are largely my own inferences rather than anything Brown puts forward. I really couldn’t follow what he thought was significant about the argument he made and was often more intrigued by details he quickly passed over than others that, for some reason, merited paragraphs.

I hope Brown does get an opportunity to visit Cleveland. Perhaps his oral presentation of the book’s themes will be clearer to me than the book itself. This book certainly meets two of the three standards laid out on the award’s website. It contributes to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of cultural diversity. It is not, in my mind, an outstanding work and that ought to be the first consideration before the judges turn to the other two.

Does a book need to be accessible to the “lay” reader of history in order to be considered an outstanding work? I think so. If it’s not, then it really can’t do much to contribute to our understanding of racism or our appreciation of cultural diversity.

Stateway’s Garden (Drain)

Sandra Cisneros blurbs this book, and it’s easy to see why. These are interconnected stories about growing up in a Chicago housing project, and Drain, clearly a young writer, shows some impressive nuance with a few of the juxtapositions of stories. I also appreciated when he recognized that plots do not necessarily have to be led by a great deal of action. A young man drags his younger brother along in order to knock on his girlfriend’s door in order to have a difficult conversation with her. We see the build up on each side of the door but Drain wisely ends the story when the door is finally opened. Too often, though, he resorts to familiar tropes and those stories are forgotten as soon as the page is turned. He has an eye and an ear for detail, though sometimes struggles to convey the physicality of a scene. He’s a promising writer, to be sure, and presents a strong sense of place. I’ll be interested to read what he comes up with next.

Transcendent Kingdom (Gyasi)

Two books in a row about characters who have to take care of their mothers. (I read this before Shuggie Bain.) There’s no sophomore slump here. Gyasi has written a self-consciously transparently deliberate novel that asks some of the most profound questions about what it means to be alive. I ached and cheered for everyone involved and felt rewarded by the ending. Really enjoyed this.

Shuggie Bain

I can’t believe this is Douglas Stuart’s first book. What a detailed, thoughtful, and heartbreaking account of a young, queer boy trying to grow up as his mother struggles with alcohol and, well, growing up. I was completely absorbed in Stuart’s world (though a few of the Glasgow-isms eluded me) and was grateful for the honesty of the ending (which sends you right back to the beginning). On a broader level, a story about what happens when work disappears, this was most desrving of being not only a National Book Award finalist, but also the 2020 Booker Prize.

The Night Watchman (Erdrich)

I would love one day to see Erdrich’s rough drafts. I marvel at how the intertwines characters and plots and makes every small moment carry such weight. She combines the political and personal with the historical, and her use of detail draws you into a world where anything can happen and many things do. Here, she has created a remarkable protagonist, Patrice (Pixie), who serves as our kind of host for this story. This one is absolutely unforgettable.

Force of Nature (Harper)

I like the way Harper layers her stories with plot and subplots. They are tightly constructed and the Australian landscape – in this case the wilderness – is always central to the events. I also appreciate how she takes her time to let the stories unfold. No detail ever feels extraneous. She also balances a large cast of characters and brings them to life efficiently and effectively. This is just a good story, well-told. What more could you want?

Night Boat to Tangier (Barry)

It’s as if Vladimir and Estragon from Waiting for Godot have been transported to a Spanish port only now they are called Maurice and Charlie, and they are waiting for Maurice’s daughter, Dilly. The rhythm of the dialogue is absolutely musical, and rather than seeing a movie in my head as I read this, I saw a play. (Seriously, if anyone with the means and abilities is reading this, this has to be adapted for the stage.) Barry moves back and forth in time and back and forth between characters like a master conductor. His tale manages to be both funny and sad at the same time, and these voices and images will rattle around in my brain for quite some time. An example –

[Y]ou need to watch yourself at every minute of the day. If you don’t watch yourself, the badness might slide in, or the evil. Watch your words most of all. Watch for the glamorous sentence that appears from nowhere – it might have plans for you. Watch out for the clauses that are elegantly strung, for the string of words bejewelled. Watch out for ripe language – it means your words may be about to go off.

The Dream-Keepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (Ladson-Billings)

This was my second time through Ladson-Billings’ book. Both times it was because a Principal assigned it as summer reading. Ladson-Billings’ observations and experiences ring as clear and true as they did the first time I read them. And, I admit, I had to stop once in a while (less often than before, I hope) and wince when I had been named. It’s a good source for renewed resolutions this year, and I will keep it near my desk so those resolutions don’t get lust in the shuffle of paper (if we use any this year!) and time.

Teachers of African American children – If you haven’t read it, this is a must. If you have read it, it’s worth re-visiting again and again and again.

The Starlight Motel (Dougherty)

The back of this chapbook says that Dougherty writes about what happens “in our wrecked and gloriously ruined and beautiful American lives,” and I’m not sure I can improve on that description. There are several good pieces here that all lead up to a brilliant Whitmanesque finale, “The Underground (Choreographed by Silvana Straw).” Dougherty gives words to the ground on which he stands, the people who populate his poems and their causes, and it made me want to stand up and cheer.