This Month's Articles
REVIEWING
Who Fears Death
by Nnedi Okorafor
Reviewed by Janet Garber
African Golem
A child conceived in unusual circumstances, raised by its mother, never knowing its real father, soon discovers its superhuman powers, and then goes on a quest to deliver its people from harm, ultimately sacrificing itself for the common good. Sound familiar? Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces traced the mythic trajectory of the hero back in 1949, and found that most of the world’s great stories and great religious heroes (Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, the Buddha, Christ) fit this.....Read More
MEMOIR
...and Mistakes Made Along the Way An excerpt from a memoir
by Fred Beauford
Chapter Seven — Elvis
Before I formally begin this chapter, in the spirit of full disclosure, there is a very important, and highly interesting reason why I entitled this chapter “Elvis,” when I could have just as easily entitled it “The Great, Life-changing I.Q. Test,” or “Becoming Fred Beauford.”
One day, during the 90’s, while I was still an Associate Professor teaching.....Read More
REVIEWING
The Prism and the Rainbow—A Christian Explains Why Evolution Is Not a Threat
by Joel W. Martin
Reviewed by Jane M. McCabe
Joel W. Martin (b. 1955) is an American marine biologist and inveterate zoologist who’s currently Chief of the Division of Invertebrate Studies and Curator of Crustacea at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC). His main area of research is the morphology and systematics of marine.....Read More
REVIEWING
The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg
by Deborah Eisenberg
Picador | 2010 | 980 pages
Reviewed by Sally Cobau
The stories of Deborah Eisenberg are luminous, well crafted and beautiful—so why were they so hard for me to get through? Maybe it was the size of the book—The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg is a hefty tome, a retrospective, if you will, of about 1,000 pages (980, to be exact). I went through the stories slowly—sitting on the bed beside my children while they watched “Scooby Doo,” reading in the car as my husband drove to the grocery store, in coffee shops, and in my own bed. It seemed too daunting a task—to reasonably assess a writer of Eisenberg’s brilliance, and to come to some coherent conclusions about her remarkable contribution to the.....Read More
REVIEWING
Snatch: The Adventures of David and Me in Old New York
by Charles Fuller
Reviewed by Herb Boyd
As in his award-winning play, A Soldier's Play, which ultimately became the movie, A Soldier's Story, Charles Fuller enticingly weaves history and mystery together in Snatch, his first children's book or novella.
Lovers of New York's history, particularly the ante-bellum period, will flip the pages in wonder, marveling in what will happen to the two black brothers who set out in defiance of their parents' admonitions about nighttime travel to help a runaway slave.
It is a time of slave catchers and the two brothers are as much seeking.....Read More
REVIEWING
Twain's Feast: Searching for America's Lost Food in the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens
by Andrew Beahrs
Reviewed by Fred Beauford
When I was the editor of the Crisis magazine, during the first years of the 90’s, I embarked on several press junkets organized and paid for by the giant oil company, Chevron, which had its major office in San Francisco.
They had assembled a small group of magazine editors from around the country. We all - black, white and Hispanic, male and female - edited publications that were thought to influence public policy; so, without anyone saying it, it was obvious to all of us what the point of these trips was really.....Read More
MEMOIR
Adam’s Belle: A Memoir of Love Without Bounds
by Isabel Washington Powell with Joyce Burnett
Reviewed by Loretta H. Campbell
First Wives Tales
Why would a young, beautiful, and successful showgirl give up her career for a preacher’s son? According to this memoir, the answer is simple—love. The young woman was Isabel Washington, a dancer and performer at the Cotton Club and in various all-Black revues. The preacher’s son was known as none other than Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Powell courted Washington, a divorcee with a small son , while he was still in college. Although she never admits it, she and Powell were about the same age. Washington was one of the all-Black cast members of the Broadway play, Harlem, when they met. She was unimpressed by him during their first meeting at the apartment of a mutual friend.
A man walked through the door looking like he had come from a concentration camp,” she writes.
However, Powell was impressed. He began courting her almost.....Read More
BOOK NEWS
This year at our Annual Benefit Gala, on October 19, 2010, the Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony will honor the great Turkish writer and 2006 Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk by presenting him with the most distinguished Mailer Prize for Lifetime Achievement. The Gala will again be held at Cipriani 42nd Street, New York City.
Pamuk is a a writer whom Mailer admired, a writer, who has opened up a window so all can better understand the culture.....Read More
BEYOND BOOKS
Art Beat
By Lindsey Peckham
This month, July, is a New York City downtown special! All of the featured museums, galleries, and stores can be found south of 14th Street...
Bullet Space
The city of New York turned over this formerly dilapidated building last spring to squatters who had resided there for over 30 years for just $1. The residents quickly brought the building up to code and installed a politically charged gallery on the first floor that showcases local street art talent, as well as artifacts from the building and the neighborhood. The current exhibit showcases the impressive talent of Andrew Castrucci, a painter, sculptor and graphic designer whose work seems almost delicate in a building dominated by primary colors.....Read More
REVIEWING
Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery
by Stephen J. Pyne
Viking | July 2010 | 444 pages | $29.95
Reviewed by Jill Noel Shreve
“Across five centuries, while the vocabulary of exploration has changed, its syntax has remained intact.” In his newest non-fiction project, Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Age of Discovery, Stephen J. Pyne illustrates this idea for his audience, and he does it in an unconventional way. Rather than focusing the trajectory of the book on the 1977 Voyager 1 and 2 launches and their respective interplanetary Grand Tours, Pyne opts for a presentation in context. He taps into the idea that exploration transcends centuries, comparing space exploration—specifically the mission of Voyager—to the great expeditions of Columbus, da Gama, Lewis and Clark, Livingston, Magellan, a.....Read More