Review: Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

If you’re like me, the first time you knew anything about the 1921 Tulsa race riots – or race massacre – was this summer, when Trump scheduled a rally in Tulsa on June 19 (Juneteenth). Before that I was mostly unaware of this history. What happened in Tulsa is a perfect example of the way our…

Review of The Vain Conversation by Anthony Grooms

This was a very intense read, and a thoughtful one.  Grooms takes us into the minds of three characters who are involved in a mass lynching in Georgia in 1946 (one based on actual events).  One character is Lonnie, a young white boy who sees the brutal murder of four people, one of them a…

Review of White Tears by Hari Kunzru

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of White Tears, but I will tell you this: it stayed with me.  I picked up this book because it was on a lot of 2017 best-of lists.  It’s about Seth, an awkward young man who loves music and the technology that makes it.  He meets Carter Wallace,…