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52nd out of 75 books
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The Other Side Of The River: A Story Of Two Towns, A Death, And America's Dilemma
Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here was more than a bestseller; it was a national event. His beautifully narrated, heartbreaking nonfiction account of two black boys struggling to grow up in a Chicago public housing complex spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, was a made-for-television movie starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey, won many disti...more
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
January 4th 2012
by Anchor Books (NY)
(first published 1998)
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Journalist Alex Kotlowitz comes to Benton Harbor, Michigan with the intention of examining one of America’s poorest and most violent communities. This changes, however, when Kotlowitz discovers that 16 year-old Eric McGinnis, a black boy from the impoverished town, was found floating in the river dissecting Benton Harbor and its predominately white and affluent neighbor, St. Joseph. Kotlowitz becomes obsessed with the death, one that was hastily ruled an accident. The author spends four years tr...more
A Michiganian murder mystery!
I came across this Kotlowitz expose at the local library's Friendshop. I was surprised to find what seemed to be a national publication about an event in two small towns of west-Michigan. I had never heard the tale and was intrigued by the story's racial charged background.
'The Other Side of the River' is primarily the account of Eric McGinnis' disappearance and death. However, the story spans many similar incidences, all of which have a comm...more
I came across this Kotlowitz expose at the local library's Friendshop. I was surprised to find what seemed to be a national publication about an event in two small towns of west-Michigan. I had never heard the tale and was intrigued by the story's racial charged background.
'The Other Side of the River' is primarily the account of Eric McGinnis' disappearance and death. However, the story spans many similar incidences, all of which have a comm...more
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This was a book my husband bought a couple of years ago. It is intriguing because it tells about the towns we lived in when we first met. I grew up in this area and we are most familiar with all the landscape. This makes a person tie in their own memories with so much. The events recorded are true and happened after we married and moved away. It tells a ragged story of racial conflict that people try to ignore. The book leaves you feeling a little 'off' because the police and courts in the s...more
Chris
added it
I live right where this is supposedly written. A lot of what the author writes is not true at all and completely fictitious. It reads like something he wants to happen and not that it HAS happened. Blacks are not afraid to go down to the river or to the beach for that matter. Both races attend the same clubs and dance with each other, party with each other and have fun together.No one is chased off. Yes, the towns are predominately split in races, and one side is a lot rougher than the other, b...more
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Tabloid account of a black teenager drowning and the author dramatizing it into a racial issue because law enforcement and first reponders who "could have saved him" were white. Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan certainly have had their fair share of crime but deserve more credit than an outsider's blundering.
LuAnn Frimmel
added it
This author will be visiting our community in February to share his writing experiences with our high school students. I have read his two most well known books so that I am prepared to have a conversation with him. This book was based on the research that was done on the racial issues plaguing the towns of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, MI in the 1990's. Because there were so many people involved in the investigation of the death of a young black man, I had a difficult time keeping them all s...more
In spring of 1991, the body of a teenage African-American was found floating in the St. Joseph river. In this book, author Alex Kotlowitz tries to determine what happened to Eric McGinnis. Was his death the result of foul play? Was it a horrible accident?
This book isn't simply about the unfortunate death of a boy. It's about race relations between two towns on the shores of Lake Michigan. St. Joseph, a prosperous, predominately white city, and Benton Harbor, a seedy, predominately Af...more
This book isn't simply about the unfortunate death of a boy. It's about race relations between two towns on the shores of Lake Michigan. St. Joseph, a prosperous, predominately white city, and Benton Harbor, a seedy, predominately Af...more
I wanted to read this book because I live in the area. I wasn't living here in the time of Eric's death. I believe that the author presented quite well the tensions that exist between the two towns of St. Joseph & Benton Harbor. This book was copyrighted in 1998, and even though it's 13 years later, a lot of what he researched and wrote about, the people he talked to, those emotions and attitudes still exist in this area. I think it's better, than the 1990's but the St. Joseph river is still...more
This was a tough read. Kind of like reading a Law and Order episode. Very serious book with a lot of details gathered by the author. He goes in-depth to discuss the death of a young boy in St Joseph/Benton Harbor, Michigan. Primarily about the racial tension across the cities. I definitely wouldn't have picked this one up if I didn't have to read it for class and do a lesson plan on it.
I could see why it would appeal to some people who are really into sociology, criminology, or base...more
I could see why it would appeal to some people who are really into sociology, criminology, or base...more
Erik Graff
rated it
Recommends it for:
Americans
Recommended to Erik by:
Fin Einar Graff
Shelves:
history
My great-great grandparents and their children having built a cottage in the woods in unincorporated Lake Charter Township near Lake Michigan and generations of us as children having spent our summers there, I have always been familiar with the towns of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. St. Joe was the prettier of the two, the one with the old grand hotel, nice parks and the Silver Beach amusement park (now, sadly, gone), but Benton Harbor was the place that had the big shopping centers, movie thea...more
This book is about the tense and fraught relations between two small towns in Michigan, and the impact of an African-American boy’s death on both towns.
The reason for the tension is because one town is predominately black and the other is mostly white. Predictably, the mostly-black town has a high poverty level, high levels of violence, low rates of education, and a fair amount of anger. The mostly-white town is mostly middle-class, has strong schools, low crime rates, and a lot of i...more
The reason for the tension is because one town is predominately black and the other is mostly white. Predictably, the mostly-black town has a high poverty level, high levels of violence, low rates of education, and a fair amount of anger. The mostly-white town is mostly middle-class, has strong schools, low crime rates, and a lot of i...more
Kotlowitz (the author of the much-acclaimed book, 'There are No Children Here') has an incredibly special way of dissecting racial issues and giving perspective from both sides.
This book describes two small Michigan communities northeast of Chicago. St. Joseph is on Lake Michigan. It's a common vacation destination for Chicagoans given its location, recreational water activities, and quaint downtown shopping area. It's predominantly white, middle-to-upper class. A river on the ...more
This book describes two small Michigan communities northeast of Chicago. St. Joseph is on Lake Michigan. It's a common vacation destination for Chicagoans given its location, recreational water activities, and quaint downtown shopping area. It's predominantly white, middle-to-upper class. A river on the ...more
I though this would be a true crime that involved racial tension, but it turned out to be the story of the racial divide between two towns separated by a river. The black community believes a boy was murdered for coming into the white town. The white community believes the boy boy drowned in an accident. There is no evidence to prove either opinion. The book does a good job of showing how past wrongs combined with a small percentage of bad apples have caused both races to misunderstand and mis...more
Although its focus is on the unsolved death of a black teenager found floating near a Coast Guard station on the St. Joseph River, it is really about the huge racial divide in America, described by the author in the tense relationship between the communities of St. Joseph (white) and Benton Harbor (black) in Michigan. For those who believe that racial discord can only be found in the South or huge urban centers, one only has to read a piece like this. Also important is how rumor and myth become ...more
I have wanted to read this book for some time now as my father grew up in St. Joseph, the predominately white town depicted in the book. The events in the book take place in the 90's, when I was in middle and high school and frequently visited my grandparents there. I feel connected to the area and went into this book wit a lot of background information. Overall, I think the author did a great job presenting the various perspectives within the two communities. Although not always easy to rea...more
I was hard on this book because I'd just finished David Simon's masterpiece "Homicide" (one of the best police books ever written) and I thought Kotlowitz's first book "There are No Children Here" was fantastic. Without those bias, I would have rated the book higher.
I thought Kotlowitz lived up to the excellent reporting he demonstrated in "No Children". But this time he as the writer became a character. It was interesting and I appreciated the background inf...more
I thought Kotlowitz lived up to the excellent reporting he demonstrated in "No Children". But this time he as the writer became a character. It was interesting and I appreciated the background inf...more
Good book by one of my favorite authors about two towns side by side in Western Michigan- St. Joseph, which is prosperous and largely white, and Benton Harbor, just across the river, whose mostly black residents live in poverty. The impetus for the book was the mystery surrounding the death of a teen from Benton Harbor, but the author goes beyond a single event into the history of the two towns and their relationship.
Depressing beyond anti-depressant relief but, once begun, unstoppable. The geography of race relations is one way to describe this book. Frustrating for reasons that leave the decision yours as to whether to read a book without "closure." And yet closure would have inappropriately violated the book's theme: There's nothing to close, including the book, which continues "reading" me now that I've read it.
This book was very interesting. It kind of read like a very long newspaper article so went very quickly. I was impressed with the impartial reporting and getting viewpoints from every side. It was very eye opening to see the perspectives of the people in both towns and makes you realize what very little progress we've made.
I could not put this down. It's a tough story to tell but Mr Kotlowitz tells it wearing is journalist-hat and gives the story dignity and a human touch. You don't have to be from the W side of MI to appreciate this story but it carries a lot of gravity for those of us who do know the area well.
A difficult book to write without adopting a judgmental voice on the part of the author. The author does a nice job of looking at a series of episodes in the history of these two towns and how race and socio-economics shape our communities and our cultural paradigms.
It's only partly about the unsolved murder. It's more about the persistence of de facto segregation amidst the legacies of white flight: these are two defining phenomena of 20th century America. If, as DuBois said, the problem of the 20th century was the problem of the color line, then the St. Joseph River aptly symbolizes that line.
Living in Benton Harbor (while associating primarily with St. Joseph society) was such a formative experience for me as a kid; racial anxieties were so...more
Living in Benton Harbor (while associating primarily with St. Joseph society) was such a formative experience for me as a kid; racial anxieties were so...more
A tale of the author's obsession with a mysterious death of a black teenage boy found in the river dividing two Michigan towns, one black and one white in the 1990's. A serious, sad, and eye-opening look at race in America.
This book made me too sad to view it with any sort of "good book" vs "bad book" eyes. I'm sure it's a perfectly well-written book, and an interesting story(ies) for those disconnected from the area. Do not, however, read this book if you are about to move to St. Joe. :P
An interesting, but, dark book about two towns separated by a river, physically. The river separates these towns geographically, but race and social class are much, much more divisive. The issues of racial tension and social class Kotlowitz raises as he recounts his investigation of a death take center stage.
A great example of digging deeper into a seemingly simple story and seeing what you find. Kotlowitz uses the story of a mysterious death to explore the life of two towns.
Sara
added it
Not as good as There Are No Children Here, but perhaps it was because Kotlowitz didn't have the same relationship with the individuals connected to the murder.
I am struggling to get through this book. It's well-written but just not as interesting to me as the other Kotlowitz book I've read, There Are No Children Here. That book grabbed me from page 1 - in fact, I've read it several times. This one has failed to hold my attention, although the subject matter is interesting in itself.
A good book about race, crime, small minded opinion and the growing segregation of small towns in major metropolitan areas.
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FROM HIS WEBSITE:
Between writing books on urban affairs and society, Alex Kotlowitz has contributed to "The New York Times Magazine", "The New Yorker" and public radio’s "This American Life". Over the past three years, he has produced three collections of personal narratives for Chicago Public Radio: "Stories of Home," "Love Stories" and "...more
More about Alex Kotlowitz...
Between writing books on urban affairs and society, Alex Kotlowitz has contributed to "The New York Times Magazine", "The New Yorker" and public radio’s "This American Life". Over the past three years, he has produced three collections of personal narratives for Chicago Public Radio: "Stories of Home," "Love Stories" and "...more
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