B. Morrison's Blog, page 19

Even Dogs in the Wild, by Ian Rankin

In this twentieth book in the Rebus series, the detective himself has retired from the force. A team from Glasgow has come to Edinburgh out of concern that the crime family they have been building a case against is looking to move into the vacuum left by Edinburgh crime boss “Big Ger” Cafferty’s imprisonment. Now released, supposedly due to ill health, Rebus’s long-time nemesis is watching the jockeying of those trying to take his place.

Meanwhile, Rebus’s protégé Siobhan Clarke is investigati...

The Marvelous Bones of Time, by Brenda Coultas

Driving around the neighborhood with my mother and sister, they would sometimes point out a house and talk about who lived there now, who used to live there, where the children ended up, and other remembered stories. We had to drive slowly since they knew and had known so many people. Besides being fun for them, the conversation helped our aging mother exercise her memory.

When I sold my house, the new buyers wanted to know about its history and everyone who had lived there before me. The latte...

Barracoon, by Zora Neale Hurston

After reading The Confessions of Nat Turner, a fictional account of the leader of the 1831 slave uprising, I wanted to read a first person account from someone who had been a slave. This slim book, subtitled The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” fits the bill.

I was already familiar with Hurston from her novels, such as Their Eyes Were Watching God, and knew she had studied with the pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas. Here, she combines her anthropologist and storyteller skills to give us the ...

Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

In this debut novel, described as semi-autobiographical, we meet John Grimes on the morning of his fourteenth birthday. It’s a Saturday, but he is consumed by thoughts of the family’s Sunday routines, dominated by attendance at the storefront church founded by his stepfather. We sense the tension in the family as he wonders if anyone will remember it is his birthday.

Although everyone has always expected John to become a preacher too, his stern stepfather Gabriel constantly demeans John and fav...

The Tradition, by Jericho Brown

I am astonished by these poems, the power and sheer artistry of them. They are personal and political, specific and universal.

Brown deploys the tools of poetry—enjambment, white space, personification—boldly. Some of the poems take up hardly any space, lines only two or three words long. Yet even with that limitation they are remarkable, the fragmentation creating a rhythm in counterpoint to and with the rhythm of the words.

He uses enjambment more fiercely than I would have thought could wor...

Out of Wonder, by Kwame Alexander

Subtitled Celebrating Poets and Poetry, this marvelous collection is suitable for all ages. The poems, written by Alexander, Chris Colderley, and Marjory Wentworth, are supplemented with stunning illustrations by Ekua Holmes.

Like all great poems, each contains many layers. Young children, including my preschooler grandchildren, can enjoy the music of the words and universal subjects, such as this homage to Robert Frost by Wentworth which begins:

In every season I have wandered
on paths that ...

The Confessions of Nat Turner, by William Styron

As the title suggests, this 1967 novel about the slave revolt of 1831 is told in the first person by Nat Turner, leader of the revolt. It starts with Nat in jail, chained hand, foot and neck. In meetings with his white lawyer, Nat dictates his confession, and we learn something of what sent him on this mission to kill as many white people as possible. But we need his whole life to get past the surface and truly feel what motivated him.

Nat’s life, brilliantly written, is a litany of injustice a...

The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

In 1937 Ida Mae Gladney left Mississippi for Chicago. In 1945 George Starling left Florida for New York City. In 1953 Robert Pershing Foster left Louisiana for Los Angeles.

They were part of the Great Migration. From 1915 to 1970 almost six million black citizens left the south for northern and western cities looking for better lives. Wilkerson’s monumental book gives us for the first time a history of this remarkable movement.

The book is long but eminently readable, due to Wilkerson’s approa...

Generations: A Memoir, by Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton is one of my favorite poets and a huge influence on my writing. I was privileged to hear her read more than once. In this memoir, originally published in 1976 and now a new edition from New York Review Books, she brings a poet’s sensibility to crafting her story.

The chapters, while prose, in their brevity exhibit the conciseness of poetry, anything not absolutely necessary pared away, leaving the kernel. And you, the reader, bring your own understanding and experience to fill i...

The Transit of Venus, by Shirley Hazzard

This most unusual novel, published in 1980, breaks many of the writing guidelines that have become common today.

The story ranges over wide spaces of time, leaping in and out of various characters’ lives. Similarly, the author head hops without apology, jumping between the thoughts of multiple characters in a single scene. Also, we get flash-forwards, meaning we are told in an abrupt aside of what is going to happen in the future. All of these usually pitch me out of a book, but so engaging is ...