The Multi-Talented Stacey Abrams

The first time I heard of Stacey Abrams was when she was running for governor of Georgia in 2018. At the time I was working at a call center in Midtown Manhattan that specialized in political surveys. (We were polling people in Georgia regarding their choice for the governorship.)

The only thing I knew about Abrams was that she was a political candidate and a voting-rights activist.

Last Sunday (May 9, 2021), the New York Times had two articles about her: a Q &A interview in the Book Review and a lengthy profile in the Arts & Leisure section.

To my pleasant surprise there is more to Stacey Abrams than I thought. She is a novelist (writing romance novels under a pseudonym) as well as an avid, eclectic reader (among the authors she has read are David Halberstam, Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, and Charlotte Bronte).

Her latest novel, a thriller called While Justice Sleeps,was recently published by Doubleday. This book, like two previous works of nonfiction, appears under her own name.

When asked by the New York Times Book Review how she organized her books, she responded, "Fiction on one side of the shelves (poetry, classics, general fiction, romance, thrillers, comic books, etc.) and nonfiction on the other side (political biography, general biography, history, science, social science and so on)."

What especially caught my attention was her classification of poetry as "fiction." The New York Times Book Review placed The Hill We Climb by the young poet Amanda Gorman (who read it at President Biden's inauguration) in the "fiction" category; whereas Publishers Weekly classifies it as "nonfiction." The late poet Mary Oliver who wrote poems about her life and the natural world would probably scoff at her work being called "fiction."
 

Hunting A Serial Killer In 1920s Harlem

I love the Harlem Renaissance and I also love mystery novels. When those two loves are combined, I am overjoyed.

So you can imagine how I felt when I read in Publishers Weekly (April 19, 2021) that a mystery novel set in Harlem in 1926 was scheduled for publication in June.

In a sidebar interview, Nekesa Afia, author of Dead Dead Girls: A Harlem Renaissance Mystery (Berkley Prime Crime), stated that she "love[s] the Harlem Renaissance" because "it was this period of growth, and art, and music, and fashion."

Afia continued: "That post-WWI generation had such brilliance and creativity, and they were so alive and fun even though they had just gone through a war, and the world was a mess."

Dead Dead Girls is Afia's debut novel, the first in a series. Its protagonist, Louise Lloyd, a showgirl and waitress--who is black and lesbian--helps the police track down a serial killer of black girls.

The accompanying review notes that Afia "couples tender relationships with strong senses of era and place." (Will Harlem Renaissance figures like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay make a cameo appearance?)

If Dead Dead Girls is as interesting as it sounds, I can't wait to read it. And I will definitely be looking forward to other books in this new series.

Police Gunfire Is Not A Good Response To Mental Illness

In April of 2020, there was a report broadcast on New York's WCBS Newsradio Eight-Eighty about a man who told police he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. After revealing that information, he came at them with a knife, an apparent attempt at suicide by cop. He was shot twice in the torso.

Couldn't the cops have found a better way to subdue this man who was obviously experiencing mental distress? Why weren't less lethal alternatives used such as a taser, pepper spray, stun grenades, a bean bag shooter, rubber bullets, or some kind of fishermen's net?

Does Conversion Therapy Change Only Gays?

The thing about conversion therapy that people don't seem to acknowledge is that if it's possible to change someone from being gay or bisexual to being heterosexual, wouldn't reverse conversion therapy apply to straight people? I don't think conversion therapy, if it's possible, is a one-way street. Just a thought.

The Ideal Reading Experience For CNN's Don Lemon

Don Lemon, the CNN host, was asked in the New York Times Book Review's "By the Book" Q & A column (March 21, 2021), to describe the "ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how)."

His answer sounds like something that would appeal to me: "The ideal reading experience is a Sunday afternoon in fall or winter with PJs, fur-lined slippers, a roaring wood-burning fireplace, WBGO Jazz 88 playing quietly in the background with a good book in hand and the Sunday New York Times in reach."

Lemon is later asked to name three writers, alive or dead, he would invite to a literary dinner party: "Obvious answer: [James] Baldwin, [Toni] Morrison, and [Truman] Capote."

A fascinating choice of writers. However, he would have to be careful what he told Capote. Anything said in confidence might end up in a short story or article. I would suggest Lemon read a biographical novel called The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin (Delacorte Press, 2016). It's about Babe Paley (the wife of broadcasting mogul William Paley) and her wealthy friends who befriended Capote and revealed their secrets to him; they later felt betrayed by Capote when those secrets were published in an Esquire article he wrote. That ended those friendships and Capote never recovered from those losses.

Kooky Conservatives

One of my co-workers (a staunch conservative and conspiracy theorist) at a call center that specialized in political surveys sent me a text message that said: " See [Matt] DRUDGE on Alex Jones sites for [John] PODESTA* doing Satanic ritual." (Sent to me on November 4, 2016.)

That brought to mind a quote from conservative columnist/Firing Line host/National Review publisher and founder William F. Buckley, Jr. In a 1962 letter to William Loeb, the publisher of the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, Buckley wrote: "Why is it our side [that] is afflicted with all the loonies?" (From Buckley: William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism by Carl T. Bogus, Bloomsbury Press, 2011.)

Bogus, a liberal, points out on the same page that "...not all conservatives were dull-witted or dysfunctional, but conservative causes attracted far more than their fair share of kooks and bigots."

Judging by the Trump era, that's still true.

*John Podesta (born January 8, 1949), former chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

A Translator's Literary Advice

Margaret Jull Costa is described by the New York Times Book Review's "By the Book" interview column (March 7, 2021) as a "prolific translator" of Spanish- and Portuguese-language literature.

In the interview she was asked what book she would recommend be read by everyone before age 21. Her response: "I would say probably read everything you can lay your hands on, then reread it when you're 40 or older to find out whether it was any good and, if so, what it was really about. But," she continued, "if I had to choose one it would be The Great Gatsby, just to see what it's possible to do with the English language."

If I had to choose one book to reread it would probably be A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I first read it when I was 11 or 12. I can still remember certain scenes from it: preadolescent Francie Nolan reading a book on the fire escape; her mother on her hands and knees scrubbing the wood floors; her father's corpse in repose in a casket in the apartment.