As with movies and music, my tastes in reading run the gamut. I don’t like to stay tied down to one particular genre, and I tend to go continually back and forth between fiction and nonfiction. I am always on the lookout for real-life tales with a strong sense of character, time, and place.
Those close to me probably know that John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil stands tall as my favorite book of all time. It’s the gold standard for compelling nonfiction. I haven’t found anything else quite on that level for me. However, here a few little gems that I managed to find and really enjoy, and I don’t think very many people know about them.
My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas by Matthew O’Brien (Author), Bill Hughes (Photographer)
I have always held a deep fascination for Las Vegas and have made several trips to America’s desert playground. During the last couple of pilgrimages, I started to contemplate the rough edges that surround all the glitz and glamour. Journalist O’Brien offers a collection of essays exploring the funky, seedy, and dark elements of Sin City. The piece that provides the book’s title centers on an old motel that, despite its historical iconic signage, now plays host to lost dreamers on the margins of society rather than fun in the sun tourists. O’Brien presents the human spirit at work in some rather unlikely situations.
Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American by Jean-Robert Cadet
The island nation of Haiti declared an end to the institution of slavery after throwing off the yoke of French colonial rule in 1804. However, a barbaric form of bondage in which affluent households take in abandoned young children to serve as unpaid domestic laborers has endured for the past two centuries. Cadet recounts his harrowing experiences of exploitation, which didn’t stop when the family for whom he toiled took him with them when they decided to move to the United States. Now an educator and human rights activist, Cadet tells a moving story of resilience and healing.
The Shooting Salvationist: J. Frank Norris and the Murder Trial that Captivated America by David R. Stokes
The 1920’s have always provided so many fascinating contradictions: carefree excess, jazz, women dressed as flappers celebrating their newly won right to vote, a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, and a rise in fundamentalist religion that culminated in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Against that backdrop, a case in which a prominent Fort Worth minister stood trial for shooting and killing one of his congregants transfixed the nation. Stokes serves up satisfying true crime mixed with social and cultural history that holds a surprising relevance for contemporary times.
Weed Man: The Remarkable Journey of Jimmy Divine by John McCaslin
The issue of marijuana legalization has come to dominate headlines over the past year or two. A 2011 title from veteran political columnist McCaslin landed on the shelves just a tad too early to be a part of that current media frenzy. Yet, I hope that folks on all sides of the pot debate can find their way to this colorful and thought-provoking read. McCaslin details the unlikely criminal enterprise of Jimmy Moree, AKA Jimmy Divine. Moree, a resourceful young man from a deeply religious family with rather humble circumstances in the island paradise of the Bahamas, stumbles upon a business opportunity involving cannabis. The straight-laced, non-drinking Moree doesn’t fit the stereotypes most of us hold regarding such an enterprise, and I think that plays a part in what makes Weed Man so interesting.
Coloring Outside the Lines 