Christian Longo Story True Story Movie Trailer (2015)
True Story: Murder, Memoir, and Mea Culpa. Michael Finkel. Harper, 2005. 312 pages.
In 2001, Oregon police discovered the bodies of a mother and her three young children. Husband and father Christian Longo was arrested in Mexico and charged with their murders. As it turns out, Longo had used a pseudonym in Mexico, introducing himself as New York Times Magazine journalist Michael Finkel. Finkel was totally unaware of Longo and the murders until after the arrest. He had his own troubles. He had just been fired from the New York Times for fabricating a story about labor conditions on West African cacao plantations, derailing his climb into the stratosphere of top-ranked journalists.
In the depths of his despair, Finkel learned of Longo's case and the use of his name and began a weird relationship with the accused murderer by letter, weekly phone calls from jail, and jailhouse visits. He envisioned writing an article that might lead to his professional redemption, and it became this book.
The story is incredible. Finkel comes across at times as an entitled, self-absorbed, arrogant elitist - just the type of person I picture writing for the New York Times Magazine. He also inadvertently paints his editor in a bad light for refusing to print his original story because it would make journalists look bad. As for Longo, it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that people like him exist: intelligent, cold, calculating, manipulative. He's able to speak so convincingly of his love for his family, the same family he murdered. It's a disturbing story and a look into a truly disturbed mind.
Short history of Vidalia Onions
Vidalia Onions: A History of Georgia's State Vegetable. Lee Lancaster. The History Press, 2023. 160 pages.
I must admit that I was fully prepared to dislike this book even though I had ordered a copy as soon as I saw an ad pop up. I'm a native Vidalian and figure I know something about local area history and about the official Georgia state vegetable, the Vidalia Onion, but I am no expert by any means. My family had nothing to do with onion production, except that a couple of my mother's cousins grew some, we ate a couple of hundred pounds every season, and my aunt was the very first "Vidalia Onion Queen" in about 1950. In the back of my mind, I was thinking "what kind of a book could this young state Department of Agriculture kid (Yes, I'm reaching the point at which everybody becomes a "young kid.") write in a few months?".
I was pleasantly surprised. Lancaster immediately scored points on page one by explaining the correct, native, pronunciation, "Vi-day-ya," no L. then he wrote a perfectly fine, concise history of Vidalia and Toombs and Tattnall Counties, the area where the onions were first grown. From there, he documents the onion's rapid rise to the special food status that it enjoys today as well as its position as Georgia's greatest single vegetable revenue producer, generating $150 million or so each year. Alas, he made no mention of my aunt's royalty, but she was always a queen nevertheless. Overall, it's a great book to add to my library.
Author Talk
1876 is a landmark year in American history. The country celebrated its centennial with a major exposition in Philadelphia, where visitors marveled at exhibits showcasing inventions like the telephone. Baseball team owners joined together to create the National League. Mark Twain published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Legendary Old West lawman Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down in a Deadwood saloon, and the James-Younger Brothers gang attempted to rob the bank in Northfield Minnesota. In June of 1876, the US military suffered its greatest defeat of the Indian Wars at the Little Bighorn when Lakota and Cheyenne warriors devastated the 7th cavalry.
In The Summer of 1876, Chris Wimmer attempts to weave together the stories of these men and events that made 1876 such a landmark year. He doesn't quite succeed. The stories are told well, but there's really nothing new here, and he never really ties everything together cohesively. However, it all makes for an interesting snapshot of a particularly significant summer.
Author Talk
A Shot in the Moonlight: How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South. Ben Montgomery. Little, Brown Spark, 2021. 304 pages.
On January 21, 1899, 25 masked and armed white men gathered in the middle of the night at the home of George and Mollie Dinning and their ten children in Simpson County Kentucky. Dinning, formerly enslaved, worked as a farm laborer and farmed himself, and he had purchased 125 acres and built a home for his family. The mob accused him of stealing livestock, smoked hams, and other property and ordered to leave the county within ten days. Shots were fired, and one of the trespassers was mortally wounded. Dinning knew what was likely to happen next and fled in order to save himself and his family. The next day, the men returned, burned down the Dinning home and outbuildings, and drove Mollie and the children out of the county. Dinning turned himself in to the sheriff and faced trial for murder, while mobs planned his lynching.
Fortunately, Kentucky had some white men step forward in support. Several major newspapers defended him and his right to defend his home and family. A former Confederate officer stepped up and served as his attorney, alongside other attorneys. The sheriff, jailer, and soldiers protected him while he was in custody, and Governor W.O. Bradley closely monitored every development in the ensuing trials, exercising his authority to make them as fair as possible. The Dinning cases, criminal and civil, became landmarks in the Jim Crow South, but they were largely forgotten until Ben Montgomery published A Shot in the Moonlight in 2021. While the events and the outcome are not pretty, it's a story about seeking justice "in a time and place where justice was all too rare."
23 Creatures and Characters Associated with Christmas
The Scary Book of Christmas Lore: 50 Terrifying Yuletide Tales From Around the World. Tim Rayborn. Cider Mill press, 2023. 144 pages.
"He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake. This lighthearted song is a bit more ominous in the context of other Christmas traditions. From beasts that threaten to cook children into stew to sinister crones who snatch little ones from their beds, you won’t find any dancing sugar plums here. Outside of the heartwarming Christmas tales we all know and love, there are an abundance of frightening stories to chill all who hear them to the bone." (Amazon blurb)
Santa Claus is kind of creepy when you think about it, right? He knows all and determines if you've been good or not. The original St. Nicholas supposedly performed miracles like reanimating murdered and dismembered children. And then Dr. Seuss went and created The Grinch. However, there have been dozens and dozens of winter creatures created over hundreds of years around the world, and some of these have been conflated with Christmas celebrations or as companions of St. Nick. Why winter creatures? Winter was truly a terrifying time hundreds of years ago, especially among Europeans - cold, gloomy, dead, with the ever-present threat of illness or starvation, so people created stories and characters that reflected their despair and dread. It seems like the most fertile ground for such stories was central Europe, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, for whatever reasons.
This book collects some of the scariest stories in one volume. Not just Krampus, familiar to many people now, but also mischief makers like the Kallikantzari of Greece and Mari Lwyd of Wales and cannibals on the prowl for naughty children on which to feast like Pere Fouettard, Hans Trapp, Gryla, and Frau Perchta.
This is a really fun read and a quick cultural history trip around the world.
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