"Just Passing Through"

 

Slavery was practiced in ancient Greece and Rome, throughout Africa and the Middle East, in Asia, and across the Americas long before the United States existed. The institution varied enormously across time and place. What distinguished slavery in the United States was not that it was the only cruel or hereditary form of slavery, but the particular combination of racial ideology, permanent hereditary status, commercial agriculture, legal exclusion, and political power that developed around it.

American slavery was not necessarily more brutal in every respect than every other form of slavery. Enslaved people in the Caribbean, Brazil, the ancient world, and elsewhere could experience extraordinary violence, exploitation, family separation, and premature death. In some settings, mortality was even higher than in the American South.

The distinctive American combination was the development of a society in which racial ancestry, inherited lifetime bondage, property law, plantation capitalism, and political power reinforced one another. Its consequences did not end with emancipation: the racial hierarchy built around slavery continued to shape segregation, citizenship, wealth, and civil rights.

Few things expose the absurdity and power of American racial categories quite like the phenomenon of passing: a black person, often of mixed ancestry, living as white in a society that classified people by race and attached vastly different rights, opportunities, and dangers to those classifications. In a country where slavery made blackness synonymous with bondage, and where generations of laws and customs sought to police the boundary between black and white, the ability to cross that boundary could mean access to education, employment, safety, and social standing otherwise denied. But passing was rarely as simple as changing one's identity. It could mean concealing family history, abandoning loved ones, and living with the constant possibility of exposure. What appeared to be an individual choice was inseparable from a larger system that made racial identity both a deeply personal matter and a public verdict.

The subject has inspired a remarkable body of American literature, from nineteenth-century narratives shaped by slavery and emancipation to modern novels and contemporary nonfiction exploring identity, family, and belonging. Some stories portray passing as an escape from an oppressive racial order; others examine its emotional costs, its ethical ambiguities, and the fragile assumptions on which racial classifications rest. Together, these books ask unsettling questions: What makes someone Black or white? Who gets to decide? And what does it mean to gain freedom by concealing a part of oneself? The answers reveal as much about the society that demanded passing as they do about the people who chose—or were compelled—to do it.

Inspired by a couple of recent reads, I've compiled a list of books that I have read that deal with passing. (Italics means that I'm sharing the publisher's blurb, not a Histocrats Bookshelf review.)

The relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his enslaved half-sister-in-law Sally Hemings has been the fodder of public comment and speculation since the early 1800s.  Many of the descendants of their relationship have made the decision to "pass" over the years.

History by a Hair:  Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings & Solving a 200-Year-Old Mystery.  Richard Kurin.  Crown, 2026.  432 pages.

    Being a historian is very much like being a detective, both relying on gathering clues, following dead ends, evaluating evidence, and piecing together a whole story from incomplete bits.  If you like detective stories, if you like CSI, if you like history, this is a great book for you about one of the oldest mysteries in American history. For over two hundred years, it's been alleged that Thomas Jefferson, the founder who so eloquently described freedom and equality as American ideals while enslaving over 600 people over the course of his lifetime, had a decades-long relationship with the enslaved Sally Hemings, fathering several of her children.  Hemings family lore over the decades had maintained that  the relationship, first discussed in print in the early 1800s by Jefferson's political opponents, was factual.  Many diehard Jefferson apologists and direct descendants of Jefferson, via his wife Martha, vehemently denied the charge.  In the late 1990s, DNA tests proved that a Jefferson male (perhaps Jefferson or his brother or nephews) had fathered at least one of the Hemings children, but couldn't prove any stronger connection, and deniers were still unmoved.  A major breakthrough occurred in 2011 when a few strands of hair were found in the so-called "Jefferson Bible,"  the collection of New Testament passages from various Bibles that Jefferson personally cut and pasted together for his own use.  Richard Kurin, Smithsonian historian and museum official, had a brainstorm:  Could these be Jefferson's hairs and could they be used, with today's more advanced DNA techniques, to prove, once and for all, the paternity truth?  For the next 15 years, Kurin and a top team of genealogists, historians, archaeologists, curators, and DNA specialists worked to find and identify samples of living and dead Jefferson and Hemings descendants in order to build and to compare genomes to settle the matter once and for all.  All were determined  to "follow truth wherever it may lead," as Jefferson himself wrote. Spoiler alert:  the mystery is resolved, and the book is a fascinating account of all the work that went into the solution.

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Annette Gordon-Reed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 800 pages.

This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family's dispersal after Jefferson's death in 1826.

It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings's siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson's wife, Martha. The Hemingses of Monticello sets the family's compelling saga against the backdrop of Revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of its own revolution, 1790s Philadelphia, and plantation life at Monticello. Much anticipated, this book promises to be the most important history of an American slave family ever written.

Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy. Gayle Jessup White. Amistad, 2021. 288 pages.

Gayle Jessup White grew up in a black middle class family in Washington DC. She became a journalist and news anchor. ( I remember her at Savannah's WTOC in the 90s.) As a young teen, she had overheard talk that her father was descended from Thomas Jefferson, but he knew next to nothing about his family. She was intrigued and became enamored with Jefferson and his home Monticello, visiting numerous times, but she went on with her life and career. It wasn't until decades later that a Monticello historian and genealogist helped her discover the true story. What she discovered was that she was not descended from one of the Jefferson and Hemings children, but that she was, in fact, related to both Jefferson and Hemings separately. She also achieved her dream of landing a job at Monticello as Director of Community Relations, becoming, as she puts it, the first descendant of Monticello's enslavers and the enslaved to get paid to work there. The book is an interesting genealogical and historical mystery and, at the same time, a memoir of a black woman in America learning about herself, her family, and their place in America.

Two classics of passing fiction:

 

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.  James Weldon Johnson.  Sherman, French, & Co., 1912.  236 pages. Reprinted in 1927 by Alfred A. Knopf.

    My latest classic read or re-read, one of the first books ever published in the US that presented a frank and honest portrayal of black life in the country, without offensive over-the-top stereotypes and broad comic characterizations.  It is a fictional memoir that Johnson first published anonymously, but many readers  assumed it was more factual than fiction.  It's a frame story, with the unnamed narrator revealing his life story and the secret that overshadowed his life. Born in Georgia just after the Civil War, he is the child of a formerly enslaved woman and a wealthy white man.  Knowing that they couldn't be together in Georgia, the father sent mother and child to Connecticut so that the boy could get an education and have a better life.  Because he had a very light complexion, race and color, and all that those constructs entailed, were of no concern to the boy for his first few years in school, but then realizations hit him head-on, and he begins his life-long struggle with racial identity.  He develops an extraordinary musical talent which opens up many opportunities for him, and he also realizes that he can operate within both worlds, black and white.  He decides to dedicate his life to spotlighting black music and to introduce it to the world, elevating it to the attention it deserves - "glorifying" his race and their achievement.  In the process, he has many experiences that remind him constantly of the overemphasis on race in America.  Finally, on a return visit to Georgia, he witnesses a lynching, and that leads him to make a final decision.  He gives up his race, his talent, and his "birthright" in exchange for security and safety, choosing to "pass" as white for the rest of his life, thereby becoming an "ex-colored man." The book is a brilliant depiction of race relations in America, colorism within a race, and the idea of "passing," forsaking one's true identity for expediency. 

Passing. Nella Larsen. Knopf, 1929. 215 pages.

Think about how many stories you've read or movies and tv shows you've seen in which the plot hinges on someone pretending to be who or what they aren't, taking on a false identity. It's a very popular theme in storytelling. Racial "passing," the act of concealing one's own racial identity and adopting another, is a very American version of that idea, and it has been prevalent throughout our history, with mostly black Americans living as whites in order to escape racism and to build better lives for themselves and for their families. (There have been a few instances in the other direction; see the book Passing Strange about Clarence King, a white man who lived a double life as a black railroad porter.) In 1929, Nella Larsen published Passing, a novel inspired by her own mixed race background. Although little known today, Larsen and her two novels struck a popular chord and became a celebrated element of the Harlem Renaissance. It's being rediscovered today as a gripping, psychologically tense novel about race, gender, and identity in 1920s New York. It focuses on two women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry Bellew, who were friends in childhood, drifted apart, and then unexpectedly meet up again as adults. Both women are light-skinned, but Irene identifies firmly as black and is actively involved in the middle and upper class culture of black Harlem in the 1920s, and Clare started passing as white in her teens and married a white racist, abandoning her black life and associations. Irene's world view is "shook" by the meeting, simultaneously fascinated and disturbed. Meanwhile, Clare is fascinated by Irene's life and longs to reconnect with her own blackness; she begins visiting Harlem and developing relationships with Irene's friends. The relationship, along with Irene's feelings, becomes complicated, with Irene eventually becoming increasingly jealous and suspicious of Clare's intentions toward and growing closeness with her husband. When Clare's husband discovers her secret, there's a shocking and intentionally ambiguous climax. The novel really holds up well a hundred years later and stacks up very favorably to any of the big bestselling novels of today.

The story of Ellen and William Craft, the couple that escaped slavery because of Ellen's ability to pass, has always been one of the most fascinating stories of Georgia history for me.

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom. Ilyon Woo. 37Ink, 2023. 416 pages.

“A rich narrative of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia in 1848, with light-skinned Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant, exploiting assumptions about race, class, and disability to hide in public on their journey to the North, where they became famous abolitionists while evading bounty hunters.” —The Pulitzer Prizes

Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, NPR, Smithsonian Magazine, and Oprah Daily

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles criss-crossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day—among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.

But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes never higher.

With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story—one that would challenge the nation’s core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all—one that challenges us even now.

Walter White survived the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 and became a powerful figure in the NAACP and the civil rights movement. Most notably, he frequently risked his life by using his ability to pass to investigate lynchings throughout the United States, surreptitiously interviewing and collecting evidence from lynch mob participants who assumed he was white.

White Lies:  The Double Life of Walter F. White and America's Darkest Secret.  A.J. Baime.  Mariner Books, 2022.  400 pages.  

    At the turn of the 20th century, Walter White's childhood in Atlanta was perhaps more comfortable than that of many black children across the South.  His father was a mail carrier.  His mother shopped at Rich's Department Store, where clerks politely called her "Mrs. White," but she wasn't allowed to try on clothes, return clothes that didn't fit.  (The tea room wasn't an option; it did not exist until the 1920s.) Black customers had to trace their feet onto paper in order to shop for shoes, instead of trying them on. There was only one high school for black students, the costly private one operated by Atlanta University.  Public schools for black students only went through 8th grade.  Annual state and local spending per black student averaged about $2, one-tenth of the amount spent per white student.  Black teachers were paid less than half of what white teachers were paid.   Still, Atlanta race relations were relatively calm, until late September 1906 when white mobs murdered dozens of black Atlantans and burned many homes in a multi-day killing frenzy called the Atlanta Race Riot.  According to White, it was at that moment, when an armed white mob besieged the family home and threatened to kill him and his entire family, that 13 year old Walter decided that he was black.  Yes, you read that correctly --- decided.  Walter White had straight blond hair, blue eyes, and fairer skin than some of the white men who killed blacks during the riot.  Throughout his life, those that came into contact with White, black and white, without knowing him assumed he was white.  He could have easily chosen to "pass" and live a much safer life.  Instead, he resolved to "be black" and to devote his life to fighting for civil rights. As a student at Atlanta University, he attracted the attention of James Weldon Johnson who persuaded him to move to New York and to join the staff of the NAACP.  Soon, he volunteered to risk his life multiple times to investigate lynchings across the country.  Because of his appearance, murderers assumed he was a good "patriotic and Christian American" like themselves, and they proudly told him all the details of their horrible crimes, including naming leaders and active participants.  White gathered information and prepared reports for publication and for government officials, often fleeing town just before his deception was discovered.  If caught, he would have been just another victim.  He did this many times as he worked his way up the ladder of NAACP leadership, becoming one of the most effective and respected civil rights advocates of the time.  Things began to change, however, when squabbles with W.E.B. DuBois destabilized the organization, and his extramarital affair with a white woman came to light, White fell from grace, and his legacy was tarnished and largely forgotten.  This excellent biography attempts to give his story the fullness and light that it deserves.

Incognegro: Renaissance. Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece. Dark Horse Comics, 2018. Book 1 of 5 in graphic novel series.

    Obviously inspired by the life of Walter White, this is the first volume of a 5 volume graphic novel series. After a black writer is found dead at a scandalous interracial party in 1920s New York, Harlem's cub reporter Zane Pinchback is the only one determined to solve the murder. Zane must go 'incognegro' for the first time-using his light appearance to pass as a white man-to find the true killer, in this prequel miniseries to the critically acclaimed Vertigo graphic novel, now available in a special new 10th Anniversary Edition. With a cryptic manuscript as his only clue, and a mysterious and beautiful woman as the murder's only witness, Zane finds himself on the hunt through the dark and dangerous streets of 'roaring twenties' Harlem in search for justice. A page-turning thriller of racial divide, Renaissance explores segregation, secrets, and self-image as our race-bending protagonist penetrates a world where he feels stranger than ever before.

    While it was always much more common for a black person to pass as white, there have been a few instances of going in the other direction.  

    Passing Strange:  A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line.  Martha A. Sandweiss.  Penguin Press, 2009.  384 pages.

    Clarence King was one of the most accomplished and famous scientists in America in the late 19th century, the first director of the United States Geological Survey. He also traveled in very exclusive circles:  academics like historian Henry Adams, politicians like Theodore Roosevelt, and historical figures like Secretary of State John Hay.  Among his friends and reporters, he was known as an adventurer, a raconteur, and a lifelong bachelor, who was at home in the field or hobnobbing with the members of high society, a luminary of the Gilded Age.  What none of them knew was that King was Passing Strange (Martha Sandweiss, author).  King pretended to be a black man, married a woman who was born a slave in Georgia, and set up her and their children in a fairly comfortable, if unorthodox, existence, explaining his long absences as work-related. Only as he was dying of tuberculosis did he confess the whole deception to his best friend and his wife.  It is an incredibly fascinating story that ultimately leaves the reader with as many questions as answers.  Sandweiss also educates the reader about the truths and perceptions of race at the time.

Black Like Me. John Howard Griffin. Houghton Mifflin, 1961.

Black Like Me, first published in 1961, is a nonfiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin recounting his journey in the Deep South of the United States, at a time when African Americans lived under the Jim Crow laws. Griffin was a native of Mansfield, Texas, who had his skin temporarily darkened to pass as a black man. He traveled for six weeks throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Missiissippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia to explore life from the other side of the color line. Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles.

Griffin kept a journal of his experiences; the 188-page diary was the genesis of the book. When he started his project in 1959, race relations in America were particularly strained. The title of the book is taken from the last line of the Langston Hughes poem "Dream Variations". (Wikipedia)

Several feature films have also been made exploring the theme of racial passing.

Passing (2021)  Director: Rebecca Hall | Based on Nella Larsen's 1929 novella

Two childhood friends reconnect in 1920s Harlem. Clare has chosen to live as a white woman, while Irene lives as Black; their renewed relationship unsettles both women's carefully constructed lives. Probably the essential contemporary film for your post.

 

Imitation of Life (1934)   Director: John M. Stahl | Based on Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel

Peola, the light-skinned daughter of a Black woman, attempts to pass as white and escape the racial restrictions of her time. Fredi Washington's performance makes this a particularly important film for examining the era's racial attitudes.

   

Imitation of Life (1959)   Director: Douglas Sirk

The celebrated melodramatic remake features Sarah Jane, played by Susan Kohner, who rejects her Black identity and mother in pursuit of a life as a white woman. Compare it with the 1934 version to explore changing Hollywood representations of race and identity.

 

Pinky (1949)  Director: Elia Kazan | Based on Cid Ricketts Sumner's novel Quality

A light-skinned Black woman who has been passing as white while training as a nurse returns to her Southern hometown. Her return forces her to confront segregation, family ties, and the limits of racial privilege.

 

Lost Boundaries (1949)    Director: Alfred L. Werker | Based on a true story

A Black physician and his family live as white in a New England community. Their carefully maintained identity comes under pressure when the doctor enters the Navy. Based on the experiences of Dr. Albert C. Johnston and his family.

  

Show Boat (1936; also 1951)   Adapted from the musical based on Edna Ferber's novel

Julie, a performer on a Mississippi showboat, is revealed to have Black ancestry despite being perceived as white. The resulting crisis illustrates the reach of racial classification and the threat posed by laws policing racial boundaries.

 

The Human Stain (2003)   Director: Robert Benton | Based on Philip Roth's 2000 novel

A college professor whose life unravels over an alleged racial slight has concealed his Black ancestry and lived as white for decades. The story connects passing to shame, secrecy, reinvention, and the personal costs of a hidden identity.

 

Shelved: Books Read and Reviewed in September 2026

 

Author Interview

The Traveler:  One Man's Quest for Humanity From the South Seas to Revolutionary Paris.  Andrea Wulf.  Knopf, 2026.  512 pages.  

I love discovering important people whose lives and accomplishments have been forgotten by history.  George Forster is one of those men.  Forster was one of the most celebrated and respected men in 18th century Europe, a naturalist who gave Europeans a spectacular new view of the world, and an active participant in a couple of the most monumental events in world history.  A brilliant child, he began accompanying his father as a botanist on expeditions at age ten, and at age 12 he became the family's chief breadwinner by translating books and pamphlets from German to English and vice versa.  At age 17, he became the junior naturalist on Captain Cook's second voyage voyage, spending the next several years on board the Resolution in search of the hypothetical continent of Antarctica, exploring the islands of the South Seas in the process. His published account of the expedition became a sensation, and his career took off.  Besides his remarkably insightful descriptions of the flora, fauna, and cultures that he encountered, the remarkable thing about Forster was his condemnation of European imperialism, colonialism, and racism.  Shockingly, he rejected the ideas of racial superiority growing into acceptance at the time and insisted that Europeans shouldn't impose their cultural standards on people of other cultures.  He truly embodied the ideals of the Enlightenment philosophers, ideals like freedom and equality and the radical belief that humanity has more in common than not.  He put these beliefs into practice, supporting the French Revolution and leading the push to introduce those ideals into Germany.  As a result, he was branded a traitor, and German authorities, his former German friends and admirers, and his own widow, who never loved him, all worked to erase him from history.  Here, Wulf has resurrected him and restored his place in history.  It's an excellent biography.

Folly and Glory.  Larry McMurtry.  Simon & Schuster, 2004.  236 pages.  Book 4 of 4 in the Berrybender Narratives.  

Larry McMurtry's Berrybender family saga comes to an end with this fourth volume, and it opens with Lord Berrybender and the remnants of his family and entourage under comfortable house arrest in Santa Fe.  It's the mid 1830s, and tensions are rising between the Texans and the Mexican government; the Berrybenders are caught in the middle.  While Tasmin Berrybender works hard to keep as much order, and as much of her personal sanity, as she can manage, her husband Jim Snow - aka the Sin Killer - is out on the plains, escorting supply wagons and hunting, anything to keep out of Tasmin's way.  He also makes his way to New Orleans with Kit Carson to pick up a surprising new Berrybender family member.  While Lord Berrybender plans to take the family to Texas, the Mexican government decides to to move the family across Mexico to Veracruz.  The journey is extremely arduous, and cholera and attacks by hostile Indians and renegade slavers devastate the procession.  The Berrybender saga is full of brutality, realism, and absurdity all coming together for a great story.  If you're a fan of westerns and Larry McMurtry, it's a must-read.  

Scandals, Vandals, and Da Vincis:  A Gallery of Remarkable Art Tales.  Harvey Rachlin.  Penguin, 2007.  344 pages.

Author Harvey Rachlin takes a deep dive into the back stories of about 30 famous works of art, including some of the most famous in history and some that readers may not know as well.  They all share one thing:  they each have a fascinating history, whether it's how the  came to be created or how they survived burglary, forgery, revolutions, ransoms, vandals, scandals, religious sects, and shipwrecks to eventually come to their current resting places,  Each story is an interesting read.  

The Florida Keys Skunk Ape Files:  Island Cryptids, Histories, and Mysteries.  Brad Bertelli.  Southernmost Skunk Ape Society, 2021.  178 pages.

Did you know that Florida allegedly has its very own species of Bigfoot ?  (Actually, there are legends of two to three variations in different parts of the state.)  The most famous is the Skunk Ape, a hairy creature that stands 7 to 8 feet in height and carries a revolting odor that can be smelled up to a mile away according to the stories.  This work of fiction, written by an experienced and respected historian and museum curator with decades of experience in the Florida Keys, purports to be a collection of historic encounters with skunk apes from the Spanish in the 16th century through the 20th century.  The files were discovered in boxes by two teen boys in the attic of a Key West home.  The pair formed the Southernmost Skunk Ape Society to investigate the sightings.  Think Scooby Doo and Mystery Inc.  The fictional encounter stories are pretty standard Bigfoot stuff, but the smart and inventive bit is that Bertelli has connected each story to a very real person, place, or event in the history of the Keys, with historical context for each.  The result is a mostly fun one-sitting read, a romp through Keys history, and a decent addition to my Florida history shelf.

North Woods.  Daniel Mason.  Random House, 2023.  384 pages.

This book proves that reading is incredibly subjective, and readers can have wildly differing opinions of the same book, and  maybe proof that book reviewers and  influencers are just bandwagon followers.  Maybe they all get notes about which books they are supposed to rave about. A year or year and a half ago, North Woods  was everywhere, on every great books of the year list and all over social media.  It was hailed as lifechanging and phenomenal and brilliant and every other superlative imaginable.  It's historical fiction covering four hundred years of Massachusetts history told through place; that place is a secluded homestead in the Massachusetts woods, occupied over the years by a succession of eccentric characters who live, grow apples, dream of building a resort, paint, and die.  The star of the book is the place, definitely not the people who are dull, uninteresting, and useless.  Their stories are long and boring, and often pointless --- several stories just quit, they don't end.  All of the stories are dull. Mason obviously would rather write about trees and leaves and seasonal changes than about people.  He also has a penchant for the supernatural.  I did slog through, but I can't recommend it.  On a particularly generous day, I might give it three stars out of five, but closer to a 2 most days.  And it's one of the worst book covers I've ever seen - that's the major reason that I delayed reading it for so long.

Fool.  Christopher Moore.  William Morrow, 2009.  311 pages.  Book 1 of 3 in Fool series.

OK, I'm officially a big Christopher Moore fan.  If you're a fan of Mel Brooks, Monty Python, and the like, like me, and you're not easily offended, I think you'd be be a fan as well.  Fool is the first of a trilogy inspired by Shakespeare following the adventures of King Lear's jester, Pocket of Dog-Snogging.  Fool is an incredibly hilarious and incredibly raunchy retelling of King Lear, a tale of  “gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity."  Lear divides his kingdom between his elder daughters Regan and Goneril and disowns his youngest, and formerly favorite, daughter Cordelia, and chaos results, with lots of treachery and plotting.  Pocket, accompanied by his apprentice Drool, puppet named Jones, and pet monkey named Jeff, attempt to restore order in the kingdom and to rescue Cordelia.  With lots of references to other Shakespeare plays sprinkled throughout, it's a very fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining take on Lear.  It's not necessary to be familiar with Shakespeare to enjoy it, but if you are a little familiar, the Fool trilogy is for you.  It also reminds me of Gregory Maguire's re-imagination of Oz in the Wicked series.  

Shakespeare For Squirrels.  Christopher Moore.  William Morrow, 2020.  288 pages.  Book 3 of 3 in Fool series.

Book 3 of Moore's Fool  trilogy opens with the miniature jester Pocket of Dog Snogging, his giant, dim-witted sidekick Drool, and his horny pet monkey Jeff stranded at sea. After wearing out their welcome with a crew of pirates, they are cast adrift and wash up dehydrated on the shores of Athens, Greece. Pocket's immediate goal is to dazzle the local Duke and land a comfy job as the new court jester.  However, they find themselves enmeshed in a tangled murder mystery version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Robin Goodfellow, aka Puck, is murdered, and Pocket has three days to find the murderer. He has four separate employers, Theseus, the Duke of Athens, Hippolyte, the Queen of the Amazons, Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, and Oberon, the King of the Goblins.  Aided by Bottom and a crew of fairies, Pocket has to solve the mystery or else he and Drool will be executed.  The result is a very fun mystery; think Shakespeare meets Dashiell Hammett, with lots of fairies, goblins, and other bits of magic.  It reminds me very much of the Piers Anthony Xanth series of dozens of books that I devoured in my teen years.  If you're a fan of intelligent, funny, magical, and pun-filled fantasy and haven't read Piers Anthony, you have missed out.

The Serpent of Venice.  Christopher Moore.  William Morrow, 2014.  336 pages.  Book 2 of 3 in Fool trilogy.

The Serpent of Venice is the second book in Christopher Moore's Fool trilogy. It is a rowdy, bawdy mashup that seamlessly weaves together William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Othello, while hilariously parodying Edgar Allan Poe’s short story "The Cask of Amontillado".  The plot revolves around political conspiracies, cultural prejudices, and a plot for total revenge.  The story begins in late 13th-century Venice. Three powerful and corrupt Venetians—the merchant Antonio, the senator Montressor Brabantio, and the naval officer Iago—have grown tired of the miniature English jester Pocket of Dog Snogging ruining their schemes for power and wealth. As expected, there are lots of Shakespearean references, lots of shagging, and lots of raunchiness.  I have to admit, that it's the weakest link in the trilogy for me, but still a great read.  Maybe it's because The Merchant of Venice  and Othello are not among my favorite Shakespeare plays, and I'm not as familiar with them as I am with some of the other plays. Maybe it's because of the very complicated plots, maybe the weird time jumps that confused me from time to time.  Still very fun and more interesting than either play.

Noir.  Christopher Moore.  William Morrow, 2018.  352 pages.  

What happens when you take a hapless bartender nicknamed Two-Toes, his Chinese-American sidekick, a mysterious sexy woman nicknamed The Cheese, a tight-lipped Air Force general, a wisecracking kid, Petey the black mamba who narrates part of the story, a taxi driver who never drives his taxi, an elderly Chinese opium den owner, a black longshoreman whose dream is to join FDR's Secret Service detail one day even though FDR died two years ago, an assortment of drag kings, and the secret society of powerful men called the Bohemian Society and set it in 1947 San Francisco, specifically the Tenderloin district?  You get yet another hilarious novel from Christopher Moore.  Noir is a raunchy parody of noir detective fiction.  Think Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler meets Monty Python and Mel Brooks.  The absurdities, laughs, 1940s slang and tropes are fast and furious, like a Roscoe spitting slugs.

Razzmatazz.  Christopher Moore.  William Morrow, 2022.  400 pages.  

Sammy Two-Toes, The Cheese, Moo Shoes, Uncle Ho, Scooter, and their Tenderloin district friends are all back for more action in and around 1947 San Francisco.  This time, Sammy leans into his new role as the neighborhood problem solver, and he's asked to solve the murders of a couple of drag kings because the police don't care and,  at the same time, he helps his friend Moo Shoes track down a stolen magical Rain Dragon statue to save his uncle's opium den from a dangerous gangster. Meanwhile, Sammy's girlfriend Stilton and her former  "Wendy the Welder" friends work on a secret project that catches the eye of government agents. Sammy has to rely on his quirky friends and street smarts to solve these chaotic mysteries before disaster strikes. Will San Francisco be plunged into a Chinese Tong war?  Will the city itself be destroyed by another catastrophe? Once again, the result is an action-packed, hilarious, 1940s slang-drenched parody of noir fiction. 

Author Talk

The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker:  A True Tale of Love, Murder, Treason, and Ordinary Folks Who Saved America.  Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz.  Simon & Schuster, 2026.  448 pages.

In the early morning hours of September 11, 1851, seven armed white men, including a federal marshal and a Maryland enslaver determined to retrieve his runaway "property,"  four young enslaved men who had crossed the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, surrounded the home of William and Eliza Parker near Christiana, Pennsylvania, about 47 miles west of Philadelphia.  William Parker was not the man to try.  He had emancipated himself twelve years earlier as an 18-year old, and he had made a home in Christiana, along with many other free and formerly enslaved blacks, welcomed and respected by the their mostly Quaker neighbors.  They weren't safe, however, as slave catchers routinely ventured into Pennsylvania intent on collecting bounties for runaways and not really caring whether the people they harassed and kidnapped had ever, in fact, been enslaved, and the newly passed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 only emboldened them.  Parker, however, was equally bold, if not more bold.  He organized his neighbors into an abolitionist vigilante organization, riding the countryside in their own patrols,  actively mounting missions to recover kidnapped people, and maintaining networks for spreading warnings and information.  He confronted enslavers and slave catchers head on.  Now, with his wife, children, and friends to protect, he refused to back down. The Maryland enslaver, Edward Gorsuch,  also refused to back down.  Alerted, dozens of Parker's armed neighbors arrived on the scene, and the confrontation turned violent.  Gorsuch was killed, and the other men in his party were wounded and forced to flee for their lives.   The incident became known as the Christiana Riot, or the Christiana Resistance, and it and the resulting arrest and trial of dozens of men for treason became a watershed event in the abolitionist movement and in American history.  This is definitely a 5-star read about the incident, and Parker.  It's also a fantastic account of Philadelphia's role in the Underground Railroad and abolitionism, but, don't be misled, there were just as many Philadelphians who opposed abolition, including blacks who willingly provided information and assistance to slave catchers and even participated more actively in the practice, and anti-abolitionist mobs rampaged from time to time in the city.  The stories of the black abolitionists like the Purvis and Forten families and John Pierre Burr, the illegitimate son of Aaron Burr, alone make this book a great read. 

 

  

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Hannibal Lecter:  A Life.  Brian Raftery.  Simon & Schuster, 2026.  336 pages.

This was a bit of a departure from my regular reading fare.  I'm not a huge slasher/gore/horror fan.  I think  I've read two Hannibal books, Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs,  I've seen four Hannibal movies, all more than 24 years ago, and I thought they were OK, just books and movies.  I knew that Hannibal Lecter became one of the most famous movie villains of all time, but apparently Hannibal Lecter is a much bigger part of American popular culture than a part of my life, so much so that in 2024 a particular presidential candidate constantly made bizarre references to the character.  I was so turned off to election coverage at the time that I never heard or read a single instance of that.  Entertainment and popular culture journalist Brian Raftery has written a complete history of Lecter, using extensive interviews with many people involved directly with the creation of the books, movies, and television shows --- all but the creator Thomas Harris, whose aversion to any publicity or interviews rivals that of the famously reclusive J.D. Salinger.  The book is also a thorough examination of the character's role in pop culture and how American pop culture shifts are reflected in, maybe influenced by, the publishing and movie industries.  Lecter's rise reflected America's growing obsession with real-life serial killers.  Harris, who honed his writing craft as a crime reporter with an eye for grisly detail, forged connections with the FBI as the FBI was developing the whole art(?)/science(?) of criminal profiling.  While the original inspiration for Lecter was a real life person that Harris met, Harris was further inspired by all that he learned from picking the brains (Hannibal Lecter pun?) of FBI profilers, and he built relationships with some of the first female FBI agents that greatly informed his creation of Agent Clarise Starling, also considered one of the most iconic characters in American cinema.  Raftery's book is extremely entertaining, even for very casual Lecter fans like myself;  for real fans of the books or movies, it's definitely a must-read.  

Author Talk

The American Revolution and the Fate of the World.  Richard Bell.  Riverhead Books, 2025.  416 pages.  

Did the British musicians play “The World Turned Upside Down” when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown?  Probably not—or at least, we have no reliable evidence that they did.
The story first appears in 1828, 47 years after the surrender. The actual surrender terms called for the British to march out to a British or German march, but no contemporary source identifies the music. Whether or not it happened,  the American Revolution did, in fact, turn the world upside down, and historian Richard Bell documents it as a transformative international event. Millions of people on every continent saw their lives affected, trade was disrupted, independence movements and progressive social reforms were inspired, and global refugee crisis was created.  Battles were fought in North America, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean.  For two years following Yorktown and the fighting largely ceased in America, the British continued to fight the French and Spanish around the world.  When the Treaty of Paris formally ended hostilities and recognized American independence, American allies France and Spain were arguably worse off than before the war, and the British Empire, despite having lost vast territory, may have emerged stronger than ever.  In this book, Richard Bell tells the full story as it has never been told before.  In a very original twist, Bell grounds his narrative in the stories of roughly a dozen individuals including Prussian drillmaster Baron von Steuben, Mohawk Molly Brant, escaped slaves John Moseley and Harry Washington who became early colonists of Australia and Sierra Leone respectively, the ruler of the Indian state of Mysore, indigenous Peruvian revolutionary Tupac Amaru, and Peggy Shippen Arnold, the wife of Benedict.  The result is a new and fresh take on the American Revolution that leaves readers informed, entertained, and contemplative --- a great read for America250.  

2025 Movie trailer

Train Dreams.  Denis Johnson.  Farar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011.  116 pages.  

The book tokers and influencers all got the memo:  it's time to move on from Larry McMurtry to Denis Johnson.  I'm seeing a lot of references to this novella, but I had previously never heard of Johnson, so I gave it a try.  Train Dreams  follows the tragic and isolated life of Robert Grainier, a railroad laborer, logger, and freight hauler in the Pacific Northwest, who was born in the 1880s and died in the 1960s.  Orphaned at an early age, he begins a grueling itinerant life in the logging and railroad industries that transformed the region in the early 20th century. Following the tragic loss of his wife and child, he retreats deep into the woods, leading an isolated life tormented by grief and regret.  In the meantime, he survives in the difficult and mysterious landscape, and he has few encounters with other people, living a slow, unaffected life while the world rapidly changes around him.  It is a slow-burn read, especially at first, and it seems like there's not much happening, but I was soon drawn into a beautiful, simple, often melancholy life - just a guy putting one foot in front of the other and surviving while time passes him by.  The conversation between Grainier and Peterson, the man shot by his own dog, alone makes it worth your time to read the book.  In the end, I thought it was really great fiction, and I plan to read more Johnson and maybe watch the 2025 movie adaptation of Train Dreams.