Author Talk
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families. Judith Giesberg. Simon & Schuster, 2025. 336 pages. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free review copy.
No matter how you slice it, every aspect of slavery is unfathomable. From the racist attitudes that led to its acceptance and justification, to the sheer brutality, to the magnitude of despair and devastation that it caused, to the realization of just how much slavery contributed to American growth and development, to the lingering after effects still felt today, slavery is almost impossible to comprehend. Here, author Judith Giesberg adds yet another element to the mix. One of the most harrowing and horrifying cruelties of slavery was separation of families. American slavery did not recognize any legitimacy when it came to marriages and families amongst the enslaved people. Loved ones were sold away from each other and separated by hundreds or thousands of miles. Runaways escaped, often losing all contact with relatives forever. As soon as slavery ended in 1865, members of the "Freedom Generation," those that had been enslaved and their children, began searching for parents, children, spouses, lovers, friends, and even fellow veterans with whom they had lost contact. As late as the early 1920s, individuals placed classified ads in and wrote letters to the editors of black newspapers. These notices were posted and shared and, since most of the formerly enslaved were illiterate or just learning to read, pastors read the ads from the pulpit. Giesberg has created an incredibly moving narrative based on an archive of almost 5,000 ads and letters by choosing several specific stories to research and explore in depth. She tells the stories of the searchers, their lost family members, and even their enslavers, revealing happy and not-so-happy outcomes. She does an excellent job of bringing a lesser known aspect of slavery into the light.
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One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Editorial Sudamericana, 1967. Harper & Row, 1970 (US). 422 pages.
Another classic read, Garcia Marquez' magnum opus and one of the iconic touchstones of Latin American and world literature. One Hundred Years of Solitude follows seven generations of the Buendía family in the fictional Latin American town of Macondo. Founded by José Arcadio Buendía and his wife Úrsula, Macondo grows from an isolated village, whose citizens do not die, into a town shaped by civil wars, foreign exploitation, and modernization, only to fall into decay. The novel blends magical realism with history, portraying extraordinary events—such as ascensions into heaven, prophetic manuscripts, and ghostly visitations—as everyday occurrences. Across generations, the Buendías repeat patterns of obsession, passion, violence, and solitude. Names, personalities, and destinies recur, suggesting the inescapability of fate. Úrsula’s long life anchors the family, while later descendants struggle with isolation and emotional detachment. As time loops and memory fades, the family becomes increasingly disconnected from both its past and each other. Finally, ancient prophecies are revealed. It's a lot. There are a lot of characters, a lot of symbolism, a lot of magic, and a lot going on. There's enough fodder for many deep and long literary conversations and debates. It really is a magical other world. I'm not sure what it is, but it was a memorable visit.
Old School Indian. Aaron John Curtis. Hillman Grad Books, 2025. 352 pages.
Abe Jacobs is a Mohawk Indian who left the reservation at eighteen to go to Syracuse University. There, he met his future wife Alex, and they moved to Miami where she became an elementary school teacher, and he became a clerk in book store with dreams of being a writer. Their relationship is wild, unconventional, passionate, and open, and Abe has lost touch with his Mohawk identity. At age 43, he develops an extremely rare autoimmune disorder that his Miami doctors say is basically untreatable and terminal. Running from his illness and troubled marriage, Abe returns to the Rez and his family. He reconnects with tradition, his Mohawk identity, and himself in what's described as a "coming-of-middle-age" story that deals with family and the deeply embedded ripple effects of history and culture. It's also irreverent, funny, and innovative. Like There, There by Tommy Orange, I think it's destined to be a modern classic. If college professors taught novels anymore, I could see it added to required class reading lists. I would say the same for high school reading lists, except that it is pretty sexually explicit. It's a great book club selection, and a great novel.
The Kite Runner Trailer 2007
The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini. Riverhead Books, 2003. 371 pages.
Another classic down. Few books appear on as many contemporary "Best Books" as this one does. On one level, it's the story of two Afghan boys, Amir and Hassan. Amir is the son of a wealthy and powerful local merchant, a highly respected pillar of the community, and Hassan is the son of the family's faithful servant and a member of a persecuted minority in Afghanistan. A horrible crime committed against Hassan drives the two boys apart, and the families separate. It's also a story about fathers and sons. Finally, it's the story of Afghanistan. Over the next decades, the upheaval of the Soviet invasion and occupation, civil war, and Taliban theocracy further disrupts their lives and destroys the country. Amir and his father migrate to the US where they struggle to survive, and Amir struggles with guilt over the end of his relationship with Hassan. Years later, he's drawn to return to Pakistan and Afghanistan by a dying family friend who reveals family secrets that push Amir to risk his life to find Hassan's son and to bring him back to the US. It's an extremely moving and heart-rending novel, well worth a read, even though elements of the plot are pretty predictable.
Lecture on the Zorg Massacre
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery. Siddharth Kara. St. Martin's Press, 2025. 304 pages.
Between 1517 and 1867, about 12.5 million Africans were forced onto the Middle Passage. About 10.7 million survived the voyage, to be sold into lifetime bondage on brutal plantations in the Caribbean and in the Americas. Yet, there are relatively few first-person accounts of the horrible practices, a fact that makes sense for a couple of reasons. First, the Africans, of course, were almost entirely illiterate and kept so intentionally for the rest of their lives. Today, there are so few accounts written by Africans that the authors can be counted on a few fingers, the most famous examples being Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley. Second, most of the white men involved in the actual work of the slave trade were illiterate as well. Even the ship captains and first mates most often had very limited literary abilities. Finally, the whole episode is so massively shameful that many who were involved, and who profited from it, most likely made the effort to erase memories and documentation from existence. The case of The Zorg Massacre was a watershed event that led directly to the galvanization of the abolitionist movement in Britain that led to the abolition of the British slave trade and slavery in Britain and the British Empire. The Zorg (aka The Zong) was a Dutch slave ship captured by the British during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in 1781. A ship's doctor, with no prior leadership or navigation experience or expertise, was made captain and proceeded to overload the ship with nearly 400 enslaved people, almost double capacity, and set sail for Jamaica. A normal voyage would have taken about 55 days, but the incompetence of The Zorg's officers added 20-25 days to the journey. On the verge of running out of water, with days and days at sea left, the decision was made to reduce demand by throwing more than 130 living people overboard to drown. When the ship finally returned to Liverpool England, its owners decided to file a claim with the insurance company that had insured the lives of the slaves --- "property" --- in order to recoup some of the financial losses incurred. The company refused to pay, arguing that the murders were the fault of the slavers and that the claim was an attempt to defraud the company. The ensuing court case was highly publicized at the time, and then seized by abolitionists as a vehicle by which to spread knowledge of the horrors of slavery amongst the general public, with the aforementioned Equiano and other famous British abolitionists, several of whom had once directly participated in the trade, leading the away, making speeches, writing letters, publishing accounts, and lobbying for legislation, all citing the massacre as evidence. The whole story is told in this excellent book, and the details about the practices and conditions of all aspects of the Middle Passage are necessary and heartbreaking.
Author talk
Harlem Rhapsody. Victoria Christopher Murray. Berkley, 2025. 400 pages.
Jessie Redmon Fauset was one of the most prolific writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Poet Langston Hughes called her "the Midwife" of the literary explosion that was a huge part of the Renaissance. At a time when publishing companies refused to publish black authors or employ black proofreaders or editors and even white women couldn't find employment higher than stenographer or secretary, Fauset became the literary editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, founded by W.E.B. DuBois. In that role, she was responsible for the discovery and mentorship of almost all of the leading literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer, to name just a few, and she made The Crisis a thriving and vibrant publication. She published lots of her own poems and essays and four novels, the first novels to ever portray authentic middle class, college-educated, professional black characters living everyday lives and facing everyday challenges. Yet, few people know about her or her contributions. Author Victoria Christopher Murray endeavors to correct that in this historical fiction work. She delivers a suiting tribute to Fauset and a rich depiction of 1920s Harlem and the culture of the Renaissance. Fauset's life, however, is more than just literary achievement. For over a decade, Faucet carried on an extramarital affair with The Crisis founder, and her own boss, W.E.B. DuBois. Murray imagines the ups and downs of that relationship and its effects on the individuals involved and affected, and on the movement itself, revealing the faults, foibles, and flaws of both Fauset and DuBois. The novel is a really good read and a history lesson at the same time.
Georgia's Historical Recipes: Seeking Our State's Oldest Written Foodways and the Stories Behind Them. Valerie J. Frey. University of Georgia Press, 2025. 400 pages.
As I always say, there's not much better than combining history and food. There are few elements of culture that reveal as much about peoples, places, and times as a culture's foodways do. Valerie J. Frey is a writer, researcher, and an archivist who specializes in finding and preserving history through food. It's also obvious that she's an avid baker and collector. Her discoveries of old cookbooks led her to do a deep dive into the history of cookbook publishing in Georgia, and she presents her findings here. She finds examples from the antebellum period through World War II and organizes them into fifty sections presented chronologically. Each section contains a biography of the cookbook writer, the historical and cultural context of the time in which it was written, and sample recipes. Frey also usually includes her own personal memories, connections, or attempts to re-create recipes, making the history all the more relatable and approachable. The recipes and cookbooks provide windows onto Georgia history: what was available, who could afford it, how was it presented, who cooked, who consumed, what did the home look and feel like, what did the larger society look like, and how did all of this evolve over time. Beyond being a fun and educational read, this book is truly a great addition to the genres of food history and Georgia history.
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Seminole Chiefs on a visit to New York City, 1852. Abraham standing on right
The Free and the Dead: The Untold Story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel, and America's Forgotten War. Jamie Holmes. Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2026. 320 pages.
When Florida became a state in 1845, it was probably the most dangerous, least populated, and least explored state in the Union. White settlers were deterred by heat, hurricane, insects, swamps, bears, wolves, panthers, venomous snakes, and disease. The interior of the state was largely terra incognita - unknown and frightening for white pioneers. Meanwhile, the Seminoles and the Miccosukees survived and struggled to maintain their independence and their culture, The federal government policy of removing eastern Indians to Oklahoma Territory threatened that. In 1835, that threat boiled over into the Second Seminole War which continued until 1842, making it America's longest war until Vietnam. It also ranks as the most expensive, and one of the deadliest and most destructive of the Indian Wars. When it was over, much of the white development in the territory had been destroyed and most of the Seminoles had been forcibly removed to Oklahoma, but a few Seminoles and Miccosukees survived and remain to this day. Jamie Holmes has written a new history of the war, focusing on Osceola the famous warrior leader, and the lesser known Abraham, the Black Seminole leader and interpreter who played very prominent role. It's a solid history of the war, although I wouldn't call it revolutionary, but it does a really good job of telling the story of the Black Seminoles. However, I am deducting a star from my rating for the ridiculous use of the phrase "forced labor camps" instead of plantations.
Bloody Toombs. Clarke Wright Johnson. Liberty Hill Publishing, 2017. 452 pages.
I was born and raised in Toombs County Georgia, and my family has deep roots in the area, going back 6 or 7 generations. Shortly after the county was formed (in 1905 from neighboring Montgomery County), it acquired the nickname "Bloody Toombs." In the 1920s and 1930s, it was largely due to Ku Klux Klan activity. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was attributed to the activity of the "Dixie Mafia," although there is some dispute as to whether the Dixie Mafia actually operated in the area or if it was just general lawlessness, Every so often, I search online for "Bloody Toombs" to see what comes up, finding a few references going back to the 1920s in the New York Times and Time Magazine. One day, this novel showed up in the search results. A vampire horror story set in Toombs County, written by a man who has lived most of his life there? While that's not my normal genre of choice --- not even close --- I was intrigued and had to order it, not expecting much. My expectations seemed to be confirmed as soon as I turned to the table of contents, and my eye was immediately drawn to a huge typo in one of the chapter titles. Verdict? If you're interested in a vampire family saga that stretches throughout the 20th century and reads as if it was written by a slightly talented middle schooler, you might find it to be meh. It doesn't even necessarily reflect its setting; it could have been set anywhere in the American South. You're welcome. I read it so you don't have to.
Author talk
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.
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