When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era - Donovan X. Ramsey

I’d wanted someone to write this book for a long time.

I’m lucky enough to have grown up in a neighbourhood more or less untouched by the crack epidemic, but I was alive during its peak, too young to understand exactly what crack was or what it did, but old enough to catch the wave of fear and disdain that emanated from its use. Mostly this filtered through hyperbolic news coverage and sappy TV plotlines, but it entered general discourse too. Kids used crackhead as a slur for a poor or mentally unwell person, and I knew a “crack baby” was a child born broken in some fundamental way. But I never understood why crack emerged so abruptly, ravaged communities so thoroughly, and why it seemed to ebb away even as I became aware of it.

Donovan X. Ramsey does a great job answering these questions, and a lot more besides. When Crack Was King takes a broad lens to the crack epidemic, reaching back to the Great Migration and Nixon’s War on Drugs to explain how the impoverished, largely Black population of America’s inner cities became uniquely vulnerable to the drug, documents the rise in cocaine’s availability that dropped the price enough for regular people to afford it, and the chemical innovations that freed cocaine from its powdered form, first through the complex and dangerous method of free base, and later through the much simpler form of crack. Ramsey meticulously discusses the policy decisions of each administration, how each party’s desire to be “touch of crime” led to an ever-tightening spiral of restrictions and harsher sentences. He also gives a simple and compelling reason for why crack petered out the way it did: its addiction was so ravaging and destructive that the kids growing up around the first generation of addicts were scared off for fear of becoming the second.

As good as Ramsey is at the wide lens, When Crack Was King is at it’s core a book about four people whose lives were touched by the crack epidemic: Elgin Swift, the son of an addict who grew up in a Yonkers neighbourhood ravaged by crack; Lennie Woodley, an addict herself who overcame an appallingly abusive childhood and years as a sex worker to become an advocate for addicts in recovery; Kurt Schmoke, the mayor of Baltimore, who fought the Tough on Crime tide in an effort to put compassion and treatment into the city’s response to the epidemic; and Shawn McCray, a basketball prodigy and ace student who sold crack and became part of an infamous Newark gang called the Zoo Crew. Ramsey’s portraits of the four are unfailingly sympathetic yet honest, not flinching from the failures and bad decisions they sometimes made—that we all make, and that those more fortunate among us can afford to make without serious consequences.

Ramsey’s prose is engaging and evocative without being flowery. He captures the mood of a troubled era in American history in an illuminating way. This book was excellent.

Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon

I’ve owned a copy of Mason & Dixon for a very long time but never had a strong urge to pick it up, in large part because I had intended to tackle Gravity’s Rainbow as my first major Pynchon work (I read The Crying of Lot 49 a while ago, but it is, in its slight hundred or so pages, scarcely Pynchonian in breadth, if comparable in density). But, for whatever reason, I was looking for something meaty and Mason & Dixon seemed the more attractive option.

The story is ostensibly a fictionalized account of Charles Mason and Jeremiah' Dixon’s journey to chart their eponymous line to resolve a border dispute between Pennsylvania in Maryland. But simply calling it “a fictionalized account” is misleading, as it suggests at most some narrative tidying and invention of secondary characters to make a more cohesive and rounded story. A better description would be to say it takes the story of Mason and Dixon and some of the founding myths of pre-Revolutionary America and tosses them in a blender with about 20 blotters of LSD. The “fictionalized” elements aren’t simply things that didn’t happen (chance meetings with Washington and Benjamin Franklin, for instance), but things that are outright supernatural. There’s an invisible robot duck that’s in love with a Frenchman, a conversation between two clocks, a field of gigantic vegetables (think James and the Giant Peach big), and a talking dog, among other things.

These elements are jumbled together by a frame narrator named Reverend Cherrycoke, who interjects regularly with his own supposition and is interrupted by his niece and nephew. The story veers regularly off course, and there are few signposts to guide you through dialogue or indicate when one scene blends into another, which they do regularly and with hedge maze circuity. The whole book feels like it was deliberately written to be as hard to follow as possible without descending into outright gibberish. Pynchon toes that line deftly, though to call it a pleasurable read would be a stretch. This is a book that wants to be a workout, and while certain passages and images are rewarding, I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly what had happened in any given chapter.

Pynchon is a noted stylist, and his writing in this book deftly apes the sound and texture of 18th century prose, complete with esoteric Capitalization and antique verbosity. His humor is pleasantly modern, though its occasional crudity is actually in line with the period it is trying to evoke (recall that the Western Canon’s proto-novel, Don Quixote, includes a scene where Sancho Ponza takes a sneaky dump off the side of his horse, and another where he and Quixote vomit into each others’ faces). I wouldn’t say I enjoyed reading this book, at least not all the time, but I’m glad I read it.

And one day, I really will tackle Gravity’s Rainbow.

The Seventies: A Look Ahead at the New Decade - Editors of the National Observer

Chantal bought this book ages ago at a church bazaar or rummage book sale, mostly as a sort of curio. I finally picked it up and read it the other day. The premise is pretty much spelled out by the title: a collection of essays penned by writers from the National Observer in early 1970, speculating on what was then the coming decade. Each chapter covers a different subject, and the topics are wide-ranging. Space exploration, the economy, politics, foreign policy, the environment each get a chapter, as do perhaps less expected fields, such as oceanography manners. One chapter predicts trends in the arts, and Vietnam, perhaps not surprisingly, gets a look in all to itself as well.

Having been born after the decade under speculation ended, it was interesting to look back at what the writers predicted, seeing where they were wildly off the mark and where they were prescient (sometimes almost eerily so). I could reflect more immediately on some chapters than others, based on my knowledge—it was pretty obvious what came true and what didn’t in the space and Viet Nam chapters, whereas in the medicine and oceanography chapters I could only say vaguely what came true and what didn’t (I know we have submersibles that can operate at 20,000 feet now, but did they begin operation in the 1970s as predicted? I have no idea).

Below, I’ve given a quick summary of what each chapter nailed and what it whiffed on, based on my recollections:

• Space Exploration: called GPS and satellite imagery, but wildly optimistic on moon colonies (supposed to be in operation by 1979. Oops)

• The Economy: no wild predictions, basically right on Keynesian Economics avoiding another depression.

• Medicine: my big takeaway here was how much was still on the horizon in 1970. Organ transplants were in their infancy, as were antidepressants (Lithium was the new big thing). Not sure if they really took off in the seventies, but they were right on the general trend.

• Foreign policy: more or less on target, except about Japan becoming a regional political power (they nailed it on their economic influence though).

• Lifestyle: ranging from the insane (see-through body stocking with modesty patches) to the prescient (modular construction to cut down on home costs).

• Vietnam: Humility in their predictions, as they made it clear they didn’t know, but erred on the optimistic side in assuming South Vietnam stood a chance.

• The Arts: Another chapter of home runs and strikeouts. Pretty much predicted punk (“In underground music, I think you’ll get a return to root forms, a sort of new classic approach to rock”) but completely wrong on cinema (predicted the doom of major studios and the continued rise of small, meaningful films at the expense of big budget epics. Someone didn’t see Jaws and Star Wars coming, that’s for sure).

• The environment: focused on pollution ,and right that it would be somewhat curbed. No sight of climate change yet.

• Oceanography: We didn’t get bubble stations on the ocean floor, sadly. The other stuff seemed more or less right, though I can’t speak to the timeline.

• Politics: Foresaw the death of the New Deal and the drift of the South, but prematurely buried the two-party system.

• Education: nascent view of technology in schools.

• Travel: They were right about trains in the US, that’s for sure.

• Manners and Mores: Nothing too outré. Saw the slow decline of religiosity.

• America’s Reputation: This was more about its current reputation than speculating on the future.

Not a bad grade, overall. A few big misses, but the writers were clearly thoughtful in their speculation. Not something I’m likely to reread, but was worth picking up for sure.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 - Lawrence Wright

It’s strange to remember an event that is so clearly going to be in history books—if it isn’t already. Everybody who lives even a short while sees history at some remove, but it’s sometimes hard to tell what will be remembered and what mostly forgotten. With 9/11, it was clear from the get-go. Much like this year’s COVID pandemic, it formed a clear threshold beyond which many things would never be the same.

The Looming Tower doesn’t spend much time detasiling the attack itself. The planning occurs intermittently over the last quarter of the book, while the event itself is over in ten pages. Instead, Wright’s book chronicles the events and figures that culminated in atrocity. Obviously this includes Bin Laden, whose life features in much of the book’s second half. But there are also figures that I hadn’t heard of before. People like Sayyid Qutb, an Islamic scholar whose uncompromising take on Islam provided rationale for the jihads to come, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian radical bent on overthrowing Mubarek’s secular regime and installing a caliphate. Zawahiri provides an interesting counterpoint to bin Laden, as his intial position of dominance shrinks while bin Laden’s rises, until he is forced to fold his organization into al Qaeda.

American figures also get billing, thoug hthe book is lopsided towards the Islamists. Most notably, it follows John O’Neil, a senior FBI agent who doggedly pursued al Qaeda when it was an obscure fledgling organization in the Arab world and no one outside of that sphere knew about it or cared. O’Neil is an interesting figure, brilliant but flawed, and his final days form a sad counterpoint that would have seemed unbelievable in a novel, but somehow actually happened.

The book is well written, with sleek, unadormed prose and a journalistic eye for detail.

One Summer: America, 1927 - Bill Bryson

J’écris ceux mots après d’avoir relu trois livres de Bill Bryson : The Lost Continent, In a Sunburned Country, et One Summer: America, 1927. C’est le dernier livre qui compris le sujet de cette revue. Pour la premières deux, ça suffit à dire qu’ils sont travelogues—de l’États Unis et Australie, respectivement—et qu’ils sont très amusant. Mais pour la dernière, il y a un peu plus que ça.

Comme dit le titre, One Summer: America, 1927 discute l’effusion d’évènements qui ont arrivé pendant l’été en question. Les deux évènements les plus grandes, ils sont la vole de Charles Lindbergh sue l’Atlantique, de New York à Paris, et la saison remarquable de Babe Ruth, qui a frappé 60 home runs, une record qui durait pour plus que 30 années. Autres évènements notables comprissent l’inondation de la Mississippi; la lutte entre Jack Dempsey et Gene Tunney; le trial sensationnel de Ruth Snyder, qui avait son mari tué par son amoureux, et beaucoup d’autre chose.

L’écriture de Bryson c’est aussi drôle et élégant comme toujours, avec beaucoup des tournes des phrases amusant. C’était tellement plaisant, de relire ses livres pour la deuxième ou troisième fois. C’est certain qu’il y aura une quatrième.

I Heard You Paint Houses - Charles Brandt

I had I Heard You Pain Houses on hold from the library for a long time, so when I finally got it, I wasn’t sure how interested I’d be in the subject matter. A lot of times I’ll request a hold but my interest will drift away to other things by the time it arrives. But this book grabbed me immediately. Part of its appeal was certainly the writing, which is crisp and evocative without being ornate, but the biggest draw is its subject: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, mob fixer and killer of Jimmy Hoffa.

Sheeran has led what is inarguably an interesting life. Born poor to an abusive father who would pit in against older boys in fights for money, Sheeran’s upbringing was the very definnition fo hardscrabble. He joined the army and saw over 400 days of combat in Italy, a fact that Brandt notes is remarkably above average for an enlisted soldier, and may have worn away the guardrails that keep most people from engaging in the peculiar profession he found later in life.

Once he left the army, he bounced around on the fringes until finding himself in the orbit of organized crime, particularly that of kingpin Russell Bufalino. Russell becomes a surrogate father figure for Sheeran, protecting him during his missteps and cultivating in him a loyal and fearsome soldier. Frank’s admiration for Bufalino is matched only by his love for Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamster’s Union, which makes their final bloody moments together particularly tragic.

Much fo the book is told in first person, as Frank recounts his remarkable life in the form of an extended confession. Brandt intersperses additional detail throughout. The format is fluid and effective. At first I thought it might feel choppy, but Brandt knows when context is helpful and when Frank can tell it best.

Some of Frank’s accounts stretch the boundaries of credibility, and he has was Brandt himself admits a Forrest Gump-like tendency to find himself pulled into pivotal events. To hear Frank tell it, he drove a truckload of supplies to the Cuban expats who undertook the Bay of Pigs invasion, and delivered the rifle that ultimately wound up in Lee Harvey Oswald’s hands on November 22, 1963. I found some of this a little hard to swallow, and I dont’ doubt that frnak has coloured things to paint himself in the best possible light, but Brandt is a seasoned interrogator, and backs up some of the loftier claims with meticulous research and independent verification. The result is a fascinating book about the fascinating life of a complex and deeply flawed man. Worth reading.

USA Trilogy - John Dos Passos

As you might expect from it’s title, the USA Trilogy is three books, not one, but they are sufficiently interconnected that they really operate as a single novel. If it weren’t for the separate tables of contents and title pages, I wouldn’t have suspected that the book was anything but a single sprawling novel.

And sprawling is the word, for Dos Passos’ work is nothing if not ambitious. Using a varie,d daring style, Dos Passos attempts to capture a period of American history from about 1910 to 1930, with periodic jaunts outside of this scope, both spatial and temporal. Indeed, much of the second book is set in France in the closing days of World War I, where soldiers and army volunteers struggle to transition to peacetime and capitalists seize on the abruptly shifted world order to make a killing.

There are a number of characters, but no clear protagonist, with individual players dropping in and out of the narrative. Characters who are central in one point can be relegated to small parts in other points of view later on, and some are dropped altogether—notably Mac, the young Wobbly who forms the core of the first half of book one before disappearing from the pages and never being spoke of again. If I had to select a main character, I’d pick J Ward Moorehouse, a failed songwriter whose intelligence, craftiness, and upward marriages allow him to build a successful advertising agency. But evem he is only a point of view character in the first book, shifting afterwards to appearances in the story through other eyes.

Interpresed through the main narrative are biographies of notable figures from American history during the period, as well as two more experimental sections: Newsreels, which feature snippets of headlines, news stories, and song lyrics crosscutting in a disorienting fashion, sometimes mid-sentences, and “The Camera Eye,” in which stories of unrelated and largely anonymous characters are told in a dizzy stream of conscious style.

The book isn’t an easy one to follow, and even without large breaks between readings, I often forgot who was who and what individual characters had done in prior installments. Still, the writing feels fresh even 90 years later, the characters speak with rich, developed voices, and the story carries an undeniable sense of verisimilitude. Dos Passos captures small things, and magpies them together into a towering narrative.

A People's history of the united states - robert zinn

If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come--if history were any guide--from the top. It would come through citizens' movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed.

The above quotation, taken from the final pages of A People's History of the United States, neatly summarizes the thesis that Robert Zinn presents in his definitive chronicle of the United States.

From first contact by Europeans to the war on terror (a supplement added to the final addition of the book before Zinn’s death), A People's History provides an unflinching look at America's development from the perspective of the outsiders, underdogs, and scapegoats that have littered its century-spanning path. Beginning with the mistreatment of natives and the abhorrent sin of slavery (underscored by the obscene irony of the Declaration of Independence and its claim that all men are created equal), the book broadens in the late 19th century and beyond to chronicle thech struggle of labor to win basic rights for working people.

Zinn's goal is a noble one, and like most noble goals it is uncompromising in its zeal. As a result, there are times when his thinking struck me as a bit simplistic—in every state-sanctioned action, in every piece of legislation, in every presidential pronouncement, Zinn saw an unflinching drive of a system to protect itself. Any progress could be chalked up solely to appeasement, not enlightenment, and anyone in the upper echelons of power has only bad intentions. He takes pains to emphasize that the issue is more the structure of the system, rather than deliberate conspiracy, but there is a cynicism to his work that implies conspiracy even when it doesn't state it.

However, Zinn makes no secret of his stance, and his positions are honestly argued, a strategy that is harder and more just than tweaking facts while feigning objectivity. As a whole, he presents things fairly (one exception: in his discussion of the Rosenbergs, Zinn strongly implies their innocence e and suggests their conviction was essentially a propaganda coup. In truth, documents revealed after the fall of the Soviet Union and available to the grand jury at the time prove their guilt. While this information was presumably unavailable when the work was first published, it should have been added to subsequent editions). What’s more, he is correct in his argument that the preponderance of American history os of the “top-down” approach, focused exclusively on the activities of statesmen and the upper classes, and the rest of the country is presented wit ha few token asides where it is presented at all. A People’s History goes a long way to address this imbalance, and its success is justified.

The Life and Times of the thunderbolt kid - bill bryson

I have read all of Bill Bryson's books at least once (excepting his newest, which I just bought this afternoon and will start shortly), most of them twice, but The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid holds a personal record for me. I'm not sure how many times I have read it, but a conservative estimate would put it at six. It is my literary comfort food, the book I pick up with the most relish, the one that hits me in the belly with a pang every time I reach its final pages, when I know it will be a couple of years at least before I pick it up again.

Though most famous as a travel writer, Bryson's books--especially his later works--cover a wide range of subjects, from science to history to literature. If I had to categorize him as a particular kind of writer, i would do so (somewhat pretentiously, I admit) as a chronicler of knowledge. Whatever his subject, he covers it with verve, intensity,and an unparalleled wit.

Among his works, Thunderbolt Kid is something of an outlier. It is ostensibly an autobiography, but in Bryson's characteristic meandering style, it becomes as much a biography of his era—1950s America--than of himself. He uses his own experiences as springboards to a discussion of the broader period, its strengths, its mores, its foibles and quirks. He peppers the text with interesting facts and arresting anecdotes, including bizarre news stories that serves as epigraphs for each chapter. The result is a rich exploration of America's apotheosis, told without jingoism but with pride.

Bryson’s prose, as always, is excellent. He is quite possibly the greatest comic writer of his time, and in Thunderbolt Kid he is at the top of his game. There are parts of this book that make me laugh every time I read them, even though I know they’re coming from pages away. While I would argue that his greatest, most out-of-the-park lines actually appear in A Walk in the Woods (his description of a bunk bed mattress, in which he notes that the previous occupant “didn’t so much suffer from incontinence as rejoice in it” can get a belly laugh out of me from memory alone, pretty much at will), I think Thunderbolt Kid is, when taken as a whole, his funniest book, and also his most touching. I already look forward to reading it again.