Two Dozen from 2011 (Pt. 2)

African American and Civil Rights history seemed to form a theme in some of my 2011 reading, but the underlying theme here was economics. (Also fitting into this category was Five Miles Away, A World Apart by UVA professor James E. Ryan, the story of how Richmond's Freeman and TJ high schools were -- or weren't -- integrated. Though a worthy volume, it didn't make the list mostly because of its dryer tone and legalistic focus.)

5 In American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare, journalist Jason DeParle finely balances the personal work and life stories of three "ordinary" women with historical background and 20th Century politics. He goes back to the origins of welfare legislation (originally intended mainly for widowed (white) mothers) in the 1930s and charts how welfare programs grew during and post WWII, "exploding" by the mid-1960s. At the same time, DeParle describes the hardships facing ex-slaves in the South and African Americans' eventual great northern migration, interviewing stalwart Hattie Mae Crenshaw, born to Mississippi sharecroppers in 1937, who traveled north, eventually settling in Chicago. As DeParle chronicles "welfare reform" and "welfare-to-work" programs of the 1990s, he interweaves the stories of Hattie Mae's descendents, Jewell, Opal, and Angie, three mothers who move to Milwaukee in search of better government benefits and find themselves trying to make ends meet despite legislative upheavals. Crucially, DeParle makes the point that "no one survived on welfare alone." For the women DeParle profiles, welfare becomes one resource among others, like (unreported) minimum wage jobs of various stripes and (unreported) earnest or mercenary relationships with men with (legal or illegal) sources of income. Importantly, DeParle also takes a look at the government and social worker's perspective, spending considerable time profiling a caseworker. While DeParle find evidence of many well-meaning official representatives, and even a few that are marginally competent, overall he paints an entirely fact-based picture of hideously incompetent and corrupt buerocracies. DeParle's overall story is nuanced and thought-provoking: challenging readers to think critically and seriously about social justice and public policy and on par with Carol Stack's All Our Kin in making understandable an urban, African American way of living that might seem incomprehensible to outsiders. Even if the particular legislative battles described are no longer making headlines, American Dream is still a book I'd recommend.

6 Although nonfiction, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc reads like a soap opera. At times, I had to shamefacedly ask myself whether I was getting too much enjoyment out of the salacious details of who was who's baby's daddy and who was going to jail next. However, this book is really a remarkably detailed, sympathetic but far from rose-coloured profile of Americans with limited options trying to find success and meaning in their lives. Jessica, the proud girlfriend of a rich drug kingpin; Cesar, her ambitious younger brother; and Cesar's sometimes girlfriend, family-minded Coco, form the central cast; before the book is done, two of the three spend time in prison. Intergenerational violence and addiction have their place alongside individual hopes and passions. LeBlanc lets her characters (her subjects) speak and act for themselves.

7 The voice of preacher's son Timothy B. Tyson in Blood Done Sign My Name rings authentic and familiar. Writing a white perspective of the Civil Rights Movement (even a small part of it) can be tricky, but Tyson fully acknowledges the awkwardness and ambiguity of his position. He writes meaningfully of white, Southern churches divided, churches actively promoting white supremacism, and churches trying to do the right thing (perhaps largely ineffectively) by promoting desegregation and racial cooperation through peaceful means; as he introduces the character of black freedom fighter Ben Chavis, whose positions and actions are far more radical than those of Rev. Tyson, the younger Tyson questions whether equal rights could have been achieved without violence. Tyson gives his childhood impressions alongside adult research and reflections as he chronicles the 1970 killing of black veteran Henry Marrow and the trial and events that followed. Especially in a region that prides itself on remembering its history, the story of riots in Oxford and mobs in Wilmington, North Carolina, is one that should be much more well known. (I'm looking forward to seeing the movie, which just arrived from Netflix, and finding out what viewpoint it takes!)

8 The Help by Kathryn Stockett is another entry in the ambivalent field of white writers taking on the African American experience -- though Stockett's novel is really about the not-so-parallel experiences of her white characters as well as their black "help." It may be problematic that these black women speak in dialect, while Stockett's white middle class and society ladies use only the occasional Southernism, but Stockett's afterword explaining her choices shows at least that she's not thoughtlessly appropriating others' experiences. However well Stockett succeeds in her task of representing a black point of view, she definitely tells an enjoyable story. Stockett's strength is in telling the details of everyday life, from table decor to Junior League intrigue, and the small indignities (think: bathrooms) and larger injustices of servitude. The heart of the story is the friendship that develops between spoiled-but-not-rotten would-be-writer Skeeter and the maid Aibilene (but the most enjoyable characters are Minny and Celia). Though violence is not entirely ignored, Stockett probably underplays the real danger; if she gives us a story that is more inspirational tale and tribute to domestic help than realistic depiction of the Civil Rights movement, you'll want to read it nevertheless (even if just to find out what's in that cake).

9 Colson Whitehead is a delightful wordsmith, and in Apex Hides the Hurt, he finds a story that encourages wordplay. Our protagonist is a "nomenclature consultant," a namer of names who despite such career successes as the title slogan (Apex being the brand name for a Band-Aid rival that comes in shades reflecting ethnically diverse skintones) is going through a rough patch. He is challenged to choose a name for the small town now known as Winthrop after the industrialist family that founded its once-thriving barbed wire factory, but originally known as Freedom, a haven for former slaves. If the local millionaire entrepreneur has his way, Freedom/Winthrop will become New Prospera. Whitehead's meditation on market forces, multiculturalism, and "political" correctness is smart, sarcastic, funny, and all too honest in its appraisal of the challenges and absurdities of modern life.