Customer Reviews

Black & White

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read Lewis Shiner's Black & White with no prior knowledge of him or his previous work; the short blurb from Publisher's Weekly piqued my interest enough to warrant a purchase and I was not disappointed. It has all the elements of a great suspense and mystery novel filled with insightful observations on America's complicated views on society, identity, and race relations.

The novel opens in Durham with Michael, an introverted illustrator, attending his terminally ill father, Robert, who has chosen to return North Carolina in preparation of his death. Michael openly pleads with his father to address lifelong questions he has had regarding his conflicting birth date, and his mother's (Ruth) over-attentiveness towards his father, yet perfunctory relationship with him. When Robert decides to elicit a deathbed confession of sorts, it leads to the discovery of a body of a local, outspoken Civil Rights activist who disappeared amid controversy nearly 40 years ago. Michael soon finds himself in the midst of a murder investigation, which only ignites the curiosity of his father's clandestine past. The trail leads him down a slippery slope into the recesses of Hayti, Durham's historically African American community, once the most prosperous neighborhood in the South, envied by whites but devastated under the Urban Renewal initiatives of yesteryear. In a series of flashbacks, Shiner gives life and voice to a youthful Robert and Ruth. The reader follows Michael on a deep dark path to the truth steeped in danger. Michael learns of the mysterious magnetism of a seductive voodooienne and a host of suppressed family secrets amid the backdrop of America's racial and political pallet during the turbulent 1960s.

I learned quite a bit reading this page-turning novel, thus it entertained and educated and that makes it a winner for me. I kept turning pages, making notes in the margins to follow the mystery, and googled to find out more about events and locations mentioned therein. A great book that has made my 2008 favorites list - one that is recommended to historical fiction and/or mystery/suspense fans.

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub
July 25, 2008

Whoo! Good stuff, this! Social realism, multigenerational thriller, murder mystery; whatever name you give it, it's a tale of past and present, of race, and of a man's search into his origins, all spiced with murder and a touch of voodoo.

It travels between the 1960s and 2000s through the family of Michael Cooper. 35-year-old comics illustrator Michael has come to North Carolina with his father Robert and mother Ruth to respect Robert's dying wishes that he spend his last few weeks back in Durham.

Michael is looking for answers, for a connection with his parents before it's too late. They've always seemed odd to him, and he's never felt like he belongs in his own family. As his father has only days left to live, Michael is desperate to find out the truth about his past. He can't even find a record of his birth.

Michael's past is slowly and elegantly revealed through lengthy flashbacks from his father's and mother's lives, and as he learns more about himself he gets embroiled in a very heavy present, complete with mystery family members, more race riots, and big reveals.

I was mesmerized by this book. Shiner is a master of detail and completely captures the flavor of both decades he's writing about. Political, timely, fascinating -- I can't recommend it strongly enough!!

I'm 48 years old and it's discouraging to know and remember that some of the worst acts of racism took place within my lifetime, the church bombing in Georgia where four little girls were murdered, Medgar Evers, the dogs of Birmingham sicced on people for nothing more than wanting to sit at a diners counter. I also have personal memories of it. A neighbor who called black people "coons," a time of blockbusters, and "changing" neighborhoods. Conversely, I also witnessed the attitudes towards it change through the work of Martin Luther King Jr, and the exposure of the blatant and outrageous attitudes and behavior of racists.

Black and White is about Michael whose father Robert is dying of lung cancer. For reasons known only to himself goes to Durham, North Carolina to die. Michael follows him and discovers that although he was born in Durham there's no birth certificate for him, and so starts the search into the mysteries of his father's past that will have reverberations and consequences in Michael's life.

Black and White tells the story of Michael and his family from their own point of view and in their own time. The story of Michael's father takes us to 1962 when he comes to Durham as a young, idealistic engineer who wants to make his mark on the world. He takes a job at an engineering firm, and he becomes intrigued by the Hyati section of Durham, the black area of the city where exists a parallel society created and enforced by segregation. Hyati offers Robert everything that's missing from his buttoned down suburban life, jazz, dancing, and love. In Hyati he meets Mercy Richards a stunningly beautiful black woman who he manages to woe and seduce, and Robert lives a parallel life of his own. Robert is already married to Ruth whose father is a powerful man in Durham white society with his status of leader of the white supremacist group The Night Riders of the Confederacy.

In his job at the engineering firm Robert is in charge of building a highway through the middle of Hyati. The residents have been assured that section that is demolished for the highway will be replaced. The powers that be in Durham, including Robert's father-in-law, have already made sure that Hyati will not be replaced. In fact, they've made plans to demolish that whole section of the city. On his forays into Hyati, Robert meets and befriends Barrett Howard, a black activist who is trying to save Hyati. When Howard goes missing we discover Robert may be involved in his murder, albeit after the fact. It is from this that all the mysteries of Robert's life and all the other stories flow.

I hope I'm not giving too much away here. When Michael discovers his real mother is black, Mr. Shiner forces us to consider the nature of race. Are you black if you have even one drop of black blood in you? Or the much better proposition, if we're all given the same respect in life we're all just people and should be seen as such. A point which I think is driven home excellently by Michael in talking about a dog "a being whose life was black and white who only had to distinguish between friends, intruders and food."

At the core of Black and White are some truths or past realities. Hyati did exist in Durham, North Carolina, it was razed in the 60's for a highway to be put through. And of course, real groups such as KKK did exist at the time, as did the racism described by Mr. Shiner which at this point of time seem to be so gross as to make one wonder how such an attitude could exist and flourish, but it did and that's what we need to be cognizant of and vigilant about.

At this point in his career I think the only writer Lewis Shiner is in competition with is, himself. Shiner has always been good at verisimilitude, being able to create a scene for the reader then put you in the scene, living with those characters and caring about them. The plot drew me in. I constantly found myself wanting to know what happens next. And found myself fully involved with the characters and like at a movie, at times I found myself having a visceral reaction to what I was reading the sense of being at the edge of my seat, racing to see what happens to the characters if they`re able to get out of the predicament they find themselves in. Black and White is larger in scope and depth of subject than Shiner's previous books, although it plays to some of the same rhythms such as estrangement from a father. As this is also a theme I've encountered in my writing that could be well attributed to the fact that the generation of my father and Mr. Shiner's came from a different world where the fathers didn't interact much with the children. Fathers went to work and provided for the family and the mothers took care of the children. Early in the book I found some of the dialogue a little clunky. It was chunky with information as if Mr. Shiner is trying to assimilate the information from his research himself but that passes quickly. At times Michael acts impulsively, doing something that just seems like it's being done to drive the action of the plot ahead and not like how a person might react in a similar situation. Sometimes I didn't agree with how the characters felt and reacted maybe that's like life people may act differently than we might expect them to. And perhaps, the characters are entitled to feel the way they do about the situations they're in. There is a rapprochement at the end that feels inauthentic to everything that has preceded it, and a little awkward in accommodating it.

I think Lewis Shiner is one of the better authors we have writing today and not only do I think you should read this book but you should also check out Mr. Shiners other books such as Glimpses, and Say Goodbye.

This would be a great movie, and it is a super read. Interesting characters and fast-paced plot. Learned a lot about Voodoo, Black history, jazz & highway construction too. Fine writing style - accessible and thought-provoking - stunned that it is not on a best seller list.

When you start reading "Black and White" the author allows you savory simplicity to see the race issues in the deep south in the 1960's and 70's to be, just as the title implies, "Black and White." You are sure of who is wronged and who is doing the wronging and you relish in grudges and blame against the clearly cynical characters who are perpetuating a cycle of hatred. Then, just as you learn to find comfort in the simplicity that the author has created, he begins to tell the same story from a different view. Introducing each villainous character and their perspective, all the sudden, not making the issue back and white at all but instead morphing into shades of grey. This brilliantly written piece historical fiction finally brings you to conclusion you knew all along, but didn't want to believe, that race issues between black and white, are not black and white at all.