Customer Reviews

The Gettin Place

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Straight give us an utterly new set of insights into the racial dynamics of Southern California. Her characters are brave, complicated, and we care deeply for them. Moreover, she gives readers an unprecedented understanding of the deadly and yet not uncreative and sometimes brilliant workings of gang-banging in African American communities. This complex story of multiple subjectivities is rendered with a style whose beauty is so fierce, it will make you weep.

AN UNFORGETTABLE READING EXPERIENCE.

This is Susan Straight's best work so far. It is a crime/mystery story, a richly populated family drama, and a revelation of contemporary social ills and their deep roots in history. It educates the reader without being pedantic, through the diverse voices who tell tales that are not available anywhere else in print. No clear solutions are given for the racial and economic tensions explored in the book, since the "One World" philosophy promoted by a few characters appears to be little more than a slogan and consumer lifestyle favoring exoticism. The depth of the characters' self-exploration, the richness of their histories, and their intimate connection to the land are what prevent the reader from falling into utter despair and vacant horror over the many atrocities in the novel. This book has left me wondering about many issues, including: why do I never hear or see anything about this author? (I discovered her first novel by chance in the library and have been a fan ever since). Miscellaneous observation: this book contains the word "whorl" more times than any book I've read.

The book is magnificent. The plot weaves in and out highlighting issues of supreme importance. Hosea and Oscar Thompson are shadow men. Maybe they killed in the past, Hosea a guard, Oscar a man who bothered his wife. Hosea has an auto yard and towing service and Oscar a barbecue joint in Treetown on the edge of Rio Seco, a seemingly fictitious city east of Los Angeles. The novel includes a sort of coming of age tale of Hosea's youngest son, Marcus, even though Marcus is thirty already. Marcus teaches history at the local high school. Unlike his brothers who work in the car yard and attended the neighborhood school before it was closed when district lines were abolished to achieve integration, he attended college, at least in spurts. Hosea's wife cares for three grandchildren. There is a fire in the yard and two dead white women are discovered in an immovable car on the premises, notwithstanding the fact that the gate was locked. Hosea is shot because he fails to drop his own rifle quickly enough to suit the police, and he is held in the hospital in the jail ward. As the strands of the story develop it becomes apparent that the family is the focus of actions to remove them from their land in the name of progress and aesthetics, aesthetics that is from a white perspective. The circumstances are particularly poignant since Hosea and Oscar moved from Greenwood driven out by the riot and fire in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. Thank you Susan Straight. What a joy it is to read your book.

The getting place is the story of marcus and his brother's trying to find out whose being killing people on their father's property. The book show's the importance of family, sibling rivarly, and how the family get through everday problems. The brother's are also reunited with their sister and nephrew, who had left home, and no one knew were she was. I think the author did good in writing about the lifes of black characthers.