REVIEWED BY LEE AITKEN
NOVEL
CRITIC'S CHOICE
Several years after Emile Zola made the racially charged trial of Lt. Alfred Dreyfus a cause célèbre in France, Sherlock Holmes's creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, came to the aid of a young Anglo-Indian named George Edjali. The son of a thoroughly Anglicized vicar in Staffordshire, England, Edjali was a modest solicitor convicted of mutilating livestock. This absurd miscarriage of justice provoked Conan Doyle to bend his rule against loosing Holmes's investigative skills on real-life cases. The author won a pardon for Edjali and shamed Britain into creating a court of appeals, yet the incident soon faded into obscurity. Now Barnes—providing further evidence of his remarkable versatility—has fleshed out this story into a richly imagined fiction that follows Conan Doyle and Edjali, in alternating chapters, from childhood to old age. The older man, Conan Doyle, comes alive as an adventurer with a fine mind. Raised in straitened circumstances, he ends up trapped by a chivalric sense of duty between a beloved mistress and his ailing wife—seeking physical challenges and embracing the era's vogueish “spiritism.” In contrast, Edjali is bookish and shy and perplexed by the venomous pranks that plague his mixed-race family. The case that brings them together, briefly, in midlife unfolds with the measured suspense of an Edwardian mystery. The result is a delightful read.
edited by Joni B. Cole, Rebecca Joffrey, and B.K. Rakhra
REVIEWED BY LISA KAY GREISSINGER
NONFICTION
This satisfying collection of diaries from 34 women across America details the events of one day in the lives of each: June 29, 2004. From Laraine Harper, manager of a legal brothel near Las Vegas and mother hen to 25 prostitutes, to Cady Coleman, an astronaut managing parenthood and a long-distance marriage, to the sole celebrity—Johnny Cash's daughter Rosanne (below)—each writes honestly about her day. The ensemble is simultaneously mundane and captivating—it resonates with drama, humor and pathos. This is one unremarkable day you'll wish could go on forever.
“I miss Dad so much. The shock of losing him is wearing off, but once in a while I am still hit with that sense of incredulous panic…. The grief, that doesn't wear off in the slightest.”
—Rosanne Cash
PHOTO BOOK
A lensman who spent much of his 50-year career at LIFE, John Loengard put Ronald Reagan, Marilyn Monroe and Brassaï (left, on the cover of Loengard's new book As I See It) in a fresh perspective. Other notable subjects: a giant panda performing in China in 1987.
I Married My Mother-In-Law edited by Ilena Silverman A funny, touching, thoughtful anthology of “tales of in-laws we can't live with—and can't live without,” as the subtitle puts it, by writers including Michael Chabon and Martha McPhee
Souled American by Kevin Phinney In his eminently readable debut, Phinney describes pop music as a history of race relations, telling his story by examining the careers of Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke and others.
Sundown Towns by James Loewen Sociologist Loewen's disturbing look at the history—and surprising prevalence—of communities that excluded blacks demonstrates how deeply racism is woven into the American fabric.
Trail of Feathers by Robert Rivard In 1998, San Antonio Express-News reporter Philip True was murdered on assignment in an isolated part of Mexico; here, the gripping story of his disappearance and the struggle to bring his killers to justice.
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