Clearly political in its motivation and at minimum cautionary in its tone, the 1935 Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here was written as a warning against the possibility that fascism could rise in the United States of America. Set against the backdrop of notable European examples from the period in Germany and Italy, with many in the North American citizenry of the time oblivious to it, the work was timely then and arguably is again at the time of this review.
(Pictured here is Sinclair Lewis, writer of the political novel It Can’t Happen Here).
Concisely stated in this quotation from the Encyclopedia Britannica, the novel occurs “[d]uring the presidential election of 1936, [when] Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, observes with dismay that many of the people he knows support the candidacy of a fascist, Berzelius Windrip. When Windrip wins the election, he forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state. Jessup opposes him, is captured, and escapes to Canada.”
(Book covers for the Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here, which was first published in 1935).
The book It Can’t Happen Here bends towards a dystopianpessimism that highlights the baser instincts inherent in the fascist model of governing. The disdain for popular elections while subordinating individual will to the collective good are examined alongside abuses to human rights that grow more extreme as the novel continues. The dark subject matter builds while effectively offering the cautionary tale, or alarm, that the book intended.
Overall, the tone of the book coupled with the fact that it is election season at home worked for me at this time. I give It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis 4.0-stars on a scale of one-to-five.
(The writing career of Carson McCullers, shown here, saw its first success with the publishing of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter on June 4, 1940).
The central protagonist of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is John Singer, a deaf man living in a mill town of 1930s Georgia, a state in the southern region of the United States. Singer is left lonely when his Greek companion, a mute named Spiros Antonapoulos, is committed to a psychiatric hospital as insane. Singer becomes the glue for the community of disaffected misfits who confide their feelings to him with no understanding of his, John Singer’s, inner world.
(Alternate book covers for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers).
The remaining story focuses largely on the confidences placed into Singer, as quoted here, by “Mick Kelly, a tomboy who loves music and dreams of buying a piano; Jake Blount, an alcoholic labor agitator; Biff Brannon, the observant owner of a diner; and Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, an idealistic physician.” In the absence of spoken feedback from Singer, who communicated through sign language with Antonapoulos, each of Singer’s acquaintances assume that Singer emotionally sympathizes with their particular demographic. It was in this revelation that we as readers get to know the characters without addressing the pursuit of loved understanding that each of the characters’ needs. This comes to a head for the novel, and for Singer, when Antonapoulos suffers a fate that devastates Singer more than an insanity diagnosis.
(The title for the book The Heart is a Lonely Hunter came from the poem The Lonely Hunter by the Scottish poet William Sharp. Pictured here is Carson McCullers, the writer of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter).
The experience of the Carson McCullers book The Heart is a Lonely Hunter earns 4.0-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars for its heart, its unique narrative structure of using a mute as the protagonist, and the semi-autobiographical nature of the character Mick Kelly.
Music producer Rick Rubin, of Long Island, New York has had an immense impact on the music industry. His guidance for musicians hasn’t been to specific sound so much, as noted on this Encyclopædia Britannica entry, inasmuch as he has influenced already good artists to make better. The recognition of this leads us to the book written by Rubin named The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
(Rick Rubin wrote The Creative Act: A Way of Being, which was published on January 17, 2023).
As mentioned here by the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House, with this book Rubin “set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” In having read the book, my experience is that the producer and now author put seventy-eight (78) separate insights into approaching the artistry of work. Rubin offers approaches for considering what creativity is, how to engage it, and thoughts to consider choosing one method or another in getting to results.
(Shown here is Rick Rubin, a grammy winning producer, wrote The Creative Act: A Way of Being).
In introducing the book and suggesting possible ways to use the contents, Rubin wrote that “Nothing in this book is known to be true.” He added that he was sharing his thoughts, which aren’t facts; with this point fresh, he suggests using what is helpful while letting go of the rest. The wonderful construction of this book, along with the bountiful insights it includes, is that I found it accessible as a means for offering useful tips that might change over time as I would change. The power here helps me suggest the book. I give The Creative Act: A Way of Being as written by Rick Rubin 4.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 for its quality.
While the name for the condition has changed over time, bipolar disorder remains incurable. As stated in the Encyclopædia Britannica, “There are several types of bipolar disorder, in which the states of mania and depression may alternate cyclically, one mood state may predominate over the other, or they may be mixed or combined with each other.” The memoir Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love by Zack McDermott offers a firsthand account of the experiences the author has experienced with his early life and the onset of the illness.
(From left, Cindy Cisneros-McGilvrey (the Bird) and Zack McDermott (Gorilla), significant members within the memoir Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love written by McDermott).
The story of Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love begins with Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old public defender in Brooklyn, New York experiencing what we as the reader recognize as a mental break. The break has McDermott believing he’s starring in a reality television show without direct contact with a producer or director. The decline takes startling turns that lands him in a psychiatric hospital where a first diagnosis with Bipolar 1.
(A pair of alternate book covers for the Zack McDermott book Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love).
We are given a lucid, candid and, at times, heartbreaking look into the difficulties Zack McDermott, nicknamed the Gorilla by his mother, experiences. The careful details of McDermott‘s familial past, and the difficulties in Wichita, Kansas experienced by his mother through her own history with difficult husbands and tough luck outcome with a third love interest, are plenty for Cindy Cisneros-McGilvrey, nicknamed the Bird, to have lived through. The unfolding of their intertwined lives, the struggles for self-improvement and acceptance professionally, interpersonally, and in their collective romantic and employment goals throughout the course of this memoir are compassionately told, richly detailed, and compelling in their human interest perspectives.
(Zack McDermott wrote the book Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love, first published in 2017).
The journey of this book is one that I recommend. The sharing of a firsthand experience along with bringing in secondhand experiences of others responding to him, along with others interacting with him as well as others suffering on the bipolar / schizophrenia spectrum, can take some of the taboo and stigma away from a complex mental health problem that needs not be so challenging. I give Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love as written by Zack McDermott 4.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
(Alternate covers for the Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid’s Tale).
Offred, the primary protagonist responding to the world around her, narrates The Handmaid’s Tale in a manner that alternates between her present life and memories of her past. The memories frequently include added commentary and explanation that offers context and depth to what she discerns and how she, Offred, makes sense of the world that she inhabits. The world is one where a military coup killed the president and most members of the United Statescongress, leaving a country that became the Republic of Gilead.
(Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, which was first published in 1985).
The book picks up from a point shortly after this change to a dystopian republic, with the freedoms, decision-making and autonomy of women systematically curtailed in cruel and demeaning ways. The novel works to humanize how this would feel, and the ghastly and corrupting damage to women and society that experiencing this firsthand can have, should the worldview come to pass.
(Margaret Atwood, the writer of The Handmaid’s Tale, was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada).
In addition to severely curtailing women’s freedoms in the name of male control, the novel also addresses assigning women to various classes. The classes included “childless Wives of the Commanders; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the Wives and are called by the names of their assigned Commanders. Ranked under the Commanders are Guardians, who have police powers, and the society is permeated with government spies called Eyes. Those who cannot conform are sent to the Colonies,” as correctly mentioned by this Encyclopedia Brittanica reference. Further, African Americans (presumably as children of Noah‘s son Ham from the Bible), were additionally resettled.
The depth of the story that follows the framework above addressed tortuous household conditions regarding reproduction, life with Offred’s commander, Fred, grocery shopping with Ofglen, a handmaid to a separate commander, sightings of executed prisoners left hung in public, beastly reproductive rituals, and an odd interpersonal attempt to connect between Fred and Offred that adds depth to the narrative value for how stilted and repressive life really becomes in this world based in the not-to-distant future.
(Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testaments, first published in 2019, is Atwood‘s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale).
The premise of The Handmaid’s Tale is interesting. The narrative being primarily firsthand aids the engagement of the tale, with the message a timely one given political realities of the United States currently. That the narrative of this book expresses a fear for what lies behind much of what fuels the underlying disagreements about the decision-making in play is presented in an understandable and forthright manner. I rate The Handmaid’s Tale as written by Margaret Atwood at 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
There is much remarkable about the man who, but for the prominent general and first president of the United States, George Washington, might be remembered today as the first among “the most prominent statesmen of America’s Revolutionary generation,” which is a definition for Founding Father offered by the Encyclopædia Britannica. The two-episode documentary series offers much in terms of placing Franklin in context regarding who he was, how he went about making his mark in the world, and some contextual thinking around what Franklin can mean to American culture in today’s world.
(An image of Benjamin Franklin as a typesetter and printer from the Ken Burns documentary Benjamin Franklin).
Franklin was the youngest of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger Franklin. Josiah Franklin had seven children with his first wife and ten with Benjamin‘s mother, making for an upbringing that lacked a significant quantity of formal education. Raised Presbyterian with his father a soap and candle maker, we learned in Join or Die (1706-1774) that Benjamin was eventually apprenticed to his brother James Franklin, who had returned from a trip to England at age 24 with a printing press. That Josiah mediated the relationship between James and Benjamin, often to the just advantage of the talented and younger Benjamin.
(The New-England Courant was published by Benjamin Franklin‘s older brother, James. The younger Franklin was an apprentice in the print works of his elder brother).
The New-England Courant newspaper was founded in 1721 by James Franklin. Benjamin Franklin would learn the newspaper trade from this independent newspaper, inventing Silence Dogood as “a fictitious character, the widow of a country minister, “an Enemy to Vice, and a Friend to Virtue”. She abhorred arbitrary government and unlimited power,” as noted here as well as in the documentary. The newspaper eventually gave way in part owing to the religious sensibilities of Boston at the time, in addition to the liberal viewpoint of the newspaper. The lessons taken from the larger experience would serve the younger Franklin in a lifetime of business and political leadership that would follow. From the human perspective, that Benjamin would own slaves, trade in slavery using the newspaper as a vehicle, and benefitted from a lack societal integration in race while financially gaining from slavery were raised; slavery in the United States was not a strictly southern agricultural notion.
(Ken Burns directed the 2022 documentary titled Benjamin Franklin).
The documentary recounted the end of the apprenticeship between James and Benjamin, with adventures specifically in Philadelphia with the meeting of his future wife, Deborah Read Franklin. The first meeting of Deborah and then seventeen-year-old Benjamin was recounted to comedic effect in Benjamin Franklin‘s Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Read Franklin “watched the tall, husky youth pass her father’s shop on Philadelphia’s Market Street, chomping on a roll of bread. His pockets bulged with extra pairs of socks, and he carried two more rolls, one under each arm. As she watched, Deborah giggled out loud.” That Read Franklin ran the family businesses freed her husband to pursue local and national politics for decades before and after the American Revolution.
(From left, narrator Peter Coyote, Mandy Patinkin as the voice of Benjamin Franklin, and Josh Lucas as the voice of William Franklin in the Ken Burns documentary Benjamin Franklin).
The relationship between American revolutionary Benjamin Franklin and his illegitimate son William Franklin, was complicated. William would become a Royal Governor of New Jersey, actively working to circumvent diplomatic efforts of his father in favor of colonial independence. The circumstances of the coldness and break between father and son were largely shared during the An American (1775-1790) documentary episode. William‘s imprisonment in Connecticut came during the revolutionary war, with the wife of Benjamin‘s son, William, dying while William was in prison. “William Franklin and Benjamin Franklin never reconciled their differences,” as noted here as well as in the documentary. How future presidentJohn Adams and Benjamin Franklin were in conflict regarding ambassadorial approaches to France during the revolutionary period of American history was addressed interestingly in the Burns documentary.
(From left, Paul Giamatti as the voice of John Adams and Liam Neeson as the voice of House of Commons member Alexander Wedderburn, a bitter opponent of Benjamin Franklin, in the Ken Burns documentary Benjamin Franklin).
I have been particularly interested in Benjamin Franklin as a subject of study for at least a couple of decades. I found that the documentary offers insights into the man and his role in the formation of what is the United States. That information I had encountered previously was revisited in this documentary did not feel distracting. Many subjects and themes within this film were not specifically mentioned within this review. I grant the documentary Benjamin Franklin as directed by Ken Burns 4-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
(David Zucchino wrote the 2021 Pulitzer Prize winning book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy).
The Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898 occurred in a fashion wherein the “the multiracial … city government of Wilmington, North Carolina, was violently overthrown on November 10, 1898, and as many as 60 Black Americans were killed in a premeditated murder spree that was the culmination of an organized months-long statewide campaign by white supremacists to eliminate African American participation in government and permanently disenfranchise Black citizens of North Carolina” (Encyclopedia Britannica).
(This historical marker in remembrance of the Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898 was installed in Wilmington, North Carolina to remember the violence and government overthrow committed in the name of skin color).
In the months leading up to the election of November 1898 in North Carolina, virulent hatred was stirred between predominantly white and black populations. The gains of African Americans in the south with Reconstruction following the American Civil War was not met well with those that lost political, economic and social control following the war. Social stereotypes were used to instigate angry or bitter disagreement spurred in part through “virulent racist propaganda” (Encyclopedia Britannica) perpetuated in large measure by newspapers in Raleigh, Charlotte and Wilmington. The notion was “to eliminate forever, by ballot or bullet, voting and office-holding by Blacks” (Encyclopedia Britannica) in North Carolina. The means of this were spelled out in Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy.
(Editor Alex Manley‘s Daily Record office was burned in the Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898).
The black-owned newspaper The Daily Record in Wilmington was a specific target of the coup and massacre in the build-up and conduct of the rioting that occurred as part of the coup. Alex Manly editorialized for The Daily Record. “In an editorial published August 18, 1898, Manly challenged interracial sexual stereotypes, condemning white men for taking advantage of black women. His assertion that it was no worse for a white woman to be sexually involved with a black man than a black woman to be sexually involved with a white man infuriated conservative local Democrats, who were able to capitalize on white fears of interracial intimacy at the ballot box” (Blackpast.org). This debate fanned negative sentiment against the multi-culturalism across North Carolina and the American south, in addition to putting Manly‘s life at risk.
(The Daily Record newspaper was burned in the Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898. This image is used on the cover of David Zucchino‘s 2020 book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy).
The book itself tells the story of the above with an engaging degree of detail, intrigue, and depth. The information shared goes well beyond the notion of dates and names into identifying motivations, methods and precisely who had something to gain, to lose, and circumstances of both. I was stricken by the use of the media to fan popular opinion against reason, fairness and self-interest with such intensity. The power of group thinking overrode interpersonal motivation and the tendency towards stewardship for many. This is a clear story that David Zucchino captures with Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy.
(David Zucchino wrote Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, which was released in January 2020).
There are many books on the relationships among groups in the United States that you can aim to learn from. It is my feeling that you can do worse than Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino; I grant the book 4-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
Should I mention American spy film and director Alfred Hitchcock in the same sentence, what movie comes to mind? Were I to mention that the film rolled out shortly after the United States joined World War Two? How about noting that the film is a notable thriller with an important feature atop the Statue of Liberty in New York City, New York? Many of you would have come to the film titled Saboteur (1942).
(From left, Robert Cummings as Barry Kane and Priscilla Lane as Patricia (Pat) Martin in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Saboteur).
Barry Kane, as portrayed by Robert Cummings, finds himself framed for killing a friend of his at their aircraft factory in California to begin the movie Saboteur. Kane is taken into custody by the police, who doubt his testimony that a German spy named Frank Fry, as portrayed by Norman Lloyd, has made Kane look guilty while have been the perpetrator on his own.
(From left, Norman Lloyd as Frank Fry and Priscilla Lane as Patricia (Pat) Martin in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Saboteur).
Kane escapes police custody, only to be joined while subsequently pursuing Fry by Patricia (Pat) Martin. Priscilla Lane portrays Martin, who accepts the police line from the beginning. Much of the early tension of the film ties to Kane’s escape from the police, encountering the seemingly respectable Charles Tobin, and then meeting and finally correcting Martin’s incorrect impression of the truth.
(From left, Robert Cummings as Barry Kane and Otto Kruger as Charles Tobin in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Saboteur).
The ability to escape the police for Kane, and then Charles Tobin, proves fortuitous. Tobin, as portrayed by Otto Kruger, turns out to be working with the police, the FBI, and a band of citizens that don’t reveal themselves until after Kane and Patricia (Pat) Martin wind up in a ghost town called Soda City. A circus convoy gets Kane and Martin to Soda City, although the tension of this extended scene and whether there is in fact help from the circus workers when confronting the larger conspiracy is worth checking out the way cinema worked nearly 80-years ago.
(From left, Clem Bevans as Neilson and Alan Baxter as Freeman in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Saboteur).
While in Soda City, Kane and Martin come to learn that the saboteurs, at least Frank Fry, Charles Tobin, and their police supporters, aim to blow up the Hoover Dam (aka the Boulder Dam). The damn supplies water and power for parts of southern California, Arizona and Nevada with water from the Colorado River. It is then that the audience meets Freeman and Neilson, as portrayed by Alan Baxter and Clem Bevans, respectively.
(Alma Kruger as Mrs. Henrietta Sutton in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Saboteur).
Through some astute self protection and spy craft, Kane gains the confidence of Freeman and Neilson. Transportation east along with revelations of treachery near the harbors in and around New York City are revealed to Kane. At the home of Mrs. Henrietta Sutton, as portrayed by Alma Kruger, Patricia (Pat) Martin and Barry Kane are separated while in the company of a ball sponsored by Sutton, inclusive of Freeman, Neilson, Tobin and a cabal of other dissidents aiming to hurt the American war effort. Whether and how things resolve for the parties in conflict, in part, is what leads the audience to Liberty Island (formerly Bedloe’s Island), New York.
(From left, Saboteur director Alfred Hitchcock, his daughter Patricia and actor Robert Cummings).
As noted by the Encyclopædia Britannica, Saboteur‘s “central plot—about German infiltration of sensitive American industries—hit a nerve with audiences, who were paranoid about spies.” In offering an emotionally resonant movie at a time it was wanted with suspenseful scenes written by Dorothy Parker, Joan Harrison and Peter Viertel, I tip my hat to Saboteur with a rating of 4.0-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
Matt Lynn Digital 