Author Archives: gordonhastings

05.03.23
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NICKEL BOYS/COLSON WHITEHEAD

Colson Whitehead’s novel, NICKEL BOYS is the real story of a 111 year old State of Florida “Reform School. ” Colson’s characters live the story of the NICKEL ACADEMY, which is actually a chamber of horrors, brutality, sexual abuse and racism. Children disappear into a hidden cemetery located behind the what is in reality a children’s prison.

Elwood, a black youth abandoned by his parents and raised by his grandmother is a teenager with great potential. He becomes a NICKEY BOY by inadvertently riding in the wrong car as he heads off to college. But Elwood is a reformer, a believer that things can change even from inside an abusive and racist ” Reform School.” He must first survive and then set about his work.

Colson weaves reality into an enormously compelling and emotional narrative as can only be accomplished by a great novelist. From within the decadence of NICKEL ACADEMY and the plight of those incarcerated there comes a glimmer of hope for reform from a determined Elwood.

Colson’s novel is representative of numerous ” Reform Schools” operating throughout America during the early to mid twentieth century. Fortunately most were closed but the stories of hundreds of “missing” youths remain to be discovered.

04.29.23
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TRANSATLANTIC/NETFLIX/JULIE ORRINGER

Netflix has made a great new series titled Transatlantic based the novel The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer. The streaming service has done an excellent film creation of this WWII story by staying close to the book. The seven part series released in April 2023 stars Cory Michael Smith as Varian Fry and Gillian Thomas as Madeline. Great casting!

Check our our overview of The Flight Portfolio and our review her novel The Invisible Bridge right here at GGR.

I always felt that The Invisible Bridge was also worthy of a screenplay but thrilled to see The Flight Portfolio now streaming. Orringer is a terrific writer.

04.26.23
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HOW THE WORD IS PASSED/CLINT SMITH

HOW THE WORD IS PASSED. It is all in the telling and by whom. The Lost Cause myths remain. According to his travels and the first hand experiences author Clint Smith uncovers misinformation and obfuscation in the re-telling of the history of slavery in America. Deliberate distortion remains throughout the nation including at some of the most prominent historical sites but there is some good news in the efforts of a few to set the record straight.

Smith’s book is all about RECKONING and the nations failure to digest the accurate history of slavery. Smith visits the Whitney Plantation, Blandford Cemetery and the Angola Prison in Louisiana. His interviews include Galveston Island, Texas where Juneteenth was born, New York City and Goree island in Africa home to The House of Slaves and the infamous The Door of No Return.

Among the most potent of revelations in the book is Smith’s interviews and observations at Jefferson’s Monticello. He lays bare any illusions or myths about Jefferson’s deep and vile relationship with slavery. He exposes the hypocrisy of Jefferson’s life in facts and figures.

I urge those who wish to see the urgency of America reckoning with its history of slavery and who feel the need to undo the harm in perpetrating the Lost Cause to not miss a page of HOW THE WORD IS PASSED. You may also wish to search Ibram Kendi here in Gordons Good Reads.

02.03.23
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CONFIDENCE MAN/MAGGIE HABERMAN

The book title says it all! Maggie Haberman’s CONFIDENCE MAN THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE BREAKING OF AMERICA is another outstanding example of excellent journalism from this Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist.

CONFIDENCE MAN is exactly what one would expect from Haberman, thorough unbiased reporting. Very little drama, all facts. Another piece of scholarly reporting. She tells the story better than anyone so I will not make an attempt to do so.

02.02.23
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THIS IS HAPPINESS/NIALL WILLIAMS

The title THIS IS HAPPINESS speaks for itself. The title of Niall Williams‘ book aptly describes a wonderful GOOD READ.

The author transports the reader to the smallest of villages in Ireland and quickly the characters and imagery flow from the pages to create a page turning narrative. A tentative seventeen year old studying for the priesthood returns home and circumstances there cause great reflection. Add to the story the coming of electricity to this forgotten outpost bringing with it a search for a long lost love and a cross generational endearing friendship.

Clear the decks for this great novel. It will indeed bring happiness.

02.02.23
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BLACK HISTORY MONTH GGR SELECTIONS

This is a list of books you may find of great interest during Black History Month. You can check them out on this site at gordonsgoodreads.com

BELOVED, TONI MORRISON

THE LOVE LETTERS OF W.E.B. DUBOIS

BLACK RADICAL/WILLIAM MONROE TROTTER

STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING/IBRAM KENDI

BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME/ TA-NEHSI COATS

THE 1619 PROJECT

THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS, W.E.B. DUBOIS

FREDERICK DOUGLAS, PROFIT OF FREEDOM

02.02.23
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THE REVOLUTIONARY-SAMUEL ADAMS

A fabulous scholarly work by Pulitzer Prize Author Stacy Schiff. At last Samuel Adams is catapulted into his proper and deserved Revolutionary Role! Step aside Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere and make way for the the person who with brilliance of action and pen united the Colonies and made them ready for the Declaration of Independence.

“Why would a people living in the finest climate under the mildest government blessed with land and religious liberty, protected by the greatest power on earth, viscously defy a parent state that had “nursed their tender years”? Samuel Adams blamed that “ancient republican spirit” which the first settlers had planted and which had flourished in the New England soil. ” Samuel Adams had at his disposal a single weapon: the word : liberty.”

When I finished reading The Revolutionary Samuel Adams Broadway’s Hamilton flashed in my mind. Lin Manuel Miranda might find an equal or better subject in Samuel Adams.

10.05.22
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WASTELANDS/CORBAN ADDISON

WASTELANDS could have been a John Grisham novel. No, it is a true story of the industrial pork industry that remains in existence in Eastern North Carolina.

Wastelands is not about the horrible treatment of industrially raised pork ( that is another horror subject) but rather a story of the historical havoc raised upon the environment by giant corporations. Author John Addison focuses his research on exactly how huge industrial pork farms on the Eastern Shore of North Carolina have made living conditions for neighbors literally intolerable. It is the story of how a small group of black citizens said “enough is enough” and took the giant Smithfield Corporation and its surrogates to the court house.

Addison is by profession a novelist. A walk Across the Sun, The Garden of Burning Sand, The Tears of Dark Water, A Harvest of Thorns. WASTELANDS reads like a novel but every word is true.

” Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up.” -Abraham Lincoln.

They did and they won!

10.05.22
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BELOVED/ TONI MORRISON

INFANTICIDE. A black mother suffering human bondage for her lifetime says, “Not for this daughter, this Beloved, no life for her.” Sethe felt the last breath drain from her infant daughter. Her spirit returns.

Toni Morrison captures the depth of America’s Slave narrative in Beloved, her eleventh novel. So worthy of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. There are libraries filled with works on this subject but Beloved is complete, deep, emotional an overwhelming accomplishment by a brilliant storyteller. The book stands alone. Do you believe in ghosts, spirits? You will. Beloved is a careful, considered, committed read but the library of slavery is not complete without these emotionally crafted pages by Morrison. The author, who also wrote The Bluest Eye died in 2019 at the age of eighty eight. I almost feel that an apology is necessary for not having read Morrison sooner in my personal quest for understanding the depth of slavery.

Hear the words that rang out for years after the Emancipation Proclamation. “They had a single piece of paper directing them to a preacher on DeVore Street. The war had been over four or five years then, but nobody white or black seemed to know it.”

” Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes, eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky, four colored schools burned to the ground, men whipped like children, children whipped like adults, black women raped by the crew.”

If you think you have read enough of this story. You have not. Beloved has much to say. Read on.

09.07.22
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HORSE by GERALDINE BROOKS

It is amazing to me that HORSE by Geraldine Brooks is not high on the New York Times Best Seller List! I place it among the two best novels I have read this year and yes the Boston Globe, ( Brooks lives in Massachusetts), lists it as number #1.

HORSE, weaves its central characters across two centuries. By definition Horse is a novel but the storytelling is so well researched for me it falls into the historical novel category.

You will be enthralled with a story set in both the 19th and 21st centuries. Brookes ties her characters and the story line across generations and social issues of the time. Lexington, the greatest thoroughbred that ever lived. The Black Slave horse groom Jarret, generations of bondage, racism, wealthy southern dandies, the Civil War, Quantrell, Jim Crow, 21st century police violence against Black men, the world of equine art and a love story between a Smithsonian scientist from Australia and a Nigerian American art historian. The storyline blend is simply perfect. Indeed a page turner in every good sense of the term.

Whether or not you love horses this novel tells a story wherein every word, scent, event, every social issue and injustice could very well be non-fiction.

And yes, with all of the wonderful major roles in HORSE, watch for Clancy. You’ll see.

I think there is much of Geraldine Brooks in this book.

Also by Geraldine Brooks The Secret Chord and Caleb’s Crossing. ( Search gordonsgoodreads.com)