Raymond Arsenault's THE SOUND OF FREEDOM reviewed in the Boston Globe

Three score and 10 years ago, a concert emancipated a dream

By Saul Austerlitz
April 26, 2009; Boston Globe

"The crowd condenses. It's standing room only, flowing the length of the reflecting pool and down West Potomac Park. The floor of this church is grass. The columns of this nave are budding trees. The vault above, an Easter sky." The date is April 9, 1939, the setting is the Lincoln Memorial, and the assembled audience is gathered prayerfully to hear Marian Anderson sing. Delia Dailey, proud scion of a "Talented Tenth" family, is about to meet the love of her life, physicist and German Jewish émigré David Strom. Black and white, African and European, intersect and commingle, and the dream of a race-blind, mulatto future is, if only for a brief hour, attained.

Delia and David are only figments of the imagination of novelist Richard Powers in his masterful 2003 work, "The Time of Our Singing," but his choice of Anderson's concert as heady symbol of racial integration is deliberate, and in its own way perfect. The story of how Anderson ended up on the steps of the memorial, performing before a crowd of tens of thousands that included her most prominent champion, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, is a tangle of the miraculous and the enervating and is well told, if overly padded, by Raymond Arsenault in "The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America."

It all began with little thought for posterity. Anderson - acclaimed by conductor Arturo Toscanini as "a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years" - was planning an American tour, after a triumphant European season. Washington, D.C., an important concert stop both for its status as the nation's capital and because of its large African-American community, was the largest city in the country without a municipal auditorium. In fact, the only venue of any size was Constitution Hall, owned and run by the Daughters of the American Revolution, a conservative women's organization.

The DAR flatly refused to book the black artist to play their whites-only hall. "No date will ever be available for Marian Anderson in Constitution Hall," her manager Sol Hurok was informed. The hideous irony of a group devoted to the ideals of the American Revolution turning an African-American performer away from a venue named after the document that guarantees freedom and equality to all was not lost on anyone. "I don't know what Constitution Hall will be used for that night," the Washington Post acidly observed. "Probably for a lecture on how everybody is free and equal in the United States."

For the full review, click here.

Op-Ed piece by David Blight, author of A SLAVE NO MORE, published in Boston Globe

Lincoln and the former slave
By DAVID W. BLIGHT
Boston Globe, February 12, 2009

TODAY, on Lincoln's birthday, I will be in Cohasset - 98 percent white and mostly affluent - to honor the life of one of its own who was neither. John Washington was a former slave who settled in Cohasset long after the Civil War, and is buried in Woodside Cemetery. We might never have known who John Washington was were it not for the discovery of a narrative he wrote about his struggles to free himself from slavery, which came to light in 2003.

In this season of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial, we would do well to remember the ways African-American slaves felt their own connections to the author of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln described that document as "the central act of my administration, and the greatest event of the 19th century." John Washington could not have agreed more, and he played his own small part in bringing it about.

On April 18, 1862, in Fredericksburg, Va., Washington, an urban, literate 24-year-old slave, escaped across the Rappannock River to the safety of Union lines. In a scene that suddenly threw the meaning of the Civil War into bold relief, an officer asked Washington about Confederate forces and conditions in strategic Fredericksburg. Washington had "stuffed his pockets with rebel newspapers" and distributed them to his interrogators. They were puzzled at Washington's intelligence and his fervor; one asked him if he wanted to be free. Washington answered loudly, "by all means!" In his narrative, the intrepid Washington remembered the moment: "Dumb with joy, I thanked God and laughed!"

To read the rest of the article, click here.

A SLAVE NO MORE, David Blight, and Julian Houston in the Boston Globe

An ex-slave in Cohasset
Town largely unaware of late resident's memoir

A family photo taken between 1913 and 1918, in Cohasset. From left: Annie Washington, John Washington, their son James (standing), and his wife, Catherine. (Courtesy of The Alice Jackson Stuart Family Trust)

By Megan Woolhouse
Globe Staff / August 25, 2008

COHASSET - John Washington may be one of the most illustrious residents of this swank seaside town, albeit one few people have heard of.

At the Cohasset Farmers Market last week, Charlie Field had his own guess as to Washington's claim to fame.

"Is he George's brother?" he asked as he pushed his granddaughter in a stroller.

No. John Washington lived in Cohasset as a retired sign painter, a life far removed from his younger years as a Virginia slave. Washington fled Virginia in the chaos of the Civil War, helped the Union Army, and later migrated to Washington, D.C., and ultimately Cohasset, where he died and was buried 90 years ago this year. But what makes Washington's emancipation story unique is that - unlike the millions who endured slavery - he wrote it down.

The manuscript, one of only 120 that have surfaced since the Civil War, was the subject of the 2007 book "A Slave No More" by Yale University professor David Blight. The original manuscript, extremely rare and penned on loose-leaf paper, sits in a locked vault at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston alongside the papers of Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Yet in Cohasset, once a rich haven for the Yankee elite, where a replica water spigot in the town center gets special historic recognition, Washington's story is a historical footnote, if that. The Cohasset Historical Society does not keep a copy of Blight's book, which examines narratives by Washington and another former slave.

"I don't think the town knows anything about John Washington," said Cohasset Historical Society curator David H. Wadsworth, 78. "There isn't much when it comes to black history in Cohasset."

For decades, the craggy, majestic shoreline of Cohasset drew Boston's wealthy leather barons, who built mansions overlooking the water. And the Bancroft family, former owners of the Wall Street Journal and Barron's Weekly, has deep roots in the community.

Historically, the South Shore town has been so exclusive that it shunned the likes of Joseph P. Kennedy, who unsuccessfully sought membership at Cohasset Golf Club before his son became president. Today, the community remains nearly exclusively white. In the 2000 census, 13 of the town's 7,200 residents were African-American. All of which makes Washington's life there that much more remarkable.

For the full article, click here.

Benjamin Taylor's THE BOOK OF GETTING EVEN and Steerforth Press in the Boston Globe

Sitting back from publisher's role, his eye for talent's still true
By Kathleen Burge / August 3, 2008

Early this summer, a little-known novel ("DeNiro's Game") published by a little-known publishing house (New Hampshire's Steerforth Press) won one of the world's largest literary awards.

Roland Pease, fiction editor for Steerforth Press in New Hampshire, has been instrumental in discovering new writing talent, such as Rawi Hage, author of 'DeNiro's Game.'

HE READS 'EM BEFORE WE DO
It was a coup for a Cambridge man, Roland Pease, who edited the US version of Rawi Hage's book, which was first published in Canada. But it was not his first.

Pease, who ran his independent literary publishing house Zoland Books for 15 years, has a knack for finding talented but undiscovered writers among the hundreds who slog through manuscripts that will never become the pages of a book.

At Zoland, Pease was the first publisher of Ha Jin, who later won a National Book Award for his novel "Waiting." Pease also published the first book of poems by Anne Porter; her work became a finalist for a National Book Award for poetry. Porter, the widow of artist Fairfield Porter, was 83 when Pease put out her first book.

At Steerforth, where Pease, 61, has been fiction editor for the past few years, he chooses only a few books each year for publication. But several have won acclaim. Four of his past five titles, including Castle Freeman's "Go With Me," were named to Barnes & Noble's "Discover Great New Writers" series, said Chip Fleischer, Steerforth's publisher.

"His track record has been unbelievable," he said.

For the full article, click here.

Ruth Butler's HIDDEN IN THE SHADOW OF THE MASTER in the Boston Globe

Married to the Masters

By Jan Gardner, June 22, 2008
Boston Globe

Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, and Auguste Rodin were among a generation of French artists who turned away from traditional subjects such as the Bible and painted scenes from everyday life. In doing so, they immortalized their wives: the regal figure of Cezanne's wife, Hortense Fiquet, perched on a red armchair; a playful Camille Doncieux - Monet's wife - in a kimono, fan in hand; the troubled visage of Rodin's wife, Rose Beuret.

In a new book, "Hidden in the Shadow of the Master: The Model-Wives of Cezanne, Monet, & Rodin" (Yale University), art historian Ruth Butler reports that the women's lives were "difficult and lonely - more unhappy than not." Each woman met her husband-to-be on the streets of Paris when he asked her to model for him. Each bore him a son before marriage. Money was a struggle for all three couples early on, and the challenges of living with a striving genius never ended, according to Butler, professor emerita at UMass-Boston.

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING in The Boston Globe

'The good and the bad are part of each other'
From author, a child's-eye view of China's Cultural Revolution

By David Mehegan
Globe Staff / June 9, 2008.

Once upon a time in faraway China, a little girl lived with her father and grandparents in a house with a courtyard in Beijing. She was happy, playing with her schoolmates and little brother. Then hard times came. She lived through them safely, grew up, and came to America to study. Now she lives happily with her husband in a house with a courtyard on Beacon Hill.

That's the story of Moying Li, 53, author of the just-published "Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution." Published in the young-adult category, the book is written in a style that could appeal as readily to adult readers. It begins with China's disastrous Great Leap Forward in 1958 and ends in 1977, with the 26-year-old English student crossing the Luohu Bridge into Hong Kong en route to a flight that will take her to a new life in America.

There are many accounts of the Cultural Revolution, which ravaged Chinese society from 1966 to 1976. What sets Li's witness and memory apart is its simplicity, lack of clutter or moralizing. It is almost entirely about relationships, with little of politics or history. She does not look back in anger. "I see it in a Taoist way," she said in an interview at her home. "The good and the bad are part of each other, somehow. Even though I and my generation went though hard times, without it I wonder if we would have gained maturity and reflection. In one sense, the experience of the Cultural Revolution has become to me a strength."

Li's mother, assigned to teach in another city, was often absent, so the key adults in the child's life were her father, who was a screenwriter for an army film bureau and a book lover, and her dynamic grandmother, Lao Lao. Both lavished warmth on the two children, and encouraged them to be students and readers. But they were not immune from the troubles around them. In the late 1950s, the family built a backyard furnace, part of a delusional national campaign to build a steel industry that would overtake the productivity of the West. That and other policies of national mismanagement led to failure and famine.

In 1966, when Li was 12, the Cultural Revolution burst over her school as it swept the country. Groups of fanatical students, called Red Guards, engaged in a witch hunt, seeking to root out perceived enemies holding back the communist revolution. Students, teachers, and administrators were denounced and attacked. In one incident, an older girl who had previously befriended Li presided over a kangaroo court where a 7-year-old child was forced to beat her father, the assistant headmaster, with a stick. After similar attacks, the headmaster hanged himself, and one of Li's uncles likewise committed suicide. A squad of Red Guards burst into her house, destroyed her father's record collection, and took away his books. A group of thugs threatened Li's widowed grandmother.

For the full article, click here.

Anthony Lewis' FREEDOM FOR THE THOUGHT THAT WE HATE Boston Globe Bestseller

Boston Globe Hardcover nonfiction bestsellers, week of Feb. 10
Posted by Jim Concannon February 7, 2008 11:43 AM

1. In Defense of Food
By Michael Pollan. Penguin.
2. This Republic of Suffering
By Drew Gilpin Faust. Knopf.
3. The Secret
By Rhonda Byrne. Atria.
4. The Food You Crave
By Ellie Krieger. Taunton.
5. The Nine
By Jeffrey Toobin. Doubleday.
6. Freedom for the Thought That We Hate
By Anthony Lewis. Basic.
7. Memo to the President Elect
By Madeleine Albright. Harper.
8. The Assist
By Neil Swidey. PublicAffairs.
9. Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington
By Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. Abrams.
10. Jim Cramer’s Stay Mad for Life
By James J. Cramer. Simon & Schuster.

SOURCE: Boston area bookstores

Wendy Quoted in Boston Globe

Kennedy agrees to pen memoirs in lucrative deal
Senator's family life and political career to be focus of book
By Susan Milligan
Globe Staff / November 27, 2007

WASHINGTON - Senator Edward M. Kennedy has agreed to a multimillion dollar deal with Hachette Book Group USA to pen his memoirs, giving the veteran Massachusetts lawmaker a forum for his own perspective on a life and career that has been examined by others in countless books and articles, negotiators of the deal confirmed yesterday.

Neither Kennedy's office nor the publishing house would reveal the size of the package, but a publishing figure familiar with the deal said Kennedy's payment was one of the largest in history, eclipsing the $8 million given to New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Former President Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair each got a reported $10 million for their memoirs.

... Wendy Strothman, a Boston literary agent, said that while some publishers accept losses on autobiographies by famous people because they want the prestige of the deal, a Kennedy book would likely sell well.

"I'll go out and buy it," Strothman said.

For the rest of the article, please click here.