Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (2011) By Jason K. Stearns

Journalist and human rights activist Jason Stearns has attempted what is perhaps the impossible in trying to decipher the trials that have overtaken the Congo the past several decades, and remain in the world headlines even this week.  His book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters is a compilation of over a decade of research, interviewing victim and perpetrator, discovering that many of the people he has spoken with – from key people to bystanders – are both.

The time period covered includes the civil war in neighboring Rwanda with the accompanying and mind-numbing genocide that spilled over into the east Congo, then known as Zaire; a multi-national war on the scale of World War I which overthrew the post-colonial Mobuto regime, a subsequent civil war in the Congo; with “side stories” of endless independence movements in Uganda, Angola and Zimbabwe coming into play.   These wars have to date claimed an estimated 5 million victims through direct violence and the indirect aftermath of nonfunctioning governments without the organizational wherewithal to provide road building, rather on public healthcare.  This can be best recapped with a quote about Joseph Kabila, the current leader of the Congo, by the President of Tanzania:  “I came to the Congo and saw its leaders.  But I didn’t see a single new road, hospital or school.” 

Throughout the book I kept longing for the chapter titled Conclusion, hoping that it would condense this insanity into something understandable.  Stearns did all he could, providing detail after horrifying detail, and succeeded somewhat in outlining the politics of inflaming ethnic hatred that resulted in circular genocide; but it will take legions of psychologists to provide understanding.  

What is clear throughout however is that most -- not all, but most -- of these wars have been proxy in nature, with the backstage combatants being the Belgians, the French, the English, the Americans, the Portuguese, the Chinese, and even a cameo appearance by Cuba’s famed Che Guevara.  Yet, on the stage itself the fatalities have been provided by Africans.

Let Their Spirits Dance (2002) By Stella Pope Duarte

I will read almost anything with one exception: any book touching on the subject of Vietnam.  That topic has been an unspoken taboo silently agreed on by almost all American baby boomers.  With Stella Pope Duarte’ Let Their Spirits Dance, I broke that rule.

Her book tells the story of the Ramirez family, from El Cielito, the south side of Phoenix, making a pilgrimage to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC thirty years after their son, brother, friend, is killed during the Tet Offensive.  The book is heartbreaking, heartwarming, infuriating, calming and superb.  Baby boomers, and others, particularly perhaps the children of baby boomers, would be wise to make this book their exception.  

Duarte is amazing, she’s an award winning author who grew up in and lives in Phoenix.   She gives a voice to Chicano America that is unique, while also reminding me of other works such as Americo Paredes’ excellent but little known book George Washington Gomez, though she’s probably most often compared to Sandra Cisneros, the author of The House on Mango Street and Caramelo. Cisneros represents the urban component of the Mexican-American diaspora, while Duarte has mastered the Southwest.  I saw Duarte give a lecture recently and immediately afterward ordered three of her published works.

Having categorized her as a Chicana writer let me emphasize that she writes to a much larger audience.   Let Their Spirits Dance covers the Vietnam War, family, relationships, Chicano life in occupied Aztlan, politics and faith.  The story is told through the character of Teresa, whose brother Jesse is killed in Vietnam.  Their mother, appropriately a Guadalupana, plays the moral center of the family.

A significant teaching component of the book, but not a smothering one, involves the time period: the earliest years of the war.  In those first years there was a college deferment in place, thus exempting from military service those who could afford and culturally qualify to enroll in universities – hence, the overwhelming majority of draftees were minority, be they Latino or Black or Native American – all treated as second class citizens in the U.S., but good enough for cannon fodder.   They were also routinely the grunts on the frontline.  When the college deferments ended and white middle-class Americans began to show up in record number on the weekly fatality reports, people began marching in the streets, and the “light at the end of the tunnel” began to come into focus.

Another important aspect of the book is religion.  Although less so today than in the past, being Mexican-American meant being Catholic.  But it is a very different Catholicism than is familiar to most European-Americans.  It’s a blend of Pueblo and Aztec spirituality, mixed in with regulation Catholicism.  It’s the beautiful kind of Catholicism that holds its faith in the religion, not in a corrupt structured hierarchy, and not unlike the Irish church in its lack of allegiance to the insular cabal of old men who run the Vatican.

Parts of Let Their Spirits Dance are predictable, but then it’s about a chapter from world history -- we know how it ends.  And parts of it will make you cry, particularly the early chapter titled Solitary Man, named after the Neil Diamond song from that era.  The fact that Jesse will die is known nearly from the beginning.  What is not predictable is when the family will be notified.  When it finally happens is during a chapter of the everyday, a shocking reminder of reality. 

The book may also make you have faith, still, or perhaps again.

Women Who Live in Coffee Shops and Other Short Stories (2010) By Stella Pope Duarte

This fun little book is a collection of short stories authored by Stella Pope Duarte.  It’s an anthology of the lives of the forgotten souls who live in the poorest neighborhoods of major cities, in this case Phoenix, Arizona.  None of the works are more than a dozen or so pages long, they make excellent character studies.  And do not mistake poor for uninteresting, these are real flesh and blood people with stories worth knowing.  My favorite is Mismatched Julian.  

A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) By John Kennedy Toole

In the fun category, this book cannot be beat.  I read it when it first came out in the 80's and re-read it recently – it has lost none of its impact three decades later.  This novel won a Pulitzer Prize, but was the only work of its author.  The lead character, and I do mean character, is Ignatius J. Reilly, a unkempt genius who does not fit into our non-genius world.  It is hilarious, and I do hope fiction.  If you are in a fed-up with the world mood, this is what you want to read.

The Omar Yussef Mysteries: The Collaborator of Bethlehem (2006); A Grave in Gaza (2008); The Samaritan’s Secret (2009); The Fourth Assassin (2010); By Matt Beynon Rees

When I like an author/story I tend to binge read, hence I read all four of these this summer.  They are hard to fit into a genre, part mystery, part history, part religious philosophy.  Omar Yussef, a Palestinian, is a teacher/principal at the UN school for refugees in Bethlehem (yes, that Bethlehem) in the West Bank.  He solves mysteries on the side.  He tells of the plight of the Arabs of Palestine through a series of stories about his students, colleagues and family.  While the Israeli’s don’t come out well, they are not the focus of the book, the focus is on internal Palestinian politics and how it intersects with the everyday lives of the people it is supposed to be serving.   The books are first and foremost murder mysteries, but they also serve as a subliminal education on Palestinian culture.  My favorite: A Grave in Gaza (for anyone who doesn’t understand the IDF’s priority on blockading bomb-making materials from entry).  I suggest one read these books in their written sequence.  Don’t be afraid they are heavy essays, they are not, in fact, all four books are as fun as their curmudgeon hero.

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History (2010) By Yunte Huang

To put it simply, this book was great.  Charlie Chan (a real life person) was/is an iconic and loveable figure in American culture, yet also a complete stereotype.  Author Yunte Huang, a Chinese immigrant was perplexed by this contradiction and set out to explore it.  His book is structured almost like a thesis, yet it is very readable:  Part I is about the real life Chan, a detective in pre-statehood Hawaii; Part II is Chan as a character in American literature; and Part III is Chan as a Hollywood star.  Good stuff.

The Lazarus Project (2008) By Aleksandar Hemon

Not all of my reads come about through book stores, some come from street curbs halfway around the world.  My friend Daniel, who is a lot like me in that he is incapable of walking by a stack of books without perusing through them, was walking around in Jerusalem, when he came across a pile of books that someone had obviously thrown out.  Retrieved from the collection was The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, a Chicagoan.  He read the book and sent it on to me.

The book is a fictionalization of the true story of Lazarus Averbach, a young man who thought he’d left the pogroms of eastern Europe behind him when he, like millions of others, immigrated to the United States in the decades before World War I.   Lazarus and his sister Olga settled in the Jewish ghetto of Maxwell Street in Chicago.   The Project is the story of how it came about that Lazarus was murdered by Chicago’s Chief of Police in 1908, as told by the author through the character of Brik, a present-day Bosnian immigrant to Chicago.

While the story plays out on several levels, the ever apparent theme is the similarities between America’s fear of foreigners, deemed “the anarchist threat” in the early 1900s, with the country’s fear of foreigners, deemed “the terrorist threat” exactly one hundred years later.

And a note for the weary, while there is more than enough sadness in this book, Hemon includes a character named Rora, a Bosnian Muslim Chicago immigrant, who provides relief with well-timed and often hilarious stories and jokes.

Snow Crash (1992) By Neal Stephenson

What is most amazing about this action thriller is that it was written in the early 90’s.  Like Jules Verne and Carl Sagan, many of the science fiction aspects of the book have already come to fore.   The hero is named Hiro Protagonist, a multi-cultural American computer hacker for hire whose “day-time job” is a delivery boy for the Cosa Nostra Pizza empire.  He lives in a U-Stor-it locker.  A skater teenage chick named Y.T. saves his ass one day, and becomes his ally.  If you are over 25 this book may initially be hard to read, but when you catch on to the jargon, it’s amazing.  Stick with it, it’s worth it.  Some of Stephenson’s other books will definitely go onto my future reading list.  And, if ever you are shopping for me, I WANT A PET RAT-THING!

Maybe The Moon (1992) By Armistead Maupin

 Not being part of Tales of the City series, I had never read this, but when I asked for “fun” book recommendations earlier this year, two people insisted I read this.  So right they were.  The star of this book is a Cadence, a “Little Person” who played an unnamed role in a blockbuster movie.  Though the book has a sad ending, I was on the floor laughing with Cadi, not at her, throughout.

Mary Ann in Autumn (2010) By Armistead Maupin

If you are a gay man there is a special place in your heart for Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City (San Francisco) – it chronicles our lives from the “Golden Era” of the 70’s through the Dark Ages of the 80’s, and onward.  Mary Ann in Autumn is an update and trip down memory lane for fans of Tales.  The characters, like us, are now in their 50’s and above.  In this book, Mary Ann, a key figure throughout, returns to San Francisco after discovering her husband’s infidelities, to face surgery, with Mouse at her side.  Love it, love them, love Armistead.

Short Stories; Soldier’s Pay (1926); Mosquitoes (1927); Flags in the Dust, originally Sartoris (1929) By William Faulkner. And, Faulkner, A Biography, pages 1 through 257 (1974) By Joseph Blotner

Yes, I’m a Lit Major wannabe.  Unfortunately jobs in that field are few and far between, hence my Masters in Marketing.  Several years back I read a biography of James Baldwin, pausing every time he published something to read it, then returning to the biography – a totally pleasurable reading experience.  At the beginning of this summer (2011) I decided to do the same with William Faulkner, one of the other icons of American Literature.  I naively thought it would be a summer project – more likely a lifetime project, the man was incredibly prolific.

I’m up through the first couple of dozen or so short stories, and the first three of his endless stream of novels.  They’ve been a difficult read, not nearly as smooth flowing as Baldwin, and steeped in a southern culture that I’m unfamiliar with – with the exception of his early short stories.  I won’t comment on the novels, you’ve heard of them, but his short stories were a surprise.

First, they are set in New Orleans, aboard ship, and in Europe – all locales greatly different from Mississippi’s fictional (in name only) Yoknapatawpha County, the setting of his most famous works.  Had he not returned to the American South at the conclusion of the war his life work clearly would have been different – but would it have been a success? Probably not, his short stories as is often the case were critical successes and commercial failures. 

In decadent New Orleans, young Faulkner was part of what could almost be called a “Bloomsbury” circle of “artsy” types, including a close friendship with Sherwood Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio) and his wife.  Faulkner’s short stories from this time period covered topics as varied as the jealousy resultant when a merchant sailor’s “bunk buddy” does not return to ship while docking in Naples, Italy – having spent the night with a call girl (Divorce in Naples); rum-running during prohibition in Once Aboard the Lugger; a Bayou folk legend named Al Jackson; and the hapless attempts at dating by a character ironically named Don Giovanni.

Faulkner’s commercial break came with the publication of Soldier’s Pay.  It details the return of a young soldier seriously wounded in World War I to his fiancé and the trials that brings to all parties.

One final note on these initial Faulkner reads:  the use of the “N” word is annoyingly frequent.  There are those who would like to (no pun intended) whitewash his works by cleansing them of this term.  That would be wrong.  Its usage is, after all, an accurate reflection of the time period the works were written in.  One can move on from history, but one cannot change it.  

Giovanni’s Room (1956) By James Baldwin

This was a re-read for me.  I’ve said it before, and stand by it, Baldwin has no peer in American literature.  I’ve read everything written by him that’s been published.

Giovanni’s Room was a breakthrough novel for its time period.  It dealt with the taboo subject of homosexuality, and it dealt with personally coming to terms with one’s own sexuality, basically requiring that it be set outside of the United States (Paris) – not even New York was ready in the 1950’s.  At the time, only Gore Vidal had risked his career with this topic, in his classic The City and the Pillar, published in 1948.  Perhaps more significant than its topic is that Giovanni’s Room is clearly the forerunner of what I consider Baldwin’s best book, Another Country – which dealt with every then taboo topic one could name, none of which were talked about in “polite” company, rather on in print in 1950's America.

The Wagon and Other Stories from the City (2010) By Martin Preib

This book is simultaneously raw and esoteric, and very urban in the manner of Chicago’s legendary Nelson Algren.  The Wagon is written by a Chicago cop, present tense.  It’s a related collection of short stories.  By “raw” let me cite story #1: Body Bags.  It’s about his rookie assignment, collecting dead bodies from throughout the city – some fresh from murder, others in various states of decomposition having died alone in their apartments or left in back alleys. It is not however all shock, some of the stories, particularly those that touch on his aging parents, are raw in an entirely different manner, because they strike way too close to home.  It’s an excellent read, including his definition of “essential services.”  Don’t let his full time profession fool you, though a newcomer, Martin Preib can write, this book is published by the University of Chicago Press which isn’t known for its pulp fiction.

A Country Called Amreeka: U.S. History Retold Through Arab-American Lives (2009) By Alia Malek

I bought this book from a bookstand at the Printers Row Book Fair featuring Arab American writers.  The seller offered about a dozen titles “to begin the process” of educating the general population about the trial and tribulations of life as an Arab immigrant in America.  A Country Called Amreeka was probably not the most readable selection, but it is stuffed with interesting information, such as: two-thirds of the Arabs in the U.S. are not Muslim (they are Lebanese, Iraqi and Syrian Christians); and roughly 70% of the Muslim in the U.S. are not Arab (they are Pakistani’s and Indonesians).  Arab Americans share one important similarity with other hyphenated-Americans, your average Anglo-American is unable to tell them apart, and basically uninterested in doing so.  The book has a very interesting couple of chapters on the Arab community in Dearborn, Michigan and also outlines the difficulties of being in the U.S. in a post-9/11 environment.

The Chronicles of Narnia (1951 through 1956) By C. S. Lewis

I somehow made it through my childhood (arguable) without reading any of the seven Chronicles, the most famous of which is The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; my loss.

While the stories have an unmistakable religious philosophy to them, they also read beautifully as a fantasy series – well, dah!  It is easy to see how the Chronicles set the template for many later works, not the least of which is Harry Potter.  Good bedtime reading – as "children’s" books should be.

The Warmth of Other Suns By Isabel Wilkerson (2010)

No student of civil rights history should fail to read this book.  As much as I love Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, this book is better.  It brings the entire post-Civil War experience of African Americans down to a personal level.  Wilkerson’s book details the Great Migration by following the family histories of three southern Blacks who made the migration out, escaping (a relative term) to Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. 

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (2010) By David Mitchell

This is hands down the best book I’ve read in ages.  It begins in l799 and is set in the port of Nagasaki, the Japanese Empire’s only harbor open to foreign trade.  The protagonist is Jacob DeZoet, a young man serving a tour of duty as a merchant in the “Dutch East Indies” hoping to earn enough money to marry the woman he loves back home.  The story provides great insight to the history of Japan’s then closed society, international economics, cultural differences and personal world views.