The Presence of the Past
William Faulkner famously remarked, “The past isn't dead. It's not even past.” A great number of the highly anticipated new books on our shelves look back into the past of our own country and that of other nations ever haunted by history.
Percival Everett has recently become familiar to us as the author of a book on which the Academy Award-nominated film American Fiction was based. His brandnew, critically acclaimed book, James, is a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the viewpoint of Jim, an enslaved man trying to escape being sold down the river. Everett creates an intelligent, articulate, and authentic character who supplies a missing voice in the great American narrative; the New York Times review proposes that this book is worthy to stand beside Twain's acknowledged masterpiece.
Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange's “part prequel, the part sequel” to his celebrated novel of Native American experience, There, There, also takes us back to the 19th-century frontier. The story follows the descendants of a Cheyenne survivor of the 1864 Sand Hill Massacre through to the present day. The heartbreaking history of removal and the horror of Indian Boarding schools is not more tragic than the current burdens of poverty and addiction, but this is also the story of survival and persistence.
Last year marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, leaving a nation with unhealed psychological wounds. Americans seem to want to forget all about this period, though it still casts a long shadow over our history. Kristin Hannah's new book, The Women, is a welcome corrective to our collective memory. She reminds us that there were dedicated nurses who served in that conflict, courageously treating injured soldiers with skill and compassion. The women she so richly portrays are both human and heroic, and like the men who fought there, on their return, they faced a country divided by the war.
Long before America had imperial ambitions in Asia, Great Britain colonized vast territories across the globe. One of these was Burma (now Myanmar), and one of the huge numbers of men employed in maintaining the Empire was Eric Blair, who later became famous as the writer George Orwell. Paul Theroux's new novel, Burma Sahib, is a fictional recreation of Blair's life as a colonial policeman, which investigates how his time there turned a young man straight out of Eton into the literary colossus who later wrote 1984 and Animal Farm. A fascinating book by an old master who brings the country and the era vividly to life.
Oxford author Mick Herron is enjoying great success with the broadcast on Apple TV of the three seasons of Slow Horses, adapted from his series of bestselling books about the British intelligence services. His most recent thriller, The Secret Hours, is about a disastrous MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin, though by now, we are all aware that the Cold War never really ended. This is a stand-alone novel that includes some of the characters from his powerhouse series. It also features his signature blend of humor, intricate plotting, and driving action.
All of these fictional stories can be seen to illustrate just exactly that: “What's past is prologue,” but what about non-fiction? Rachel Maddow does not disappoint with her book Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism. She examines the battle to preserve American democracy dating back to World War II when a few government employees and private citizens fought Fascist sympathizers who wanted America to join with the Nazis. The New York Times, in a glowing review, said: “The parallels to the present day are strong, even startling.”
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