Richard Wright's Black Boy

Richard Wright's Black Boy (American Hunger): A Casebook by Douglas Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I just finished (in two evenings) an earlier version of this book, which I picked up from the library. Interestingly, I just realized I probably got the short version of the book. So I bought this one. I didn't even know that Wright had been compelled to publish a version that only included the first two-thirds of his original manuscript. Wright's prose is compelling, no matter how fictionalized this "autobiography" is -- he certainly is able to communicate his message and elicit the desired response.



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The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


We're off to see the movie version of The Help tonight. I'm rather curious to see it at this point, as I read the book and thought it was actually pretty good, though not as good as all the hullabaloo it seems to be garnering. I mean, Olive Kitteridge was WAY better. (I do notice that I gave it five stars right after I finished it, though.)Is it all just slick marketing that's causing the attention? The "money-people" who see an opportunity to cash in on an eternally sensational subject -- racism and the tyranny of the South pre-civil rights? I'm surprised, honestly, at the (some of it extremely) flattering reviews the movie version has gotten in the LA Times and NY Times.  And of course, stirring in a little controversy, the book received plenty of grumblings from critics of color, on the topic of why a white woman thinks she can write the story -- and the dialect of -- a black woman living in that era (the story unfolds around the time Medgar Evers was assassinated, for those who haven't read the book). Hmm.



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