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timschochet's thread- Mods, please move this thread to the Politics Subforum, thank you (1 Viewer)

The McCarthy Era, Continued

Welch let McCarthy browbeat his client, Stevens, without an objection. The few remarks he did make were almost comic in their grave courtesy. With his green bow ties, his fussy manner, and his high-pitched voice, Welch seemed more like a Dickensian solicitor than a successful trial lawyer.

Seldom had the capitol seen a man whose appearance was more deceptive. He knew the impression he conveyed and was content; at times, he had found, it was useful to be underestimated. Life on Beacon Hill and Boston Common had not prepared him for Joe McCarthy's bluster, intimidation, and transparent lies; so Welch cocked his head and listened. His hands deep in his pockets, his toes pointed outward, he could be seen during recesses lurking on the fringes of groups, taking everything in. And when he spoke up at the hearings, as in time he did, the contrast between him and McCarthy could not have been greater. As Michael Straight put it in his Trial by Television, "McCarthy never forgot the vast audience. Welch seemed not to remember it. McCarthy spoke with contempt for the mob, Welch seemed to be conversing respectfully with one individual, and so he gained the audience's devotion to the end."

Bit by bit those watching Welch sensed the steel in him. He and McCarthy were the real duelists here, and their first significant encounter came on the 9th day of the hearings, when Welch cross-examined the Senator over a confidential FBI letter which had found its way into McCarthy's hands. Along the way it had been retyped, an important point because under the law the retyping of a classified document amounted to publication. Joe crouched over the microphone, tense and swarthy, Under the klieg lights a roll of flesh beneath his dark eyebrows gave his upper eyelids a slanted, demonic expression. Welch let him wait awhile. The Bostonian lolled almost puckishly on an elbow, finger crooked on the purplish veins of his cheek, his brow wrinkled as though he were looking for the first time at something which was quite incredible. Now he was ready.

WELCH: Senator McCarthy, when you took the stand you knew of course that you were going to be asked about this letter, did you not?

MCCARTHY: I assumed that would be the subject.

WELCH: And you, of course, understood that you were going to be asked the source from which you got it.

MCCARTHY: I won't answer that!

WELCH: Have you some private reservation when you take the oath that you will tell the whole truth that lets you be the judge of what you will testify to?

MCCARTHY: The answer is that there is no reservation about telling the whole truth.

WELCH: Thank you, sir. Then tell us who delivered the document to you!

MCCARTHY: The answer is no. You will not get the information.

Jenkins came to the senator's rescue with the amazing opinion that McCarthy's position was justified because he was a "law enforcing officer...ferreting out crime" and the committee members turned to other matters. Only gradually did they and their audience realize what Welch had done. He had exposed McCarthy as an outlaw. In acknowledging his possession of the purloined letter the senator had violated a federal statue, and by refusing to answer Welch's questions he had put himself in contempt of Congress. There was something else. His defiance of the Boston attorney had been somehow familiar. Comparing impressions at the end of that session they realized why. For 4 years the country had watched McCarthy bully witnesses who refused to respond to his own interrogations. He had held these people up to public scorn as "Fifth Amendment Communists", reducing the Bill of Rights to an epithet. Now he was behaving in the same way.

 
66. South of Broad

Pat Conroy

2009, 528 pages

family drama

All of Pat Conroy's novels and non-fiction can be seen as one long biography of his life. This, his latest novel, is no different. For anyone familiar with Conroy the themes are familiar: the social differences of the deep South (particularly Charleston), race, sexual abuse, homosexuality, the late 60s and the passages of time. Hidden family secrets, mental illness and suicide: these are the elements to be found in any of Conroy's writings, along with a vast sense of humor, strong characters, great suspense and a superb narrative gift.

I doubt any other novelist on this list has evoked such emotions in me as Conroy has. He comes from a very different, very foreign America from the one that I have lived in, and yet it's easy to connect to his humanity. I recommend highly everyone of his novels (and most of his non-fiction as well). This IMO is probably the weakest of his books and yet its also superior to just about anything else you can choose to read.

Up next: Bryce Courtenay returns to South Africa, the site of his best novels, to tell the tale of a courtroom drama...

 
65. What You Owe Me

Bebe Moore Campbell

2001, 480 pages

family drama

Bebe Moore Campbell was an African-American novelist who wrote some fine novels about Los Angeles during the 90s and early part of this century, before succumbing to cancer at a young age. Too bad because she was a marvelous writer. I have two of her novels on my list. What You Owe Me begins in the late 1940s in which a black woman and Jewish woman (a Holocaust survivor) form a partnership to sell perfumes- there is a falling out, and the Jewish woman turns the company into a fashion multimillion dollar corporation, while the black woman is disenfranchised. Cut to 50 years later, and the daughter of the black woman is now working for the fashion company. But that's only the background for this family saga.

Moore Campbell writes about race, social struggles, and business advancement in Los Angeles as an expert, and her characters are strong and memorable. She offers keen insight on how blacks view whites, and vice versa, in the 21st century. Unfortunately this novel is not available on kindle but if you find a copy, or order a new one from Amazon, still well worth reading.

Up next: Pat Conroy's original saga of a boy who loves his father, and hates him...

 
The McCarthy era, continued

Demagogues are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule, but masters of derision are rare. Since the emergence of Cohn and Schine there had been speculation over whether their relationship was an unusual one, but no one could think of the right way to touch upon this very delicate subject. Welch found a way to do it. He had been honing the rapier of his wit since the hearings began, waiting to thrust it under McCarthy's bludgeon. The opportunity arose in an exchange over a cropped photograph. Cohn had given Jenkins, in proof of an obscure point, what appeared to be a picture, taken at McGuire Air Force Base, os Stevens beaming at Schine. Then the original turned up. In it Stevens was smiling at someone else, who had been cropped out to produce the fake. There was a thoughtful silence in the Caucus Room. Cohn strenuously denied knowing that the picture had been cropped. He said he didn't even know where it had come from. Welch innocently asked the witness at the time, another member of McCarthy's staff, "Do you think it came from a pixie?"

There was a rumbling at the end of the table. The bludgeon was being raised. McCarthy asked, "Will the counsel for my benefit define- I think he might be an expert on that- what a pixie is?"

Welch's rapier flashed: "Yes, I should say, Mr. Senator, that a pixie is a close relative of a fairy."

The chuckles were suppressed, but the giant had been wounded.

NOTE- Repeating this story almost word for word from my source, The Glory and the Dream, from 1974, gave me a few qualms, as it has a decidedly anti-homosexual tone. Of course everybody knows that during the 1950s gays were completely in the closet, and for any to be exposed was to ruin their career- worse, in fact, that being considered a Communist. Yet both Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover were two examples of political conservatives who used their vast power to persecute many innocent people, all the while having very secret homosexual affairs. There is no doubt that it was crucial to Welch's case in defending the Army to make it as clear as possible about the Cohn-Schine relationship and the influence the two young men had on McCarthy's demands upon the military. And Welch, by using a play on words, was able to impart his meaning to the room without perhaps revealing it on television (though this is unknown.) But it's still a troubling passage.

 
64. The Great Santini

Pat Conroy

1976, 536 pages

family drama

Pat Conroy's first novel is a little uneven, but still a terrific and disturbing read, as he fictionalizes the story of his high school years and his love-hate relationship with his Marine Corp father. Bull Meacham, heavily based on Pat's father Don Conroy, is a giant of a man, brawling, loving, lovable and detestable at the same time, one of the great characters in modern popular fiction. Years later in his non-fiction sequel to this novel, The Death of Santini, Conroy admitted that he actually toned down his father for the novel, especially the amount of physical abuse. Even so, the abuse detailed in the book is quite shocking and memorable, particularly the one on one basketball scene between father and son.

Conroy takes these same characters, particularly the son and the mother, and uses them again and again throughout his novels in different variations. The Prince of Tides, which I review later, is roughly the same family as The Great Santini, though written when Conroy had mastered his form, it's a much richer novel. The Lords of Discipline features the Pat Conroy character in college (which is also documented in the non-fiction My Losing Season,) while Beach Music features an older Pat witnessing the death of his mother (though with flashbacks) and South of Broad, older still. Although these books are NOT connected, and are meant to be read separately, by reading them all you get a pretty good idea of Pat Conroy's life. The Great Santini is written a little less eloquently than most of the others, yet it still packs an almost primal power.

Up next: Australian novelist Bryce Courtenay returns to South Africa, the site of his greatest novels...

 
The McCarthy Era, Continued

From that moment forward McCarthy reserved his most venomous tones for Welch and searched for a way of retribution. On June 9, in the 8th week of testimony, he thought he had it. Cohn was in the chair at the time. Welch was asking him about the subcommittee's hunt for subversives among Army Signal Corps employees at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey.

Welch: Mr. Cohn, if I told you now that we had a bad situation at Monmouth, you'd want to cure it by sundown if you could, wouldn't you?

Cohn: Yes, sir.

Welch: May I add my small voice, sir, and say whatever you know about a subversive or a Communist or a spy, please hurry! Will you remember those words?

McCarthy's voice rose, tense and vibrant.

McCarthy: Mr. Chairman, in view of that question-

Mundt: Do you have a point of order?

McCarthy: Not exactly, Mr. Chairman, but in view of Mr. Welch's request that the information be given once we know of anyone who might be performing any work for the Communist Party, I think we should tell him that he has in his law firm a young man named Fisher...who has been for a number of years a member of an organization which was named, oh years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party...

Welch looked stricken. A hush had fallen over the table. Smiling, licking his lips, his words freighted with sarcasm, McCarthy went on:

McCarthy: ...Knowing that, Mr. Welch, I just felt that I had a duty to respond to your request...I have hesitated about bringing that up. But I have been rather bored with your phony requests to Mr. Cohn here that he personally get every Communist out of government before sundown. Therefore we will give you the information about the young man in your own organization...

And he did, while Welch, obviously desolate, sat with his head in his hands, staring at the table before him. By now it was clear that something had gone wrong. Cohn, still at the microphone, was staring at the senator and shaking his head in silent entreaty. If anything, he seemed more distressed than Welch. But McCarthy went on to the end, shredding the reputation of someone whose very existence had not been a matter of public record until now.

McCarthy: ...Whether you knew he was a member of that Communist organization or not I don't know. I assume you did not, Mr. Welch, because I get the impression that while you are quite an actor, you play for a laugh, I don't think you have any conception of the danger of the Communist Party. I don't think you would ever knowingly aid the Communist cause. I think you are unknowingly aiding it when you try to burlesque this hearing in which we are trying to bring out the facts, however.

He snickered. In the silence it was eerie.

 
The McCarthy Era, Continued

The room awaited Welch's reply. It was long in coming; once while McCarthy was still speaking the Bostonian's lips had formed the mute word "stop", but now he seemed to be grasping for words. To Mundt he said, leaning forward, "Mr. Chairman, under these circumstances I must have something approaching a personal privilege." Mundt said quickly, "You may have it, sir. It will not be taken out of your time." He, too, was upset. Everyone at the table appeared to be affected, with the exception of McCarthy, who was talking loudly to one of his aides. Welch had to begin three times before he could attract the senator's attention. "I can listen with one ear," McCarthy said to him. "This time," said the Bostonian, "I want you to listen with both." McCarthy ordered the aid to bring a clipping showing that Frederick G. Fisher had belonged to the the Lawyers' Guild, the prescribed organization. "I think", said the senator, "that should be in the record."

Welch: You won't need anything in the record when I have finished telling you this. Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us.

He then told the television audience what insiders at the hearing already knew. Welch's one misgiving about coming to Washington had been the possibility that because of him, someone at Hale and Dorr might be slandered. In talking to the two young assistants he had planned to bring to the capital with him he learned that one of them- Fred Fisher, had briefly belonged to the Lawyers Guild after leaving law school. On learning more about it, he had resigned. Welch had left Fisher in Boston, and McCarthy and Cohn, who knew of him, had agreed not to mention his name. In 1954 few worse things could happen to a man than being identified over national television as a subversive. That was what McCarthy, to pay off a score, had done to Fisher. Welch now told the full story. At the end of it he turned back to the Senator.

Welch:...Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I would like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.

McCarthy afterward told a friend that as Welch spoke he could feel knots in his stomach. It wasn't contrition. He was probably incapable of that. What he grasped was that he had stumbled badly, that Welch had outwitted him again. Trying desperately to regain his footing, he growled that Welch had no right to mention cruelty because he had been "baiting Mr. Cohn here for hours."

Welch: Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyer's Guild, and Mr. Cohn nods his head at me.

Cohn, in evident agony, was indeed nodding at Welch. He was also biting his lips and trembling visibly. He had crushed too many witnesses himself not to see what Welch was doing to McCarthy. To Cohn Welch said, "I did you, I think, no personal injury, Mr. Cohn."

Cohn: No, sir.

Welch: I meant to do you no personal injury and if I did I beg your pardon.

Again Cohn nodded. Again McCarthy tried to shape a reply, and again Welch turned him away.

Welch:..Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?

 
63. Whitethorn

Bryce Courtenay

2005, 688 pages

Coming of age

Bryce Courtenay was an outstanding Australian novelist best known of his powerful book about growing up in Apartheid South Africa, The Power of One. None of his other novels were published in the United States, though some are available on Kindle. This one used to be but unfortunately is not any longer. Whitethorn is similar to The Power of One in that it also involves an English boy growing up in Apartheid South Africa who is forced to attend an Afrikaner school; from there however it tells a very different story. The star of this novel witnesses a murder and grows up attempting to avenge it through legal means. The novel offers find history of South Africa during the 1950s, and also Kenya and the Mau Mau Rebellion receive special attention.

Courtenay is an excellent writer and knows about the white man's experiences in Africa and the struggles of liberalism to overcome colonial impulses. He writes with a vast understanding and sympathy for different cultures which rivals James Michener, and he's a better story teller than Michener ever was. Highly recommended.

Up next: Richard North Patterson explores gun control politics...

 
The McCarthy Era, continued

The Senator stared into his lap, looked up, and tried one more time. He tried to ask Welch if it was not true that Fisher had been his assistant. This time the Bostonian silenced him with superb disdain.

Welch: Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this with you further. You have sat within 6 feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have brought it out. If there is a God in heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further. I will not ask Mr. Cohn any more questions. You, Mr. Chairman, may, if you will, call the next witness.

But there would be no more testimony that day. The audience was struggling to its feet, cheering Welch. Even Mundt was with them. He put down his gavel, and 6 policemen, who had been told at the opening of each session to eject anyone who applauded, stood impassive. McCarthy's face was grim; he was breathing hard. Welch moved toward the door, and woman there touched his arm and then began to cry. As he stepped into the hall the press corps surged after him. Suddenly everybody broke for the door. It was as though somebody had yelled "Fire!" They couldn't wait to get out, and presently McCarthy, who had not left his chair, was left with the guards and the television technicians. He looked around, stretching his neck, trying to catch someone's eye. At first no one would look at him, then one man did. The senator turned his palms up and spread his hands. He asked, "What did I do?"

 
The McCarthy Era, Concluded

After 36 days of testimony the Army-McCarthy hearings ended on June 17. The subcommittee then studied the 7,400 printed pages of testimony and issued a report blaming both sides. At first the extent of the damage done to McCarthy was unknown. He had been exposed before and had recovered quickly each time. His physical stamina was unimpaired, he retained the loyalty of 8 to 10 key senators, his influence with the Republican legislative leadership continued to be great, and with his customary vigor he announced new investigations of Communists in the Army, the defense industry, and the CIA.

All died stillborn. New voices were being heard in the land on the subject of McCarthy, and old voices spoke in different tones. From Nebraska, Republican leader Jim Schramm wrote Sherman Adams that every member of the Republican State Central Committee felt that GOP candidates had been hurt by the "public spectacle" of the hearings. In Colorado Palmer Hoyt said, "It is now time for the Republican Party to repudiate Joe McCarthy before he drags them down to defeat. By late August some 22% of the adult population of the United States had revised their opinion of him downward. In the White House, Eisenhower greeted his cabinet with a slow grin. "Have you heard the latest?" he asked. "McCarthyism is McCarthywasm."

Joe McCarthy was censured by the Congress, and afterwards he was never the same. He continued to warn about Communism, but few listened. He died 3 years later at the age of 48 of hepatitis. Both his rise and his downfall was extraordinary.

The "McCarthy era" continued for a time beyond his death. Suspected Communists were blacklisted and/or investigated until the early 60s. The turning point, if there was one, might have been the 1960 visit by the House of Un-American Activities Committee to the campus of UC Berkeley. A bunch of activist students staged a sit-in protest of HUAC, thus beginning a different era, that of the student protests which would come to dominate the next decade. After that the blacklists slowly lifted.

Anyhow, that concludes the summary. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

 
Balance of Power

Richard North Patterson

2003, 500 pages

Political/legal drama

Richard North Patterson is a northern Californian writer mostly known for his legal thrillers, starting with his breakthrough novel Degree of Guilt in 1992. Between 1999 he took some time off from writing books about murder trials and instead decided to focus on politics. During this vein he wrote the following novels:

No Safe Place about a Presidential election

Protect and Defend about partial birth abortion and the Supreme Court

Balance of Power about gun control

Conviction about the death penalty

Exile about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

Eclipse about African oil politics

The Race about the Republican Party

Patterson is a liberal, and each of these novels has a rather centrist liberal point of view. Many if not most of his most strident fans really don't like these novels too much and begged him to return to writing courtroom murder thrillers (which he has.) But I loved almost all of them. 3 of them were so good that they've made my list.

In Balance of Power, a liberal President is determined to have reasonable gun control and so gets into a political battle with the NRA (for legal purposes, called the SSA in the novel- "Sons of the Second Amendment.") Although Patterson is certainly biased on one side he explores the issue at length and the novel is full of facts. If his characters are a little wanting in depth, the story and suspense make up for it. Even so, I wouldn't recommend gun owning conservative types to try out this novel- you'll see it as a sermon and you'll probably hate it. But progressives and centrists should enjoy it very much.

Up next- John Hersey with possibly the best ever writing about the Holocaust...

 
timschochet said:
The McCarthy Era, Concluded

After 36 days of testimony the Army-McCarthy hearings ended on June 17. The subcommittee then studied the 7,400 printed pages of testimony and issued a report blaming both sides. At first the extent of the damage done to McCarthy was unknown. He had been exposed before and had recovered quickly each time. His physical stamina was unimpaired, he retained the loyalty of 8 to 10 key senators, his influence with the Republican legislative leadership continued to be great, and with his customary vigor he announced new investigations of Communists in the Army, the defense industry, and the CIA.

All died stillborn. New voices were being heard in the land on the subject of McCarthy, and old voices spoke in different tones. From Nebraska, Republican leader Jim Schramm wrote Sherman Adams that every member of the Republican State Central Committee felt that GOP candidates had been hurt by the "public spectacle" of the hearings. In Colorado Palmer Hoyt said, "It is now time for the Republican Party to repudiate Joe McCarthy before he drags them down to defeat. By late August some 22% of the adult population of the United States had revised their opinion of him downward. In the White House, Eisenhower greeted his cabinet with a slow grin. "Have you heard the latest?" he asked. "McCarthyism is McCarthywasm."

Joe McCarthy was censured by the Congress, and afterwards he was never the same. He continued to warn about Communism, but few listened. He died 3 years later at the age of 48 of hepatitis. Both his rise and his downfall was extraordinary.

The "McCarthy era" continued for a time beyond his death. Suspected Communists were blacklisted and/or investigated until the early 60s. The turning point, if there was one, might have been the 1960 visit by the House of Un-American Activities Committee to the campus of UC Berkeley. A bunch of activist students staged a sit-in protest of HUAC, thus beginning a different era, that of the student protests which would come to dominate the next decade. After that the blacklists slowly lifted.

Anyhow, that concludes the summary. Hope you guys enjoyed it.
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I enjoyed it very much, Tim. I knew the "Have you no decency" line, but not much of the background, so I learned a lot

 
timschochet said:
Ladsud said:
Do you not see a similarity between McCarthy and throwing the label communist out as a weapon and your current crusade labeling people as racist? Both words serve as a tool of silence and suppression.
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:lmao:

During my time at FFA, I have called 5 people racist:

Jim11

LHUCKS

Clinton

GrandpaRox

JamesBrownKid

That's it. There are many other people who have expressed racist views in this forum, and I have called them out for that, but that doesn't make them racist. I don't believe most people are racist. If you are referring to my recent comments about Trump supporters in general, you might want to go back and read them again.

Your comment, however, indicates that you either did not read what I wrote about the McCarthy era or you didn't understand it. That's too bad.
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Havn't you also called Eminence racist a few times?

I do enjoy this thread, learned a lot about the Presidents, that ashamedly, I wasn't more well versed in.

 
Spin said:
timschochet said:
Ladsud said:
Do you not see a similarity between McCarthy and throwing the label communist out as a weapon and your current crusade labeling people as racist? Both words serve as a tool of silence and suppression.
Click to expand...
:lmao:

During my time at FFA, I have called 5 people racist:

Jim11

LHUCKS

Clinton

GrandpaRox

JamesBrownKid

That's it. There are many other people who have expressed racist views in this forum, and I have called them out for that, but that doesn't make them racist. I don't believe most people are racist. If you are referring to my recent comments about Trump supporters in general, you might want to go back and read them again.

Your comment, however, indicates that you either did not read what I wrote about the McCarthy era or you didn't understand it. That's too bad.
Click to expand...
Havn't you also called Eminence racist a few times?

I do enjoy this thread, learned a lot about the Presidents, that ashamedly, I wasn't more well versed in.
Click to expand...
You're right. Eminence is a racist. I forgot about him (i wish I could permanently!)

 
Hey Tim, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, you know, feel free to just post pictures.

/monthly_2016_02/taco_man.jpg.0d9466379ee91762d11210bdd3467b36.jpg">
taco_man.jpg

 
Yeah I don't like the picture thing. I've noticed that in discussion forums that allow pictures there is far less serious discussion. That's what I enjoyed about this forum. If it starts being dominated by pictures and less words I won't be here very long. If you guys were looking for way to get rid of me you might have found it honestly. 

 
timschochet said:
Yeah I don't like the picture thing. I've noticed that in discussion forums that allow pictures there is far less serious discussion. That's what I enjoyed about this forum. If it starts being dominated by pictures and less words I won't be here very long. If you guys were looking for way to get rid of me you might have found it honestly. 
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Appears they might not last. Plus I wasn't being serious.

 
timschochet said:
Yeah I don't like the picture thing. I've noticed that in discussion forums that allow pictures there is far less serious discussion. That's what I enjoyed about this forum. If it starts being dominated by pictures and less words I won't be here very long. If you guys were looking for way to get rid of me you might have found it honestly. 
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Were you ok today?  We were speculating whether or not we'd see you on the top of a rooftop in LA with a machine gun.

Glad you got to check in early.  

 
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61. The Wall

John Hersey

1950, 640 pages

Holocaust drama

John Hersey is a forgotten novelist from the middle of the 20th century; despite the fact that he won a Pulitzer Prize for his story about the Occupation of Italy, A Bell for Adano, he his best known for his non-fiction work Hiroshima, which is still taught in some schools and which is a harrowing narration of the atomic bomb and it's consequences upon ordinary Japanese civilians. And it's too bad that he is forgotten, because The Wall, which is not available on Kindle and only through Amazon direct order, is probably the finest novel I have ever read on the Holocaust, and quite possibly the finest novel I have ever read, period. The Wall is about the Warsaw Ghetto- the title refers to the wall that surrounded it. 

The reason that I don't rank this novel higher is that, simply put, it's not that enjoyable to read. Actually it's rather grueling to read. The Warsaw Ghetto is also the subject matter of Leon Uris's novel Mila 18, which I have much higher ranked. But like most of the Uris novels I love, Mila 18 is a tale of heroism, of man's struggle for freedom against tremendous odds. It's an optimistic novel. The Wall covers the exact same material as Mila 18, and it is that novel's opposite in every way. The Wall is pessimistic; there is no heroism, it's a dark tale of man's inhumanity to his fellow man, and just when you think it couldn't get any worse it always does. 

The Warsaw Ghetto was set up in November of 1939 and lasted until the spring of 1943. 500,000 Jews were placed in a few square blocks. They mostly starved to death or died of disease, and beginning in the summer of 1942 most of them were transferred to Treblinka where they were exterminated in gas chambers. The few that survived staged a hopeless rebellion. That's the bare bones of the story. Hersey writes it in the form of a journal (based on the real life chronicler of the Ghetto, Emmanuel Ringlebaum). Dozens of characters are presented in great depth. Among the characters that have stayed with me over the years is the Catholic Polish woman who hides Jews, not out of any compassion or heroism, but out of a desire to have people who will forever be grateful to her so that she can lord it over them. Jew, Pole, and German, there aren't too many "good" characters in The Wall, mostly self-serving and craven people trying to survive a calamitous situation. You don't love them, but you can't blame them either. Mila 18 is so much more fun to read, but it's essentially a fairy tale, an episode of 24 transferred to World War II and the Jewish ghetto; this book is real. It's very unpleasant, yet fascinating. 

Up next: Bebe Moore Campbell's memorable portrait of post Rodney King Los Angeles...

 
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60. Brothers and Sisters

Bebe Moore Campbell

1995, 480 pages

racial drama

Bebe Moore Campbell offers here a sprawling novel of post Rodney King African-American Los Angeles, focusing on a bank in South Central. Filled with memorable characters trying to navigate their way through the racial tensions of the 1990s, Campbell has a sharp eye for different races' perceptions of each other; this novel is in some ways reminiscent of the film Crash. She was an excellent storyteller and had a deep optimism for the future. She believed that love conquers all, and this shines through. 

Up next: Wally Lamb's tale of a woman's struggle to be herself...

 
59. She's Come Undone

Wally Lamb

1992, 497 pages

Coming of age

She's Come Undone was recommended to me by my late mom who read all the Oprah books. When she described it to me, it didn't really sound like my type of novel. Girl gets molested, gains a lot of weight, suffers through college as the fat chick, goes through therapy,, loses the weight,  gets together with the boyfriend of her hated college roommate. Sounds like a Lifetime movie. "No," my mom told me, "It's really good. And it's written by a guy!" That last part stunned me. What is a guy doing writing about fat girls? So far as I knew, the only novelist who ever had any credibility writing from a woman's point of view was back in the 1950s: Herman Wouk with Marjorie Morningstar. (see review #69)

Anyhow, to make a long story short, I tried it out and was immediately entranced with the story. Lamb is one of those writers who can make any subject interesting. He really gets into the mind of this girl. (And since I've read it, I've been told by several women, including Krista in this forum, that Lamb's portrayal is one of the most accurate they have ever read of a woman's point of view, which is even more astonishing given the writer. Marjorie Morningstar is a fine novel but Wouk doesn't try to get into the feminine mind too deeply, Lamb does, and succeeds. 

I would probably like this novel even better but it has some peaks and valleys. The college scenes are some of the best writing and storytelling I have ever read, but after that the book slows down for a bit before speeding up toward the ending. All in all a fine read. 

Up next: Stephen King covers some of the same issues, and also tries to get into the mind of a woman, but given that it's Stephen King, his heroine is handcuffed to a bed...

 
I gotta say, the rhetoric being unleashed (from all sides) in the poli-threads is becoming unreadable.

 
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hagmania said:
Sorry, not meant for you specifically. I just know you might be sympathetic to how quickly (in my mind) things are spiraling towards just negativity everywhere.
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I know how you feel. But I can't criticize others too much because I've been pretty critical of the Trump fans. I've tried not to be mean, but some of them are rude to me so I've responded accordingly. 

It's probably only going to get worse as we get closer to November...

 
timschochet said:
It's probably only going to get worse as we get closer to November...
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incivility has been the rule for the better part of two decades since Bill Clinton's second term.  It's hard to see it ever getting better barring some kind of catastrophic event that unites the nation.

 
Eephus said:
incivility has been the rule for the better part of two decades since Bill Clinton's second term.  It's hard to see it ever getting better barring some kind of catastrophic event that unites the nation.
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You mean like September 11, 2001? We were united for about all of two weeks...

 
Somewhere in this ramble I hope you've included Foucault's Pendulum.

CboxMhjUcAErrZh.jpg


 
58. Gerald's Game

Stephen King

1992, 332 pages

psychological suspense

In some ways, Gerald's Game has a lot of similarities to She's Come Undone, written in the same year. Both novels are by men attempting to display a woman's point of view. In both novels, the woman was molested at a young age, and spends her adult life trying to deal with that molestation. Both heroines successfully conquer their fears. 

That's where the similarity ends of course, because Stephen King wants to scare us. King's heroine is handcuffed to a bed in a mountain cabin away from everything, with her husband who put her there dead of a heart attack besides her, and she needs to escape before she dies of starvation, cramps, or the murderous grave robber who is haunting the neighborhood. Actually, the grave robber wasn't necessary to make this a great novel, or even much scarier; he's almost an afterthought, a waste of time to the real story in which the girl finds a way out by dealing with what happened to her in childhood. 

This is one of King's best novels, dramatic and suspenseful throughout. It was one of the few King novels never made into a movie because the story is largely internal, in Jesse Burlingame's mind (though she has dueling voices.)  Her escape from the bed is some of King's best writing IMO. 

Up next: William Styron's masterpiece of New York, a southern writer, and Holocaust memories...

 
I thought Gerald's Game was stupid.  But that's just me.  And I liked King at another time in my life.

No matter, ok tim - game time for you.  I am not ever going to vote for Donald Trump for any office in this country.  And I almost certainly will vote against him.  Meaning I might have to vote for Hillary Clinton.  And the thought occurs to me that actually having to vote for Hillary Clinton could make me physically ill.  So in reality I'll probably vote third party.

But that brings up an interesting question - Is Hillary Clinton the worst option for me against Trump?  Meaning, I could see myself voting for her if the stars aligned a certain way (say I don't hate her VP Choice).  I'm trying to think about another donkey or elephant that would just make me say a hard no under every circumstance.  Find one.  Go.

 
57. Sophie's Choice

William Styron

1979, 515 pages

historical drama

About 20 years ago, after I read Beach Music by Pat Conroy (to be reviewed later) and decided that it was one of the finest novels I had ever read, a friend of mine that knew southern writers very well (an English major who revered Thomas Wolfe and Faulkner) told me that if I liked Conroy, I had to read to Styron, because that's where he got it from. So I tried a couple of Styron's novels. The first one I tried, The Confessions of Nat Turner, which won the Pulitzer Prize, I could not get into. The second one was Sophie's Choice.  

Certainly there are interesting similarities between Beach Music and Sophie's Choice, and also with another Conroy novel The Prince of Tides (to be reviewed later as well.) All three novels deal with southerners who move to more cosmopolitan surroundings but have trouble dealing with their haunting pasts; all three novels deal with the Holocaust and how it shaped people long after it occurred. 

Conroy is a more accessible writer than Styron, but Sophie's Choice is a terrific novel. For those who may have missed the movie with Meryl Streep, the story surrounds a southern writer moved to New York (don't they all?) who encounters a mentally ill Jewish guy dating a Polish girl, who lived through Auschwitz. She has tragic secrets including the "choice" she had to make, which I won't give away here. The Holocaust portions of the book are only a small portion yet they dominate the novel; they are as harrowing and realistic as the John Hersey novel I covered earlier. But neither Sophie nor Stingo the nerrator (who is clearly Styron himself) is the most interesting character in the novel; that is Nathan Landau, who's mental illness combined with flamboyant personality reminded me greatly of  Billy Chenoweth from Six Feet Under. This is a pretty extraordinary novel but it's not light hearted; things go from pretty bad to really bad to worse than bad to suicide. 

Up next: the very best of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels...

 
Hey Tim, been meaning to ask you this - any buzz, local news or intuition on who would win CA's primary in the GOP?

 
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timschochet said:
58. Gerald's Game

Stephen King

1992, 332 pages

psychological suspense

In some ways, Gerald's Game has a lot of similarities to She's Come Undone, written in the same year. Both novels are by men attempting to display a woman's point of view. In both novels, the woman was molested at a young age, and spends her adult life trying to deal with that molestation. Both heroines successfully conquer their fears. 

That's where the similarity ends of course, because Stephen King wants to scare us. King's heroine is handcuffed to a bed in a mountain cabin away from everything, with her husband who put her there dead of a heart attack besides her, and she needs to escape before she dies of starvation, cramps, or the murderous grave robber who is haunting the neighborhood. Actually, the grave robber wasn't necessary to make this a great novel, or even much scarier; he's almost an afterthought, a waste of time to the real story in which the girl finds a way out by dealing with what happened to her in childhood. 

This is one of King's best novels, dramatic and suspenseful throughout. It was one of the few King novels never made into a movie because the story is largely internal, in Jesse Burlingame's mind (though she has dueling voices.)  Her escape from the bed is some of King's best writing IMO. 

Up next: William Styron's masterpiece of New York, a southern writer, and Holocaust memories...
Click to expand...
I still get the creeps on Jesse's method of escape from the cuffs. 

I haven't read this book since it came out (God, was it 24 years ago?), but I remember liking it a lot. But it led to a series of increasingly strident (& decreasing in quality, IMO) novels about spousal abuse. While I agree with King's stance, sometimes the message overpowered the story. Dolores Claiborne was really good because of the voice and structure, but Rose Madder was awful - by far the worst King novel, in my opinion; even worse than Dreamcatcher (which I don't hold in the anywhere close to the contempt most do; was just "meh" to me). And Insomnia, while kind of a lynch-pin to King's emerging multi-verse, was a snooze (pun intended).

I'm not sure where you're gonna go with your "best Dark Tower" choice. I know which is mine. 

 
56. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Stephen King

1987, 400 pages

Fantasy/Horror

The Drawing of the Three is the second book in Stephen King's 7 volume magnum opus, The Dark Tower, (there is an 8th book written afterwards, The Wind Through the Keyhole, which takes place in the middle of the series, but I've yet to read it) which is a mixture of fantasy, science fiction, and western in the style of Sergio Leone. The main character, Roland, is basically a knockoff of Clint Eastwood from High Plains Drifter and a few other Leone spaghetti westerns. But in King's long saga the guy with no name travels through different words, including 20th century Earth, in search of the Dark Tower, where he will make his final stand in the name of goodness. This 2nd book to the series is the only one good enough to make my top 100 list. Here is how I rate them:

The Gunslinger: Actually a collection of short stories. For the most part dull and written in an off-putting style, very difficult to finish.

The Drawing of the Three- Excellent- see below.

The Wastelands- A very good and exciting novel- not the best of King, but not the worst either. About as good as The Tommyknockers or Needful Things. 

Wizard and Glass- Weird and overrated IMO. Again with the weird style from the first book.

The Wolves of Calla- Delightful version of the Seven Samurai, or Magnificent Seven. Just a notch below The Wastelands.

Song of Susannah- basically just an interim between book 5 and the conclusion. Mostly filler, except King's description of himself was interesting.

The Dark Tower- One of the most disappointing conclusions to a saga I have ever read. Silly and inane. Probably the King book I dislike the most, and puts a sour taste on the entire series. 

The Drawing of the Three, however, has everything you could want in a great pulp novel: Beyond the strange tale of Roland traveling through worlds, we get drug addiction, the mafia, exciting shootouts , monsters, the 60s civil rights movement, a split personality, and a really scary serial killer in New York. It's not only the best book in this series it's one of King's best books period. My advice is start here. After you're done read The Wastelands. Read Wizard and Glass because you have to to get to the next one. Read the Wolves of Calla. Stop. 

Up next: The novel that made John Grisham famous...

 
Uruk-Hai said:
I still get the creeps on Jesse's method of escape from the cuffs. 

I haven't read this book since it came out (God, was it 24 years ago?), but I remember liking it a lot. But it led to a series of increasingly strident (& decreasing in quality, IMO) novels about spousal abuse. While I agree with King's stance, sometimes the message overpowered the story. Dolores Claiborne was really good because of the voice and structure, but Rose Madder was awful - by far the worst King novel, in my opinion; even worse than Dreamcatcher (which I don't hold in the anywhere close to the contempt most do; was just "meh" to me). And Insomnia, while kind of a lynch-pin to King's emerging multi-verse, was a snooze (pun intended).

I'm not sure where you're gonna go with your "best Dark Tower" choice. I know which is mine. 
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Yeah I agree that it's almost King's last really good novel (at least until Under the Dome.) I wrote earlier that between 1974 and 1992 he really wrote a number of just fantastic novels, several of which are going to be on this list. But it stops there. 

 
We completely disagree on The Dark Tower (the final volume is what I'm referring to here, not the series as a whole) and on Wizard And Glass (my personal favorite). You probably won't like Wind Through The Keyhole (DT 4.5), but that depends on your taste for stories-within stories-within stories and fairy tales. 

The Dark Tower (again, I'm talking about the book and not the series as a whole) has some of King's best writing ever. And I think the ending is perfect.

King has also hinted that there may be another yet to come that tells the story of Jericho Hill (it would be another flash-back novel, which you may not like given your rankings above).

 
Uruk-Hai said:
The Dark Tower (again, I'm talking about the book and not the series as a whole) has some of King's best writing ever. And I think the ending is perfect.
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Oh come on now. 

Actually, the ending, although disappointing was less so than the final "grand battle" and the ultimate fate of Roland's son. Such buildup in both cases, and then WTF? No I REALLY disagree with you here. 

 
timschochet said:
Oh come on now. 

Actually, the ending, although disappointing was less so than the final "grand battle" and the ultimate fate of Roland's son. Such buildup in both cases, and then WTF? No I REALLY disagree with you here. 
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That's fine. Not every ending is epic in real life. Some are just pitiful and stupid. The Crimson King stuff was silly and I'm not quite sure what King was going for there, but I had zero problem with how it played out with Mordred or the final pages in the Dark Tower.

 
Uruk-Hai said:
That's fine. Not every ending is epic in real life. Some are just pitiful and stupid. The Crimson King stuff was silly and I'm not quite sure what King was going for there, but I had zero problem with how it played out with Mordred or the final pages in the Dark Tower.
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I'm with UH here.  I love this series as a whole, and Tim I agree #2 was excellent.  But I love (yes LOVE) Wizard and Glass, and I felt the worst part of the entire series was King writing himself into it.  It felt completely ego-driven, silly, and ham-handed.  And the final turn of the final book is perfect. Ka is a wheel.

 
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