Book Review: Four Spirits by Serena Jeter Naslund
The Summer Reading Program is over, but I think I'll continue to review the books I read. I just don't have to include the page-count anymore.
The "Four Spirits" referred to in the title of this book are the four young girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham. (Or are they? By the end of the book I was thinking the title could refer to four other "spirits.") Although the bombing is a major event in the book, though, I wouldn't say that this book is "about" that bombing. Rather, it's about what it was like to live in Birmingham during the struggle for civil rights, for black and white citizens, alike. And boy, does it ever accomplish that. I was recently asked what I get out of reading, and a part of my reply was that I think there is a lot to be learned from fiction; so often fiction gives us the chance to know what it is like to experience something entirely outside of our own sphere of experience. That was what this book was like for me. I think I could read a hundred non-fiction books about the civil rights movement and not get the same sense of what it was like to live through it than I did from reading this book. It is so striking to me to think of a time so recent and a place so close to home, really, where violence was a such frequent occurrence.
If this book were a film, it would be referred to as an ensemble piece. (Imagine a period version of Crash.) It follows several characters: black and white. Most of them are engaged in the struggle for integration, but some chapters follow a Klan member and his family. We see what they go through in the name of civil rights--police brutality at protests, beatings, threats, fear. But we also see parts of their daily lives that have nothing to do with civil rights--their love affairs, their relationships with their children. Naslund has created a microcosm of Birmingham in this small cast of characters--lives intersect in ways that are maybe too coincidental to be realistic--and through their growth we can see how attitudes towards integration gradually began to change and progress was made.
The Summer Reading Program is over, but I think I'll continue to review the books I read. I just don't have to include the page-count anymore.
The "Four Spirits" referred to in the title of this book are the four young girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham. (Or are they? By the end of the book I was thinking the title could refer to four other "spirits.") Although the bombing is a major event in the book, though, I wouldn't say that this book is "about" that bombing. Rather, it's about what it was like to live in Birmingham during the struggle for civil rights, for black and white citizens, alike. And boy, does it ever accomplish that. I was recently asked what I get out of reading, and a part of my reply was that I think there is a lot to be learned from fiction; so often fiction gives us the chance to know what it is like to experience something entirely outside of our own sphere of experience. That was what this book was like for me. I think I could read a hundred non-fiction books about the civil rights movement and not get the same sense of what it was like to live through it than I did from reading this book. It is so striking to me to think of a time so recent and a place so close to home, really, where violence was a such frequent occurrence.
If this book were a film, it would be referred to as an ensemble piece. (Imagine a period version of Crash.) It follows several characters: black and white. Most of them are engaged in the struggle for integration, but some chapters follow a Klan member and his family. We see what they go through in the name of civil rights--police brutality at protests, beatings, threats, fear. But we also see parts of their daily lives that have nothing to do with civil rights--their love affairs, their relationships with their children. Naslund has created a microcosm of Birmingham in this small cast of characters--lives intersect in ways that are maybe too coincidental to be realistic--and through their growth we can see how attitudes towards integration gradually began to change and progress was made.
posted by Thinposter @ 4:20 PM
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