Book of the Day Roundup: July 22-26, 2024
Cypria
A Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean
Alex Christofi
Bloomsbury Continuum
Hardcover $30.00 (332pp)
978-1-399-40188-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
The island of Cyprus is centered in Alex Christofi’s eye-opening historical exposé Cypria.
Situated in the eastern corner of the Mediterranean, Cyprus is located at several crossroads: the European, Asian, and African tectonic plates come up against each other here; maritime trade routes brought ships from all over the Mediterranean for thousands of years; and different ethnic groups and cultures rub shoulders. Noting that Eastern and Western empires have come and gone in Cyprus’s environs, the book endeavors to highlight Cyprus’s underappreciated place in the history of human civilization. Thus, its pages go back to the beginning, when inventions and developments credited to the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and early Greeks emerged from Cyprus, including early Greek writing and the first Christian communities to develop outside of Judea.
Throughout, the book takes established Mediterranean history and turns it around, using Cyprus as the fulcrum. Some of its claims strain credulity, though, as when the Cypriots are credited with introducing well-digging to humanity. Further, its portrayals of Jewish people include some problematic tropes. The book is better anchored by Christofi’s British-Cypriot background, enabling a simultaneous insider’s-outsider’s point-of-view. As the book approaches the present day, its narrative slows down and becomes more detailed, focusing on the manipulation of groups on the island by the unraveling British Empire, the buildup to the Greek military coup, and the Turkish invasion of 1974.
“Life’s first great innovation was to make of itself an island,” Christofi muses. “Humans still carry our own twist on the sea’s recipe in our bloodstream.” Honoring this, Cypria revisits the historical record, working to afford the island a place of honor in the story of the development of human civilization.
ERIKA HARLITZ KERN (June 10, 2024)
I Talk About It All the Time
A Memoir
Camara Lundestad Joof
Olivia Noble Gunn, translator
University of Wisconsin Press
Softcover $18.95 (116pp)
978-0-299-34854-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Camara Lundestad Joof’s piercing memoir I Talk about It All the Time concerns the particularities of systemic racism in Scandinavia.
Joof, who is a queer Black Norwegian Gambian woman, writes in Nynorsk—“the much less used of two official written languages in Norway.” Her collection of fragmented anecdotes is radical, candid, and unapologetic, documenting with introspection the experience of being Black in a white society in which macro- and microaggressions are ubiquitous.
Some anecdotes are only a sentence long and still poignant. Their absorbing reality includes the use of the N-word, hate crimes, and neo-Nazi parades—all laid bare for the audience as Joof speaks “directly to the reader … to different ‘you’s’: Black and white, family, friends, lovers, and strangers.” This multiplicity accounts for those who identify with the “I” of the text, challenging the “you’s” of the text to interrogate their own assumptions and biases.
This sensitive facilitation of racial conversations proves exhausting: “I have to confess that I don’t really want to write this book,” Joof says. “I’m afraid that my whole life has been reduced to the color of my skin … Brown first, and everything else afterward.” She uses repetition techniques, revisiting earlier stories in later chapters or repeating phrases (“I talk about it all the time”) to further convey her weariness over the burden of instructing white audiences about the traumatic consequences of racism. Although she yearns to free herself of this invisible responsibility, she echoes Audre Lorde, noting that “silence will not protect you.”
Sharp, complex, and lingering, the memoir I Talk about It All the Time places its masterful compilation of devastating truths in the context of Scandinavian racism.
BROOKE SHANNON (June 10, 2024)
The Caricaturist
The American Novels
Norman Lock
Bellevue Literary Press
Softcover $17.99 (352pp)
978-1-954276-27-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Set in 1897, Norman Lock’s riveting historical novel The Caricaturist focuses on Oliver, a Philadelphia native and a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Uninspired by the academy’s faculty of “myopic old men,” Oliver yearns for more modern modes of success. He and his bohemian friends rent rundown garrets, smoke hashish, and have rousing artistic discussions.
But among the faculty is realist painter Thomas Eakins, who depicts the human form with masterful detail. Eakins is accused of being a degenerate “sodomite” due to his paintings of nude young men. He becomes a reluctant mentor to Oliver, offering the exasperated advice that Oliver’s “sophomoric” self-absorption keeps him from creating meaningful artwork.
Beyond Oliver’s art school adventures looms the threat of the Spanish-American War. As potential draftees, Oliver and his friends have little interest in fighting for “pineapples and Domino sugar.” Still, Oliver takes a job as a newspaper illustrator and caricaturist and, through this employment and other leveling experiences, becomes more contemplative and less self-centered. When he is assigned to work with author and war correspondent Stephen Crane, he travels to Florida and becomes involved in the conflict after all. Aboard the gunrunner The Three Friends, “scapegrace” Oliver surprises even himself by acting with a “modicum of courage.”
Oliver’s narration is raffish at first, but it evolves over the course of the novel. He observes steamy Chinatown restaurants, narrow Trinity houses, Philadelphia bustling with rattling trolleys, churning newspaper presses, and fiery war protests in a memorable way. And the book’s cavalcade of historical details is exuberant too, with cameos from Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, William Jennings Bryan, and Clara Barton.
The captivating and energetic historical novel The Caricaturist rollicks through a turbulent American epoch via an artist’s coming-of-age.
MEG NOLA (June 10, 2024)
The Secret Gardens of Frances Hodgson Burnett
Angelica Shirley Carpenter
Helena Pérez García, illustrator
Bushel & Peck Books
Hardcover $18.99 (32pp)
978-1-63819-150-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s life, though thorned with tragedy, blooms within this inspirational picture book. The real-life inspirations for Burnett’s most famous works, including A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, are revealed alongside details of her childhood, when her imagination sustained her through hardships. The gray drudgery of industrial Manchester, England, contrasts with the vivid floral hues of Burnett’s gardens in stunning illustrations that perfectly pair with the book’s timeless message: “hope is never far for those who can imagine.”
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (June 10, 2024)
Erased
Loo Hui Phang
Hugues Micol, illustrator
NBM Publishing
Hardcover $24.99 (200pp)
978-1-68112-338-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Erased is the fascinating graphic biography of Maximus Wyld, a multiracial actor from the early days of Hollywood whose name was later removed from film credits and forgotten.
Maximus Ohanzee Wildhorse, known as Maximus Wyld, was an actor of Black, Chinese, and Native American heritage. He took “ethnic” roles in famous films and earned a solid reputation, signing a contract with Louis Mayer that guaranteed he’d never play a servant again. But Wyld was injured serving in World War II, and when a long-promised role as Othello didn’t materialize, he went to Kyrgystan to star in a Genghis Khan biopic instead. Rumors that he had communist ties hurt his career, and he served two years in jail. After his release, he disappeared; most of his movie appearances were excised from film history.
The book addresses a broad range of social issues through an early Hollywood lens, including the treatments of women and marginalized people and the threat of McCarthyism. While its scope is broad, its subject’s story is centering—both personalized and entertaining. Through his tale, facts and intellectual observations are imparted. The behind-the-scenes personalities of Wyld’s friends and acquaintances, including Lana Turner, Paul Robeson, and Clark Gable, are also of interest.
With its moody black-and-white panels in which the stars’ likenesses are distinct, Erased is a dazzling graphic biography that brings an ambitious, wronged talent into the spotlight.
PETER DABBENE (June 10, 2024)
Kathy Young
