Space Station Mir

Just Finished: Song Yet Sung by James McBride I listened to this on audiobook, and I'm glad I did because of the atmospheric accompanying music. I've read McBride's two best-known books, The Color of Water and The Good Lord Bird , both of which I loved, especially the latter. I didn't like Song Yet Sung quite as much, mostly because it is just extremely hard to live up to  The Good Lord Bird, but I do think it's an important read for a portrait of the psychology of slavery from surprisingly diverse viewpoints. Not only are the two primary main characters, Liz and Amber, African American slaves, but there's also some viewpoints from white slaveowners and slavecatchers, and the book has a surprising amount of sympathy for them. Another interesting point for me, and others, is that the book takes place on Maryland's Eastern Shore, a mere "80 miles from freedom." Characters imagine they can see Philadelphia on a good day. It's a very particu...

WARNING: Use of the n-word below, in a socio-literary context. Please do not read if this will offend you. 32. The Good Lord Bird by James McBride Everyone seems to be comparing The Good Lord Bird to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , and I will confess, when I first heard the voice of Onion Shackleford, I heard the echo of the earlier charmingly uneducated picaresque. But Onion is not just an uneducated young boy, nor just a young boy pretending to be a girl (who remembers that scene from Huck Finn ?!?), he is a young boy performing both as a girl and as a Negro. And this brings something new to the performance of the novel. McBride brings home an observation that seems like an aside in Twain. In Twain's day, he probably couldn't do more than allude to it obliquely, but McBride can spell it out to those to whom it may not occur. There is a scene in Huck Finn where Huck makes up a story about a boat accident and a concerned lady asks if anyone has been killed. ...

I made it to the rapidly filling tent where James McBride was about to speak as a light drizzle transformed into a ferocious downpour. When McBride took the podium, he complained that another author had had beautiful weather, but here he was, having to compete with the rain. I'd say McBride got the best of that rain though, as he talked about his new book The Good Lord Bird , his love of the abolitionist John Brown, his view that history is more complicated than we think, and his disregard for political divisions (he commented that he was thrilled to see Laura Bush in his audience the last time he spoke at the festival). Toward the end of his talk, he declared his belief that "What God wants to happen, will happen," and gestured. At the moment, the rain, which had been slowing, came to a stop! I don't know about any higher meaning, but McBride has impeccable timing. Having read and enjoyed his memoir, The Color of Water , in high school I was interested to hear Mc...