The Organ Thieves: A Heart Transplant Without Consent From The Black Family Involved

So let me tell you about what happened to an African American family of Richmond, Virginia in 1968. William Tucker's brother Bruce went missing.  He learned that Bruce had been located at the Medical College of Virginia.  He had to actually go there to be told that he was dead, and would need to make funeral arrangements.  This had been difficult for William Tucker because polio had left him unable to walk without crutches.  He didn't find out that Bruce's heart and kidneys were gone until the mortician at the funeral home told him.  How did this happen without the family being informed?  That's the story told in The Organ Thieves by Chip Jones.  It's a non-fiction book about real events.  I found it very powerful.  It's my first five star read of 2021.

                                    

                                                                      

The Organ Thieves gives historical background involving medical schools paying grave robbers to obtain bodies in order to teach students anatomy.    In the Medical College of Virginia during the 19th century no one cared if  they used the bodies of slaves and free Blacks for this purpose.   The Medical College of Virginia even stated in their publicity material that no  White man was ever dissected there.  The deliberate choice of using Black bodies in medical schools also happened in the North. Chip Jones pointed out that medical schools in New York were using the corpses of African Americans as far back as 1787. We know this because of the riot protesting the practice during that year in New York.  Jones said that this may have been the earliest Black Lives Matter protest in the United States. I would add that Black deaths also matter as well as respect for Black burial sites.  By 1884 body snatching by medical schools was illegal.  They were supposed to get permission from families.

 So in 1968, the Medical College of Virginia had committed a crime when they took Bruce Tucker's heart for a heart transplant without getting family permission.   Jones' narrative of events shows how this happened. He quotes from Son of Virginia, the memoir of the Tucker family's lawyer, Doug Wilder.   Wilder claimed that the hospital considered Bruce Tucker a derelict.   Wilder believed that this was an assumption based on racism.  

I thought that The Organ Thieves was very thorough in exposing the roots of medical racism by showing us the history of the theft of Black bodies for medical purposes throughout the history of the United States.  Readers of this book should be outraged, as I was.

 

                                 

   

                                

Next To Last Stand: A Longmire Mystery As My First Read of 2021

 I haven't really kept up with Craig Johnson's Longmire series.  One of the reasons is probably because it had spawned a Netflix series.  For me, this is a sign that the series has gotten too popular.  The last Longmire novel that I reviewed on Goodreads was in 2014, but I really wanted to read more mysteries this year.  So there was Next To Last Stand gazing at me from the top of a library book pile, and I said "Why not that one?"  

                                    

 

What drew me to this volume in the Longmire series is the art aspect  which hinges on a famous painting that has been reproduced by the thousands, and hangs in a great many bars throughout the United States.  It's called  Custer's Last Fight by Cassily Adams.  I found a death notice for Cassily Adams from The Indianapolis Star on May 9, 1921 which appears on the internet here. That article explains why there were so many copies of this painting sent to establishments that exist for the enjoyment of alcoholic beverages.  You can also read more about this painting in Next To Last Stand. 

The narrative of Next To Last Stand begins with the death of Charley Lee Stillwater, a resident of the Veterans' Home of Wyoming.  He had left paintings and an extraordinary amount of cash in a shoe box. 

Stillwater's heir turned out to be named after Bass Reeves, the first black deputy U.S. marshal in the West.  I have to admit that I was more fascinated by that piece of African American history than what happened to Custer's Last Fight.  It saddens me that The Black Badge, a biography of Bass Reeves by his nephew,  Judge Paul L. Brady, isn't more widely available.  See "The Remarkable Bass Reeves" by Karl Smallwood here.  This thorough article  cites The Black Badge as a source.

                            

                                               Bass Reeves (Public Domain Photo)

                                        
                

Readers who are interested in Custer memorabilia will be delighted by Next To Last Stand.  I enjoyed it.  I'm glad that I made a return visit to the saga of Longmire's ongoing adventures.

                                     

                                

 

 

 

My 2020 Retrospective

                                  Image courtesy of Maicyber at freedigitalphotos.net

 

 This year I decided to count the number of reads that I gave five stars to include in this annual post.  I had eighteen of them.  Since this is a new statistic, I don't know how this compares to previous years.

Shomeret: Masked Reviewer had around 12,000 views in 2020.  That's about 3000 more than last year.   So this little blog that could is continuing to expand its audience a bit every year.

My most viewed post was, as usual, on Flying High Reviews. It was a review of a YA lesbian historical novel called Silhouette of a Sparrow which can be found here. Why was there so much interest? My guess is that there aren't enough lesbian historical novels written for the YA audience. 

 The most viewed post on Shomeret: Masked Reviewer during 2020 was my review of a novel about the creation of Michelangelo's David called The Giant which can be found here.  I think that Michelangelo's David is a popular subject.  I also think that the author of this book, Laura Morelli, has a following that increased the number of readers for this particular review. 

The rest of this post will be the list of my best reads of the year in various categories.   If I don't mention a blog review, it's because I didn't review the book on my blog.  In most cases, I did review it on Goodreads. I like to call this section of my annual retrospective:

                      THE GOLDEN MASK AWARDS

 Best Read of the Year

 Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

It's also the best non-fiction book. It deals with the lack of inclusion of women in research, and the design of things that women use.  I thought that I would never have the time to read this extremely dense and topical book. Thanks to Read Women's discussion of Invisible Women on Goodreads, I did.

Best Book Published in 2020

Rachel Maddow: A Biography by Lisa Rogak

This is also the best in the bio/memoir category that I read in 2020. Since I knew nothing about Rachel Maddow's life, I found this book surprising.  It also humanized her for me.

Best Fiction

 The Time Collector by Gwendolyn Womack

This is also the best romance that I read in 2020.  It deals with characters who are psychometrists.  This means that they can read the history of objects by touching them.  I reviewed this fascinating novel here  on this blog.

Best Young Adult Novel

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow

It's also the best fantasy I read in 2020. What if all sirens were Black, and some were involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's?  This YA alternate history fantasy swirls urgent issues with paranormal species and African American teen life.  I learned so much from reading it.  See my review on this blog here.

Best Historical Fiction

The Talking Drum  by Lisa Braxton

It's also the best indie novel that I read in 2020.  This is a novel about urban redevelopment.  I initially thought that urban redevelopment is too recent a phenomenon to be considered historical.  I did research on the subject and discovered that it didn't begin that recently.  See my review on this blog here.

Best Science Fiction

A Song For A New Day by Sarah Pinsker 

It's the music aspect that caused me to read this book, not the pandemic and certainly not the dystopia.  Though I have to say that this ends up being such a hopeful dystopian novel.

Best Contemporary Fiction

Side Chick Nation by Aya de León

"Side chick" becomes a metaphor for Puerto Rico's relationship to the U.S.  in #4 of de Leon's Justice Hustlers series involving female vigilantes. It's also the first novel taking place during Hurricane Maria and its aftermath.

Best Mystery

Songs From The Deep by Kelly Powell

If you've been scrolling down the page, you'll probably notice the titles with "song" in them. It's true that I'm very musically inclined. Yet in the case of this YA mystery, the "songs" are there because this is another book in which sirens play a role.  The sirens have been falsely accused of murder.  This made the mystery unusual enough to attract my attention.

Best Thriller

Cheater's Game by Paul Levine

This is the latest in the series about lawyer Jake Lassiter.  His nephew has unwisely involved himself in a college admissions scandal.   At the time this was written, it was ripped from the headlines.  Here's my review on this blog.

Best Net Galley

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

This is an authentic own voices novel dealing with a trans male protagonist and his search for identity.  It also deals with a Syrian American community.  My review on this blog is here.

Two thirds of the authors of these books are new to me.  The four exceptions are Laura Morelli, Bethany C. Morrow, Aya de León and Paul Levine.

                              

 

 

 

 

 

Bell Hammers: The Life of a Stubborn Independent Coot

Bell Hammers by Lancelot Schaubert is a biography of  Wilson Remus, a fictional character who is referred to as Remmie throughout the narrative. 

                                  

                                   

 Bell Hammers starts when Remmy was six years old with an incident that is very revealing of his character.  That chapter prepares us for further extraordinary departures from expected behavior.

I liked Remmy very much when he was behaving unconventionally or being inventive, but I loved him when he was downright subversive organizing other people to resist a company that was destroying the quality of their lives.  I loved his aspiration to be a Robin Hood.  He's quoted as saying "Always gonna be rich guys who need robbing because they stole in the first place from the poor."  A government concerned with justice would act to right these wrongs.  In the absence of such a government,  I admire people like Remmy who seek to rectify them through individual action.

Remmy evidently didn't consider himself a radical.  This was shown in his response to an FBI report that condemned the movie It's A Wonderful Life because it showed rich people in a negative light. (Yes, an FBI  agent who saw the movie when it was first released did indeed say that.  I found an insightful article on the subject that appeared in the UK newspaper, The Independent here.) Remmy believed that he wasn't a communist for thinking negative thoughts about the rich.  He just wanted to read more Robin Hood comics. 

It seems to me that the legend of Robin Hood of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, is about the redistribution of wealth which is fundamental to a socialist society.

Over the course of his fictional career Wilson Remus (Remmy) eventually became a significant figure who rabble roused on behalf of his community even if he ended up in prison.  The American public needs courageous and independent rebels.  They are the ones who stand up for this country's ideals.  I considered Remmy an inspiration.

                                     

 

THE ROAD TO WOOP WOOP BLOG TOUR AND REVIEW #TheRoadtoWoopWoop&BlogTour @meerkatpress @eugenbacon

 

The last time I reviewed a book published by Meerkat Press, it was Beast Heart back in March here.  That review was ambivalent.  So I was surprised to receive an invitation from Meerkat to participate in the blog tour for The Road to Woop Woop, a single author short story anthology by Eugen Bacon.  I've never read Eugen Bacon, and short story anthologies have been widely characterized as being like a box of chocolates.  So I could only expect to be surprised.  Accepting a blog tour invitation for such a book is a risk for all concerned.  Would it be a good surprise? 

PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY

Eugen Bacon’s work is cheeky with a fierce intelligence, in prose that’s resplendent, delicious, dark and evocative. NPR called her novel Claiming T-Mo ‘a confounding mysterious tour de force’. The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories imbues the same lushness in a writerly language that is Bacon’s own. This peculiar hybrid of the untraditional, the extraordinary within, without and along the borders of normalcy will hypnotise and absorb the reader with tales that refuse to be labelled. The stories in this collection are dirges that cross genres in astounding ways. Over 20 provocative tales, with seven original to this collection, by an award-winning African Australian author. 

                             

 

RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 1, 2020

GENRES:  COLLECTION/SPECULATIVE FICTION/DARK FANTASY 
 

MEERKAT PRESS BOOK PAGE

https://www.meerkatpress.com/books/the-road  

MY REVIEW

Flare, the protagonist of "Touched" was repeatedly told "You are the favorite."  This story was my favorite because she used her divine gift responsibly.  Flare only flared to maximum when she felt under serious threat.

I am a big advocate of responsible journalism, but I am not a fan of  media outlets that engage in irresponsible journalism.   That's why I liked "Scars of Grief", the story about the shutting down of a tabloid.  The quote that stood out for me was "That infected ink will never hurt anyone again."  I  did wonder why Eugen Bacon felt so strongly about this issue.

Another story that stood out for me was the final one, "Playback, Jury of the Heart" in which a man healed from a psychologically disastrous break up. I thought that a woman who played a central role in his recovery, who called herself a "body artist", was quite extraordinary.     

There were other stories that I considered good, but didn't impact me as much. There were also a number of stories that didn't impact me at all for personal reasons, but I still thought that every story in this anthology was well written.  

 

 

BUY LINKS: Meerkat Press | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

AUTHOR LINKS: Website | Twitter 

 

GIVEAWAY: A $50 BOOK SHOPPING SPREE!

GIVEAWAY LINK: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/7f291bd824/? 

                               

 

 

Asteroidea: A Novel About A Marine Biologist

 I saw a request made by Destiny Brown for reviewers of Asteroidea by Stephanie A. Smith on Goodreads.  The description interested me.  So I then downloaded a copy from Net Galley and recently finished reading it. 

                                       

I got the impression from the description of Asteroidea that scientific research on sea stars would be a prominent element in the book.  I'd say that protagonist Claire Holt's work with sea stars was mentioned a few times, but it wasn't really described. The main focus was on Claire's personal life and relationships.  So I felt somewhat misled by that summary. 

That being said, there was some interesting interaction that dealt with the racial identity of various characters.   It drew my attention to individuals who were born into the African American community, but could "pass" for White.  As a result, they were able to choose their racial identity.   These decisions impacted relationships.   

I was delighted by Claire's first meeting with a character named Dan Starbuck.   He said that his surname had no relationship to the coffee shops or to the character in Moby Dick.  Claire's reaction led me to suspect that she had never read this classic novel. This means that I have something in common with Claire.  I also haven't read Moby Dick.  I find this Herman Melville book's focus on an obsession with hunting and killing a whale very repellent.  I wanted to high five Claire for choosing to skip that particular piece of the literary canon.

Asteroidea wasn't what I expected, but it did enlighten me at a number of points, and there were moments when I was entertained by these characters.  I can't say that Asteroidea was one of my top reads of 2020, but I did think it was worthwhile. 

                                 

 

 

A Q & A With Art Historian and Historical Fiction Author Laura Morelli

Laura Morelli's assistant, Jacqueline M. Howard, suggested that I do a Q&A on Laura Morelli's two 2020 releases.  I have posted a review of  The Giant on this blog here .  This is a book dealing with Michelangelo's David. It's still the most viewed post of 2020 on this blog.  I also posted a review of  The Night Portrait on Flying High Reviews here .  This second 2020 novel focuses on the creation of Leonardo Da Vinci's Lady With An Ermine and its later history during WWII.  After posting these reviews, I sent questions to Laura Morelli relating to each of these books.  Today she responded.  Because one of these reviews appeared on each of my blogs, I decided that the Q&A should be posted on both of them.   

The Q&A With Laura Morelli

Questions Related to The Giant

 

Question 1) In The Giant Michelangelo tells Jacopo that the Signorina of Florence wanted him to build a bronze replica of the David.  I did a search for bronze replica of Michelangelo's David and found that the bronze replica standing in Florence was designed by the architect Guiseppe Poggi in the 1860's.  I discovered that it was part of a much larger project devoted to Michelangelo called the Piazzale Michelangelo.  Wikipedia says that Florence was doing urban renewal at the time.  Can you tell us something about the art history aspect of Piazzale Michelangelo?  

LAURA MORELLI : 

 

        In THE GIANT, the bronze replica of the DAVID refers to a sculpture—now lost—that Michelangelo made for Duke Pierre de Rohan, a French nobleman in the royal circle. De Rohan had been smitten by Donatello’s DAVID, which he had seen in Florence in 1494, and he wanted Michelangelo to make a copy of it for him. Michelangelo tried to wave off the commission; he probably thought it insulting to copy another man’s work, especially when he was on the verge of finishing his own DAVID which, in one fell swoop, would make Donatello’s version seem an antiquated oddity. But Gonfaloniere Soderini pressed Michelangelo to do it.  

 

 De Rohan was a favorite of the French king and an avid art collector; nobles around Europe showered de Rohan with artistic treasures to gain favor with the French court. The Florentines, eager to gain the French king’s support in the wake of their own political upheavals, had already secured seven marble and two bronze statues for de Rohan. Now he was keen to have a copy of Donatello’s DAVID with the head of Goliath at the youth’s feet. Soderini didn’t want to deny him, so he pressed Michelangelo to take on the job.

 

  Michelangelo reluctantly agreed, and made a drawing that still exists. One year later the bronze sculpture was cast.  Ironically, by the time the sculpture was completed, the duke de Rohan had already fallen from the French king’s favor, and the sculpture passed into the hands of Florimond Robertet, who displayed it in his chateau in Bury. Later it moved to the castle of Villeroy, then seems to have disappeared forever. We will never know if it bore any resemblance to the colossal DAVID that was about to take Florence by storm.

 

The bronze replica of Michelangelo’s DAVID you refer to in the Piazzale Michelangelo was part of a 19th-century urban renewal plan in Florence. 

 

 

Question 2)  Your Master Class on The Giant revealed that Michelangelo wanted to do another giant marble sculpture in which he got to select his own marble.   Are there varieties of marble that are considered more suitable for sculpture, or did Michelangelo just want more control of his material?

 

LAURA MORELLI:

 

Michelangelo was intimately familiar with the marble quarries near Carrara, in Tuscany, where he traveled to select raw materials for his famous Pietà and other sculptures. Every piece of Carrara marble was special and specific to each project. The block used for Michelangelo’s famous David had languished in the work yard of Florence cathedral for forty years before he tackled it. The master wrote that he dreamt of one day carving another colossus like the David—this time using an entire mountain of marble, a kind of Renaissance Mount Rushmore—that would overlook the sea.

Question 3) I read an article about the frequency of earthquakes in Italy during the 21st century and saw various items online about the vulnerability of Michelangelo's David to earthquakes due to weak ankles that could cause it to collapse.  Has a conservator ever been hired to repair those ankles?  There was also a 2014 proposal that the David be given an anti-seismic pedestal.  Has this ever happened?

 LAURA MORELLI:

 

You can read some of the efforts to make the DAVID earthquake-proof here: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/florence-acts-to-ensure-michelangelos-david-remains-sure-footed-after-recent-earthquakes

Question 4) Will there be a sequel to The Giant devoted to the Sistine Chapel ceiling? 

 

LAURA MORELLI:

 

Not at the moment, but in the future… Who knows? :)

Questions Related to The Night Portrait

Question 1)  Did Italian Renaissance artists other than Leonardo Da Vinci use their fingers for painting?  Was Leonardo influenced by someone else who used this technique or was it a practice that was unique to him?

LAURA MORELLI:

 

I don’t believe this was unique to Leonardo da Vinci, though much has been made of Leonardo's fingerprints, which have been discovered on his paintings and drawings. For example: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/thumbprint-of-leonardo-da-vinci-discovered-on-drawing 

Question 2) The Night Portrait point of view character Dominic wonders how a solvent cleans a painting without damaging the paint.  That's a question that I'd like answered myself.

 

 LAURA MORELLI:

 

Professional conservators have many tools in their repertory to deal with things like this. However, cleaning an old master painting with solvent is extremely tricky! It's possible to remove overpainting from later centuries to reveal an artist’s original pigments underneath.

Question 3)  Why did you decide that Lucrezia Crivelli was the sitter for La Belle Ferroniere and that she resembled Cecilia very closely even though they were unrelated? There are those that argue that La Belle Ferroniere is a second portrait of Cecilia. Da Vinci could have created it from his sketches of Cecilia because she was no longer at Ludivico Sforza's court and was therefore unavailable.  Her unavailability could explain why the Cecilia in La Belle Ferroniere  isn't completely identical to the Cecilia depicted in Lady With An Ermine.  Do you think this is at all likely?

 

LAURA MORELLI:

The identity of the woman in this beautiful portrait--the so-called Belle Ferronnière--remains contested. We know Leonardo completed the picture during his tenure at the ducal court of Milan. This portrait bears some things in common with the Lady with the Ermine; that’s for certain. Many art historians believe the portrait represents Lucrezia Crivelli, who became Ludovico Sforza’s mistress after Cecilia Gallerani exited the ducal palace. Other scholars think it represents Beatrice d’Este, Ludovico’s bride who died in childbirth at 21.

Question 4)  In the Leonardo's Portraits class that you did for those of us who pre-ordered The Night Portrait, you said that Raffaelo Sanzie known as Raphael was influenced by Da Vinci.  What aspects of Raphael's painting style show this influence?

 LAURA MORELLI:

 

When young Raffaello Sanzio arrives in Florence for the first time around 1504, we see him immediately experimenting with the three-quarter pose familiar to us now in the Mona Lisa, as well as other stylistic features of Florentine painting.

At that time, Leonardo da Vinci was considered an accomplished older master who freely shared his ideas and work with younger painters. I have no doubt that Raphael studied Leonardo’s work.

Laura Morelli, Ph.D. Art Historian | Historical Novelist lauramorelli.com Thank you, Laura Morelli.  I appreciate your insights and your wonderful novels.