Blog Tour--T. J. Young and the Orishas: The Gatekeeper's Staff (Book 1)

T. J. Young and the Orishas: The Gatekeeper's Staff  is book one of a series by Antoine Bandele.  I was delighted to be chosen for the blog tour by Shealea of Caffeine Book Tours.  As I've said elsewhere on this blog,  I consider myself a student of all religions including the Orisha religions.  The Orishas are worshiped in a number of Caribbean spiritual paths as well as in Brazil. 

 I do have to say that the last time I mentioned the Orishas on this blog was in 2018 when I reviewed The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark here.

                                       

The figure on the cover looks like he could be a teen-age image of the Orisha known as Olokun who is supposed to have been chained under the sea.  There are chains surrounding this underwater figure. Yet the novel is called The Gatekeeper's Staff.  The Orisha of doors and gates is Eshu who is as prominent in this novel as Olokun.  

There are a number of other Orishas who are mentioned in this book including a few who I needed to look up on Wikipedia because I wasn't familiar with them.

One of the Orishas that I needed to look up was Olosa, the Orisha of lagoons.  Some say that Olosa's messenger is an alligator and others that it's a crocodile. There are differences between alligators and crocodiles that aren't particularly relevant to this review.

I took author Antoine Bandele's quiz about which Orisha I'm aligned with.  The quiz can be found on Bandele's website here . My quiz result was that I'm aligned with Orunmila, the Orisha of wisdom according to Bandele.  Others believe that the Orisha of wisdom is Obatala.  See this You Tube video here. 

I went along with Bandele's idea that his adolescent protagonist, T.J., was himself a new Orisha.  Some readers might find this view problematic or incomprehensible.  The concept that there are new Orishas, or that a human being could be an Orisha would be unthinkable in certain spiritual approaches.

I enjoyed  reading The Gatekeeper's Staff.  It is my hope that T. J. Young and the Orishas will be a long and successful series.

                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Good Kill: A School Shooter Is Terminated

 I learned whodunit fairly early on in A Good Kill by John McMahon, but the story is mainly about the man who took the killer down and how his action impacted him.  I received a copy of A Good Kill from publicist Wiley Saichek.  He requested that I review it.

 

                                

 The protagonist is  Police Detective Paul T. Marsh, but he is called P.T. by the overwhelming majority of the characters.   This is the third book in the P. T. Marsh series, but it's the first that I've read. I didn't have any preconceptions about P.T. when I began this book.  Other reviews say that P.T. is obsessed by the death of his wife and son.  I thought he had every right to be obsessed by that particular crime, and that his ability to become obsessed with his work was what made him such a good detective.  He  follows up on every bit of evidence. 

There's a substantial amount of content about guns in A Good Kill. In fact, a major plot strand involves the bleeding edge of gun technology.  I found the gun tech aspect fascinating. I could see how some advanced guns would pose a tremendous challenge to law enforcement.

My main quibble with A Good Kill is that it didn't feel like it really took place in Georgia.   I don't recall any vivid location details that could have given this novel a sense of place. It might easily have been set in a major metropolitan area like Los Angeles or New York City.

 A Good Kill had a suspenseful plot.  I raced through it.  I hope I will have another opportunity to read another P.T. Marsh novel in the future.

 

                               

                                 

Do Better: Can A White Reviewer Steer Clear of White Supremacy?

 Black author Rachel Ricketts believes that whites are too enmired in systematic white supremacy to steer clear of it.  Maybe I can't, but I'm going to try my best in my review of  Do Better by Rachel Ricketts.

               

When Rachel Ricketts was a child, she tried out for the role of Snow White because it was the school play.  Instead they gave her the role of the Witch's black cat which was a racist thing to do.  She was also condemned for running while black.  I had the experience of being chased off the track in high school because the track team needed it for practice.  This was in the early 1970's.  There was no girls' track team.  So I was running on the track while female. Such a scandal!  The boys' track team thought I was trespassing on their territory.  I never ran again. 

The kind of friendship commitment problems that Ricketts had with some of her white friends, were issues that I also had with some of my friends.  I decided that they must define friendship differently than I did.  I believe that people in my life who think friendship doesn't involve commitments, must be considered acquaintances instead of friends.   

Ricketts points out that I and other white readers haven't been victims of white supremacy.  True, but I have experienced anti-semitism. The first time I was six years old.  The younger sister of a friend told me I killed Jesus.  I ran home in tears.  

In Ricketts' definition of racial justice she says that it requires getting rid of white supremacy.  So it seems to me that she considers racial justice an ideal that has never been achieved.  I would say that when you consider the centuries of harm that white people have perpetrated, it would probably take centuries of positive acts to balance the scale.

When I look back at 2021, I expect to consider Do Better to be the best book I've read this year.  My criterion for non-fiction is how much I've learned from the book and I think I've learned more from this book than any other.  It  caused me to reflect a great deal about racism, and how I personally could have caused harm unknowingly.

                                

 

The Manuscript : A Short Story Rooted in Spanish History

Author Marie Ryan Connelly requested that I read and review The Manuscript which is a 53 page short story.  She made it available to me through Net Galley. I was able to read The Manuscript in a few hours and am now posting the review.

                                   

So there is a manuscript that is at the center of this story. It was written in the 1340's by Ibn al-Jatib.  He is an actual historical personage. For more information about him see this web page.  

In Conolly's short story, there are students who are reading Ibn al-Jatib's manuscript together.  When they reach the end of the manuscript, the story is finished. Where do we go from there? 

We'll need to know something about the history of the Nasrid Sultans who are the relatives of  Fátima , the story's protagonist.  Although this is a short story, beneath the tale's surface lies an extensive context that is rooted in centuries of Spanish history. The Nasrids ruled Granada from 1230 until 1492 when the last of the Nasrids was exiled to Fez in Morocco.

The Alhambra in Spain was built by the Nasrid Sultans.  That's historical.  Connelly's fictional story has al-Jatib's manuscript being found under the fountain in the Court of Lions at the Alhambra. This didn't happen, but below is the real location where it didn't happen. 

                                   

Now let's explore the mark of the tree on a person's neck which proves that someone is a Nasrid in Connelly's story.  Protagonist Fátima calls it a curse.  Why is it a curse? Why can't it be a blessing? It's all a matter of your worldview.  I see a tree as a thing of beauty.   I believe that someone born with a tree blooming on his or her body has been blessed.  For me, this was a key insight that gave me a deeper appreciation of  "The Manuscript".

Sometimes a story opens a door.  A reader can choose to go through that door, or close it behind them.  I  went through the door and what I found was rewarding.  I learned unexpected things.  You might also learn something from "The Manuscript by Marie Ryan Connelly.

                                      

  

 

 

                              

                                    

                                     

Crimson Angel: A Mystery Novel In Which A Free American Black Man Goes To Haiti in 1838

Crimson Angel is the 13th novel in the Benjamin January mystery series by Barbara Hambly.  Benjamin January is a free Black man in 19th century New Orleans.  I've read several of the books in these series, but it was before I joined Goodreads or started this blog.  So I have no record of them.  

The first thing you should know is that Crimson Angel  isn't primarily about solving the mystery. You do find out whodunit, but  it's more about the characters and their histories.

                               

                                 

Benjamin January ends up going to Spain, Cuba and Haiti not mainly to solve a murder, but to find out why people were following and harassing both him and his wife, Rose. 

I learned that at the time, some Cubans wanted Cuba to become part of the United States.  I thought that if Cuba today had the American medical system, they'd wish their ancestors had chosen differently.  It was the slaveholding plantation owners who wanted to become Americans.  They wanted to bond with their counterparts in the American South.  It occurred to me that this probably wouldn't have worked.  The Cuban plantation owners were Catholics.  There was and still is a great deal of intolerance against Catholics in the American South.

One of the characters was abusive toward his wife.  In addition to physical abuse, he took away her books because he said they gave her "bad ideas".  People often read books that confirm the ideas that they already had.  I suspect this was the case with the wife who was behaving more independently than her husband liked.  I don't think the books were the cause of her behavior. 

I found out  from Crimson Angel that there is a loa named Marinette who is a Petro spirit in Voodoo.  Although I am more acquainted with Rada spirits who are associated with healing, I see nothing wrong with Petro spirits.   (See my discussion of Rada and Petro  here .) In fact, Marinette is associated with the Haitian revolution and she is said to be able to free individuals from situations that they want to escape.  I discovered that there is a novel in which the loa Marinette is the main character.  I intend to read it some time next month.

 I liked Crimson Angel more after doing the research on Marinette than while I was reading it.  When I finished it, I thought it was a well-told tale, but discovering a loa that I hadn't known about gave this novel additional value.

                                   

Freedomville: Non-Fiction Account of A Rebel Slave Town in Current Day India

 Most people believe that slavery has disappeared from the modern world.  Yet debt slavery, which was common in the ancient world, still exists today.  The slaves are supposedly working off their debt, but they're never successful because the landlords find ways for them to accumulate more debt.  It's also often multi-generational because successive generations inherit the mountain of debt.  Debt slavery can be found in many countries, but Freedomville by anti-slavery activist Laura T. Murphy deals with a community of former slaves in 21st century India who freed themselves. 

                                      

                                      

Laura T. Murphy tells us in  Freedomville that she first encountered slavery in New Orleans where immigrants are currently being forced to rebuild the city after the massive destruction that took place during Hurricane Katrina.

 It was heartbreaking to learn how so many in India had been entrapped into modern slavery, but inspiring to discover a slave revolt that resulted in the formation of a community. In the 18th century the people of Haiti freed themselves from slavery and became a nation.  Azad Nagar, which is what the former slaves called their community, was on a much smaller scale but still represented a victory against oppression. Azad Nagar is in Uttar Pradesh.  Based on what Laura Murphy said, this is the Indian state that has the largest percentage of poor people.  She also tells us that almost a quarter of the world's slaves live in Uttar Pradesh.

Murphy reveals the history of the relationship between the Kols (the enslaved ethnic group in Uttar Pradesh) and the landlord caste in Freedomville, how the Kol revolt came about and the impact of the revolt on  the Kols.  The landlord caste was for the most part extremely ruthless, but that wasn't what was most noteworthy about the revolt.  The rebels also pooled their resources to purchase a mine lease, so they would have a source of income that would allow them to remain free.  Unfortunately, their lease ran out.  Not all of the revolt participants remained free.

I was  particularly impressed with Laura Murphy's comments about non-violence.  She said that non-violence is romanticized.  She adds that if the Kols were non-violent in the face of  the ruthlessness of the landlord that they revolted against, the Kols wouldn't have been able to survive.  So they couldn't remain consistently non-violent.  Murphy also pointed out that conditions in Azad Nagar were by no means ideal.  This caused all those who remained free to leave Azad Nagar eventually.  

I appreciate Laura Murphy's commitment to accuracy and realism.  If she had told us that Azad Nagar was a utopian community, I wouldn't have believed her.  So although Murphy had idealistic beliefs, she remained committed to giving us a genuine history of the revolt.  I respected Freedomville as a work of scholarship.  It gave me insight into the real conditions on the ground in Uttar Pradesh.  I thought that I understood both the Kols and the landlord class after reading it.

                                    

 

 

Embers: Reindeer Killings Among The Sami

 Embers is a first novel by Josephine Greenland.  I downloaded it from Net Galley.  It's a mystery that takes place amidst conflict between contemporary Swedes, and Sami reindeer herders who want to preserve their traditional way of life. 

                      

                           

 The young protagonists of Embers are Ellen and Simon.  It seemed to me that although Ellen was a good deal older than Simon, she seemed less definite in her opinions.  Simon, an autistic seven year old, was far more certain.  He was also very determined to find out who has been killing reindeer. 

 This investigative team were partly descended from Sami. The Sami are the indigenous inhabitants of Lapland.  Speaking of Lapland, my favorite book as a child was Lapland Outlaw by Arthur Catherall.  For me, this children's book was centrally significant, and I never forgot it.  I briefly discussed how I felt about Lapland Outlaw in this review. 

I often track down references to books in whatever I read.  The character Simon read a number of mysteries in a series by Martin Widmark.  I discovered that Widmark is a major author of children's fiction in Sweden.  

Author Josephine Greenland had mentioned "Levinians", but I have to say that this search term didn't lead to any useful results until I identified Levinians as a Lutheran sect.  Then I hit paydirt with Laestadian Lutheranism, and its founder 19th century Swedish Sami Lutheran clergyman Lars Levi Laestadius on Wikipedia. 

At one point in the narrative of Embers, Ellen and Simon talk about the nature of dreams.  Simon said that dreams aren't supernatural.  I actually do believe that dreams are supernatural, full of symbols and rich with meaning.  Sometimes a novel like Embers reminds me of the ideas that I consider foundational.   I feel well rewarded by such tales.

Attempts to end Sami reindeer herding have increased.  Embers reveals that the pressure to stop the Sami traditional way of life is due to resource extraction industries.   Any other land use is incompatible with mining.  Another important consideration is that unless the mining companies agree to restore the land after they've finished mining it, the land will be useless for any other purpose for quite some time.  This goes beyond the Sami losing their traditional lifestyle.  Swedes should realize that they are allowing the environment of Lapland to be wrecked by the extractive industries, and they will not be able to use that land either.

Another issue that is brought up is the exploitation of Thai agricultural workers in Sweden.  So the Sami aren't the only ones being mistreated in Sweden.  There probably aren't any laws protecting non-Swedes from exploitation. 

An individual who is identified as  responsible for crimes is portrayed sympathetically in this novel. I think that mysteries in which those who have committed crimes are portrayed in a complex manner are better written than the ones in which the perpetrators are portrayed as stereotypical villains.  I thought that Embers is a superior first novel.