THE PIONEERS by David McCullough
In 2019, David McCullough was one of America's preeminent historians, a household name in a field that doesn't have many. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for Truman and John Adams, he had earned a well-deserved reputation as both a studious researcher and a talented storyteller, capable of turning monuments into men and dusty tomes into captivating tales. All he had to do was pick a project and any publisher would have printed whatever he wrote, no questions asked.
So he wrote The Pioneers.
Far more narrowly focused than some of his other works, this book tells the history of the Northwest Ordinance, the 1788 opening up of territory northwest of the Ohio River, and specifically of the settlement of Marietta. Ostensibly a case study about the pioneers of that era, McCullough seeks to explain through Marietta's history what drove those early settlers, to describe their living conditions, and to show how their priorities—particularly free public education and the abolition of slavery—would shape the nation moving forward.
Unfortunately, the book is just kind of a drag, a dull, repetitive slog of names and dates without much narrative propulsion. Great history books, like those that made McCullough famous, tell a compelling story...and there's just not much story here. I picked it up expecting Daniel Boone-style frontier tales, but instead got a lot of mini-biographies of farmers and tradesmen.
In the acknowledgements, McCullough explains that the idea for this book came after spending a day at Ohio University's library, where he learned about Marietta's settlement and saw how much untapped research there was related to it. Faced with that treasure trove, he couldn't resist diving in. That explanation, to me, says it all—this book is a historian's pet project, not a story the general public was demanding to hear. David McCullough is an American icon, and deservedly so, but you can skip The Pioneers.
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
I am allergic to pretentiousness. It's why I'd rather eat an $8 burger than a five-course meal at a Michelin star restaurant, why I prefer the blues to classical music, why I never seriously considered a career in academia even though there is much I love about it. And it's why James Joyce is just not for me.
Joyce wrote four books in his lifetime, each less accessible than the one that came before it. Dubliners is reportedly the most readable, the kind of book your average high schooler could get through. At the other end of the spectrum is Finnegan's Wake, which even many scholars consider incomprehensible. And in between are his most highly regarded novels, Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I read Ulysses back in 2017, painstakingly plowing through 5 pages a day until I finished it. My experience with that book—I not only hated it, but resented it, finding it more of a cipher than a story—put me off of reading any more Joyce for years. But, with more than 5 years removed from that experience, I decided to finally tackle his other classic.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a borderline autobiographical account of an Irishman, Stephen Dedalus (who would later reappear in Ulysses) who, as he grows up, realizes that he can only achieve his artistic potential by leaving behind the things holding him back—namely religion and family—and devoting himself purely to the pursuit and expression of beauty. Following Stephen from his home to a Jesuit-run boarding school to university, we see him struggle with his upbringing and veer between the extremes of hedonism and religious devotion before finally reaching his artistic enlightenment.
If that's all a little woo-woo for you, join the club. That sense is only heightened by Joyce's storytelling, which is not linear and mixes third-person narrative with sparse dialogue. It's not as ambitious—i.e. cryptic—as Ulysses stylistically, but neither is it direct. This book is not the labor to read that its famed sequel is, but it's not a pleasure either.
My main takeaway from this book was the same one I had in 2017—James Joyce seems far more interested in impressing professors than pleasing readers. I was able to follow A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man without aids most of the time, but I almost never enjoyed the experience. What can I say—I'd rather read an author who wants me to understand than one who wants to show off.
THE ACCOMMODATION by Jim Schutze
The Accommodation is a book possibly better known for its publishing history than its contents. First printed in 1987, it initially sold poorly. But as it was passed around the city, it became something of an underground classic—one that not-so-mysteriously had trouble ever finding a second printing. Into the 2000s, the waiting list to check it out from the Dallas Public Library was months long, and copies went for hundreds of dollars on eBay. In 2020, one Twitter user, @accomodation87, began tweeting the book line by line for those who wanted to read it but couldn't get their hands on a copy. It wasn't until 2021, when the local independent press Deep Vellum rereleased the book, that many North Texans were finally able to read what D Magazine once called "the most dangerous book in Dallas."
So what was all the fuss about?
The Accommodation bluntly tells a story that Dallas' elites never wanted told, about how a soft alliance between the city's white business leaders and its conservative black leaders repeatedly sacrificed the interests of black residents in the name of preventing the kind of outright racial violence that stained the reputations of places like Birmingham, Montgomery, Little Rock, and Watts. Loosely organized around a series of bombings of black homes in the 1950s, Dallas Times-Herald journalist Jim Schutze details everything from Dallas' pre-Civil War history up through the seizure of black residents' homes by eminent domain to expand parking for the State Fair, compellingly showing how race shaped Dallas' history, even as leaders tried to paint the city as a commerce-first beacon of harmony.
North Texas residents will quickly hone in on Schutze's keen feel for the ethos of Dallas, a place where business always wins and the real power is found in the hands of the wealthy, not necessarily the political or social elite. What may come as news is how, for most of the city's history, that reality was practically codified, with the city effectively managed by a Citizens Council of business leaders. Those leaders consistently trumpeted the importance of looking out for "Dallas as a whole"—and the citizens who were required to make sacrifices for that whole were almost always black. Schutze puts it this way in the book's final pages:
"In politics anyway, Dallas was annexed and became an integral part of the United States in 1978. Up to that moment, it was a well-run, pre-democratic city-state, ruled by a board of elders who valued wealth and ritual over truth and law."
I found The Accommodation to be an informative, explosive, if somewhat disorganized account of Dallas' racial history. The framing device of the 1950s bombings is used so loosely that it feels like the writer keeps forgetting about it, only to be reminded and return. I would have probably preferred a more linear storytelling format for such a sprawling history. Nevertheless, there is a lot of meat on these bones, and Schutze writes with both an eye for detail and a flair for the dramatic. The Accomodation isn't the most unbiased or flawless history book you'll ever pick up, but it's essential reading for North Texans—and, thanks to Deep Vellum, now you can actually get your hands on a copy!
LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL by Martin Luther King, Jr.
My review from January 2023:
I make a point to read this American epistle every MLK Day, and this year was no exception. Addressed to a collection of white, moderate pastors who were concerned with Dr. King's protest-centered approach to social change, its central theme can be summarized by its most famous quote: "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Drawing from Scripture, American history, and outright common sense, King systematically dismantles the concerns of his fellow pastors, showing how both his faith and his heritage demand that he remain outspoken on the subject of civil rights, and how the methodology of the movement is not only effective, but moral. Furthermore, King respectfully but forcefully decries the caution of his fellow pastors, convincingly arguing that there are times when God calls his children to boldness, not moderation.
For someone who proudly identifies as a moderate on social and political issues, Letter from Birmingham Jail challenges me on an annual basis. I consider it to be right up there with the Gettysburg Address among the greatest works of American political writing—if you've never taken the time to read it in its entirety, do it now.
THE CASE FOR THE PSALMS by N.T. Wright
The Book of Psalms is, theoretically, the church's hymn book, a treasure trove of ancient praises, laments, reflections, and songs that gives us language to worship our God. So why do so few churches use the psalms as intended, instead picking out a few beloved verses while mostly ignoring the rest? Why do we settle for silently reading words that were meant to be sung?
In The Case for the Psalms, theologian and biblical scholar N.T. Wright argues that the psalms are essential for believers. Using the lenses of time, space, and matter, he argues that they give us insight into creation as it is and the new creation to come—they invoke the past and anticipate the future, they celebrate both the Temple and the world to come, they delight in not only the heavens, but also the earth. It's a structure that isn't immediately intuitive, but fits his theology well and is well-sourced (Wright cites a lot of psalms!)
While I appreciated the core of the book, my favorite part was the afterword, when Wright explained how the psalms have been there for him at various times in his life. This personal touch, which you don't always expect from theologians, was appropriate to the subject matter and helped drive home his overall point: the psalms are here for you, so use them! Sing them!
The highest compliment I can pay this book is that, immediately after finishing it, I read five psalms. Mission accomplished, Professor Wright.
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
It's easy for me to understand why The Hunt for Red October was a box office hit in 1990. With Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Sam Neill, and James Earl Jones in the cast, there was plenty of star power. Its story of a Russian submarine commander defecting to the U.S. provided a great framework for a military thriller. And after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, who wasn't in the mood for a pro-America Cold War story? Yes, the film adaptation of Tom Clancy's 1984 novel was an easy sell for audiences everywhere. The same was true for Clancy's future offerings, which spawned movies, TV shows, and video games that endure to this day.
I'm just surprised the book that started it all has as many fans as it does.
Clancy, to be clear, plotted out a great story, with an appropriate balance between military plausibility and Hollywood drama. The problem is his storytelling, which is wooden at best. Clancy loves military and technical jargon, and this reader was quickly put off by it. Indeed, there were times when reading this novel felt more like homework than entertainment, a feeling I wasn't expecting from a popular novel. Some have dubbed Clancy the father of the "techno thriller", and after reading The Hunt for Red October, it's clear which of those two words was the priority in his debut.
For the weekend warrior who plays Call of Duty for 10 hours straight, falls asleep to World War II documentaries, and owns way too many paintball guns, this book may be right up your alley. After all, somebody was buying all those Tom Clancy books in the 1990s and 2000s. But that somebody isn't me. Half Price Books can have this one back.
EX MACHINA BOOKS 1-5 by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris
Proof that Brian K. Vaughan is one of the best comics writers of all time: Ex Machina isn't usually even mentioned as one of his best books. Better known for Y: The Last Man, Runaways, and his ongoing work on Saga, Vaughan has rightfully earned a reputation over the years for witty dialogue, memorable characters, slowly unfolding plots, and last-page cliffhangers. And with Ex Machina, which ran for 50 issues and a few specials, Vaughan put his powers to good use, crafting an ongoing story that kept readers entertained from issue to issue even as they waited to see where it was all going. It's not his best work, but it's better than most runs you'll ever read.
Ex Machina is the story of Mitchell Hundred, a onetime New York superhero who parlayed his stint as a vigilante into a successful run for mayor of the Big Apple. Issue to issue, readers see him working his way through city politics even as he is repeatedly confronted by the life he left behind. As you might have gathered, it's basically The West Wing meets Superman, a fantasy for all those comic nerds who got straight A's in poli-sci.
The book's greatest strength is Vaughan's ability each issue to balance the A-plot (whatever political issue Hundred is facing that week) with the simmering mysteries of how he got his powers, where they come from, and whether some extradimensional looming threat is waiting to take him on. The book's political plots are episodic even as its mysteries are serialized, a balance that would serve Vaughan well when he moved to TV writing on shows like Lost and Under the Dome.
The book's biggest weakness is that it is very much of its time, the not-remotely-subtle response of a center-left writer to the excesses of the second Bush administration. Both the book's ethos and the specific issues it addresses plant it firmly in the mid-2000s, when the world was a very different place than it is today. This is the persistent danger when your book tries to tackle politics, and in this case it leads to some moments where I rolled my eyes when the authorial intention was for me to be inspired.
All in all, the nerds who draw equal inspiration from Aaron Sorkin and Christopher Reeves will find a kindred spirit in this book, and Vaughan's consistently excellent writing (not to mention the underrated art of Tony Harris) will keep you hooked throughout. This book is dated, but it's an original concept and a great way to spend some time.
