A captivating story of hopeless young men whose committed teacher listens—and thereby learns as much as he teaches.
Novelist Salzman (Lying Awake, 2000, etc.) chronicles his experiences as a teacher of writing to young defendants held in Central Juvenile Hall, Los Angeles.
It makes quite a contrast with the gentle tone of Salzman’s memoir about teaching in China (Iron and Silk, 1986), having more in common with the how-I-survived-in-a-tough-classroom accounts of George Dennison and Jonathan Kozol. In 1997, needing background for a juvenile delinquent character in his novel-in-progress, the writer visited a class of juvenile criminals taught by a friend and began teaching his own group after succumbing to some arm-twisting from the friend and from a dedicated nun, Sister Janet, who appears throughout the text. An author’s note informs us that he “re-created from memory” the conversations he held with these tough young men (most accused of murder), and he must have quite a memory, for the narrative is principally dialogue. Salzman held two one-hour sessions per week as part of a project sponsored by a nonprofit foundation. Here, he describes individual class sessions and reproduces (verbatim, he says, with only the spelling and mechanics standardized) some of the pieces the students wrote during the class. Their work ranges from angry to poignant to ugly to horrifying to horrible to pathetic. Salzman occasionally takes us outside—a particularly effective instance involves watching a meteor shower with his father in Arizona—but for the most part he confines his story, like his students, so readers feel the institutional claustrophobia. The author carefully documents his insecurities, his frustrations, and his occasional inability to coax much work or interest—or even civility—from the class, but he also describes in great detail his many successes, most notably a “retreat” that he helps arrange with writing students from other units in the facility. Neither does he neglect to record numerous laudatory comments about his work from colleagues, students, and corrections officers.
A captivating story of hopeless young men whose committed teacher listens—and thereby learns as much as he teaches.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-41308-1
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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