The Island community reeled in shock in May with news of the unexpected passing of Tony Horwitz at 60 years of age. A high-energy journalist, author, and good guy, Horwitz gave us much in his Pulitzer prizewinning life and career.
His book “Spying on the South,” just released before his passing, is a work that reflected the lifetime of wisdom Horwitz accumulated in decades of correspondence for national news organizations around the world, in often dicey spots. The book was premised on historical perspective that would retrace the pre–Civil War steps of New York Times correspondent Frederick Law Olmsted in the socially discordant Southern U.S. in the mid-1850s.
In an important sense, the book is a correspondent’s report on the life and humanness of Southern culture. “Spying on the South” was no accident. Sure, Geraldine Brooks, Horwitz’ literary awardwinning and neat wife, had ordered him to clean out the barn where he refound his notes relating to Olmsted’s pilgrimage, and re-sparking him.
But he indicated in a conversation with The Times that he undertook the two-year journey on foot, horseback, automobile, and river barge in part because he believed an unbiased look at Southern values might be helpful to us all in an age of angry national polarities, similar to Olmsted’s time.
We had two other important looks at the ways in which America’s racial and social perspectives evolved and were actively constructed in the mid-20th century. In “Hard Rain,” Southern journalist Frye Gaillard recounts his life through the story arcs of tragedy and hope of civil rights struggles, black power, women’s liberation, the war in Vietnam, the protests against it, and changes in music, literature, art, and religion. He offers firsthand accounts of the power brokers with whom he interacted, from Martin Luther King Jr. to George Wallace. But he also examines the cultural manifestations of change ― music, literature, art, and religion.
If Gaillard shows us how the ’60s came a cropper, Henry Louis (“Skip”) Gates Jr. shows us in “Stony the Road” how 80 years of Jim Crow laws and attitudes in the South created the lust for racial change and equity that erupted in the late 1950s and 1960s, on which Gaillard reports.
Gates’ research describes a Jim Crow era that was not just anti–black freedom and anti–black voting laws, but also campaigns developed and promulgated to denigrate African Americans as human beings, using popular art memes and scientific folderol to establish a racist point of view nationally.
We try in this space to look for themes in the year’s literary output. Sometimes real themes emerge. Alas, sometimes I imagine them. But we have a significant microcosm of the larger literary world living and at work here, and I believe it’s worth the effort.
So to the Gates/Gaillard recounting of true American history, we can add the latest from David McCullough, our Island literary lion. McCullough was delighted to find a big and untold story of Americana in “The Pioneers,” which recounts how a group of Massachusetts men (including one who lived in Edgartown) settled the frontiers of Ohio and southern Virginia in the 1780s, before we had a national Constitution or an elected president to represent it.
Their own “constitution” — on which they based their settlement culture, which thrived — outlawed slavery, established equality for all residents, treated Native Americans with respect and dignity, established public education, and set aside common land for common purposes. Until McCullough uncovered a trail of research clues while on a 2004 visit to speak at Ohio University, this amazing story had gone untold for 230 years.
Nationally, we fell well short of the Ohio ideal for which its framers believed the Revolutionary War was fought, but McCullough’s work shows us the ideal also works in a pragmatic manner.
An important read in a time when the national foundation is quaking.
Also this year, seasonal resident and NYT bestselling author Fred Waitzkin added another gem, “Deep Water Blues,” to his collection, which stars “Searching for Bobby Fischer.” And frequent visitor Frank Bergon tells the story of “Two-Buck Chuck and the Marlboro Man,” two iconic men Bergon knew in his San Joaquin Valley stomping grounds.
Closer to home, Susan Wilson broke new ground with “The Dog I Loved,” her sixth novel in a canine-themed series. Wilson credits Island history writer Tom Dresser for a measure of plot inspiration.
And as always, Island people become writers to discuss their passions. Susan Bellincampi, the expert on nature around here, has penned her second book, “The Nature of Martha’s Vineyard.”
Bellincampi, executive director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, is wise in the ways of engaging visitors and readers in her work. As a result, her “nature book” is sprightly, humorous, and offers often tongue-in-cheek renditions of the flora and fauna on the Island. Good book to read with emerging nature lovers.
Island fishing star Janet Messineo, a nationally known writer and angler, has penned her first book, a memoir, “Casting Into the Light,” an honest look at her life and struggles, including breaking into the “old boys” fishing fraternity on the Island 40-odd years ago.
And iconic Island teacher Dan Sharkovitz, now retired English teacher and literary mentor at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, gave us his poetic thoughts in his first book, “A World of Good,” a compilation of short story fiction drawn from his life experiences.
Noting the 50th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick, Chappy resident Bill Pinney wrote a closely researched book, “Chappaquiddick Speaks.” Pinney found a new witness, Chappy resident Carol Jones, who sheds new light on what really happened on the night of July 18, 1969, when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy drove an Oldsmobile 88 off the Dyke Bridge in Chappaquiddick.
