THIS IS AN UPDATE
From the New York Times this morning, June 30:
Asher’s book is a Midnight Special of its own. It’s a fog-piercing down-bound train of a book, better than it had to be. … [I]t examines how the police, courts and penitentiaries have shaped the nation’s musical culture through profiles of five artists: Lead Belly, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White and Tupac Shakur.
If these profiles had been straightforward, that might’ve been enough. But Asher is a calm and sophisticated storyteller who picks you up and sets you back down in places you didn’t anticipate. Like a good film director, he knows how to stagger his material. Minor characters rise, become major ones, then fall back. . . .
Taken together, the profiles in “The Midnight Special” amount to a multilayered indictment of America’s prison system, the largest in the world. None of these men were blameless, but the injustice on display will frequently make you sick to your stomach. The book also underlines sheer human resiliency.
The Observer says Asher’s The Midnight Special will “transform” the way you see art. Booklist calls it “mesmerizing.” Publisher’s Weekly likes it, and so does The Houston Press; also Alex Gershman dives deep into the book on his YouTube Channel; Maurice Chammah drills down on Ike White, one of the book’s featured musicians, in a discussion with Asher at The Marshall Project. Henry Carrigan calls it “riveting … judicious and incisive,” in his Reading Room column at No Depression (about roots music & culture), and both Vol 1. Brooklyn and Town & Country recommend it. Here’s my own early notice.
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