{"id":1774,"date":"2010-05-15T14:34:14","date_gmt":"2010-05-15T21:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2010\/05\/i_just_finished_reading_a\/"},"modified":"2012-10-22T15:24:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T19:24:12","slug":"i_just_finished_reading_a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2010\/05\/i_just_finished_reading_a.html","title":{"rendered":"Murder in Black and White"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading a juicy crime novel, Grace<\/em><\/a>, set in the Bay Area in the summer of 1972. It’s about the murder of the title character, a race track worker whose body is fished out of San Francisco Bay. She was beautiful, white, and promiscuous — and she was in love with a black man. Not just any black man, but the head of security for the Black Panther Party in Oakland, who the police are convinced is a cop killer. Which has made him Public Enemy No. 1. Naturally, he’s arrested for Grace’s murder.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Trouble is, a female acquaintance of Grace’s — a young white Cal Berkeley student who also works at the track — has proof that he couldn’t have killed her. It’s an intriguing set-up and so are the ensuing complications.<\/p>\n

Grace<\/em> does what a crime novel should do. It creates suspense, develops an authentic atmosphere, and paints a particular time and place with all the right touches. The characters get up off the page. And the dialogue rings true from beginning to end.<\/p>\n

The story also turns out to be something of a bildungsroman that revolves around the narrator as she delves into Grace’s life and the events leading up to the murder. Needless to say, the issue of race plays a major role, not to mention Cointelpro<\/a>, the Phoenix Program<\/a>, and the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

It’s possible that because I once lived in the Bay Area and knew the locale, including particulars like the race track, the Berkeley streets, and so on, I got a special charge out of the book. Many of the details about the narrator and several of the key characters seem factual, or close to it, which may be why Grace<\/em> gets things so right. But it takes a real writer to make that happen.<\/p>\n

Full disclosure:<\/strong> The author, Susan Sherrell<\/a>, is the sister of an old friend of mine, Gail Chiarello<\/a>. But who knew Susan had this kinda stuff in her? I didn’t. Fuller disclosure:<\/strong> Gail is the publisher of the novel, along with other books at Workwomans Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s an excerpt<\/a> from Grace.<\/em> And here’s Susan talking about the book in a radio interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Postscript:<\/strong> May 29 — Yesterday Susan read from the novel on “Cover to Cover” at KPFA (94.1 FM) in Berkeley. It’s available for the next two weeks.<\/p>\n

\n
Cover to Cover Open Book – May 28, 2010 at 3:00pm<\/b><\/p>\n

Click to listen (or download<\/a>)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading a juicy crime novel, Grace, set in the Bay Area in the summer of 1972. It’s about the murder of the title character, a race track worker whose body is fished out of San Francisco Bay. She was beautiful, white, and promiscuous — and she was in love with a black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-sC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}