{"id":75331,"date":"2026-06-25T10:35:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=75331"},"modified":"2026-07-29T14:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T18:52:24","slug":"early-reviews-are-in-book-launch-in-brooklyn-the-midnight-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2026\/06\/early-reviews-are-in-book-launch-in-brooklyn-the-midnight-special.html","title":{"rendered":"Early Reviews Are In<\/em><\/font>
Book Launched in Brooklyn: ‘The Midnight Special’ <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

THIS IS AN UPDATE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
W.W. Norton<\/strong> (purchase here)<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From the New York Times this morning<\/a>, June 30, by Dwight Garner, the Times’s much-respected (clear-sighted, first-among-equals) book reviewer:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[Colin]<\/strong> Asher\u2019s book is a Midnight Special of its own. It\u2019s 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\u2019s musical culture through profiles of five artists: Lead Belly, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White and Tupac Shakur.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If these profiles had been straightforward, that might\u2019ve been enough. But Asher is a calm and sophisticated storyteller who picks you up and sets you back down in places you didn\u2019t anticipate. Like a good film director, he knows how to stagger his material. Minor characters rise, become major ones, then fall back. . .<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTaken together, the profiles in The Midnight Special<\/em> amount to a multilayered indictment of America\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Observer<\/a><\/em> says Asher’s The Midnight Special<\/em> <\/a> will \u201ctransform\u201d the way you see art. Booklist<\/em><\/a> calls it \u201cmesmerizing.\u201d Publisher\u2019s Weekly<\/a><\/em> likes it, and so does The Houston Press<\/a><\/em>; also Alex Gershman dives deep<\/a> 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<\/a><\/em>. Henry Carrigan calls it “riveting … judicious and incisive,” in his Reading Room column at No Depression<\/a> (about roots music & culture), and both Vol 1. Brooklyn<\/a><\/em> and Town & Country<\/a> recommend it.  Here’s my own early notice. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
The book launch will feature The Cambia Collective<\/strong>, a band that performs music written by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists. The Collective has appeared in New York City at the Cutting Room, Cell Theater, DiMenna Center, and Abraham House, as well as in Westchester County at Green Ossining\u2019s Earth Day Festival and the Sing Sing Prison Museum\u2019s UNSUNG conversation series.<\/em> There will also be an open bar.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0UPDATED:
\nColin Asher is “a calm and sophisticated storyteller who picks you up and sets you back down in places you didn’t anticipate,” NY Times book critic Dwight Garner writes. He calls “The Midnight Special” “a fog-piercing down-bound train of a book” that “underlines sheer human resiliency.” The Observer\u00a0says Asher’s new book will \u201ctransform” the way you see art. \u00a0Booklist\u00a0calls it \u201cmesmerizing.\u201d\u00a0Publisher\u2019s Weekly likes it; 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\u00a0Asher at\u00a0The Marshall Project. There is also my own early notice. <\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":73710,"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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26,18,4,22,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","category-literature","category-main","category-music","category-news","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/the-midnight-special-cover.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-jB1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75331","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=75331"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75871,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75331\/revisions\/75871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}