What Fiction are you reading this week, September 17, 2023?

[Martin68]

11. I'm reading "Curious Toys" by Elizabeth Hand. Takes us into the world of a 1915 carnival troupe in

Chicago. In the midst of that fascinating and weird milieu, serial killings are taking place, requiring the attention of seemingly mad detective.

I just finished Richard Wright's "Black Boy," a brilliant account of the author's boyhood in the Jim Crow South and eventual escape to Chicago. With only an 8th Grade education Wright brilliantly describes both the events he encounters, but also his inner world. While life was incredibly dangerous for Black folk in the South at the time, the North proved to be as destructive and defeating in a different way. I came away with a much better understanding of how institutional racism is baked into our society in ways only African Americans understand because it is invisible to White people.