Tonight is the first event for the new book, and I've spent most of the afternoon at home with curlers in my hair and cucumber circles on the eyes...
Continue »
Journalist Bruce Watson's book on Sacco & Vanzetti is the type of breezy work on the case which is long overdue and it deserves a wide readership. It is in a lively style which has " movie-based-on" written all over it. But it does brings the reader to an extensive awareness of events that more than any other in our history truly reflected America as the composite of evil and glory she is.
The strongest part of the book is the last half, after the verdict. The verdict in 1921 only rated a few paragraph on page six in the New York Times - though the crime and trial were well covered in Boston. But from then on momentum built, with some pauses, to the crescendo of the execution and the world wide protests and riots. And Watson does a moving coverage of this period, not only of the case but of the two men and the social milieu .
On the negative side, too much space is taken up with nonessential details such as Governor Fuller's art tastes and more than we want to know about minor characters. Though all this does add color and tone to the sometimes dry nature of the underlying court case. Less explainable are the outright errors such as some biographical facts about Fred Moore. For example, Moore and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn did not first meet at the 1912 Lawrence strike. They met in Spokane where Moore began his legal career and work with the IWW. They were quite close at that time and there were even rumors of a secret romance.
For my taste, Watson spends too little time on the whodunit aspect. And there is really no room for this as the book is a like a pot luck party stew where if someone brings it, it gets tossed into the pot, for better or for worse. Watson does bring up good questions on the issue near the end of the book, considerations of which could together in themselves be the subject of a whole book. Some of these are: Why were Sacco and Vanzetti armed on the night of their arrest? What were they really doing that night? And I'll throw in one. What was their actual connection to Mario Buda?
Long live Anarchy!
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(3 of 9 readers found this comment helpful)
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
Customer Comments
Ron has commented on (1) product.
Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson
Ron, September 27, 2007
Journalist Bruce Watson's book on Sacco & Vanzetti is the type of breezy work on the case which is long overdue and it deserves a wide readership. It is in a lively style which has " movie-based-on" written all over it. But it does brings the reader to an extensive awareness of events that more than any other in our history truly reflected America as the composite of evil and glory she is.The strongest part of the book is the last half, after the verdict. The verdict in 1921 only rated a few paragraph on page six in the New York Times - though the crime and trial were well covered in Boston. But from then on momentum built, with some pauses, to the crescendo of the execution and the world wide protests and riots. And Watson does a moving coverage of this period, not only of the case but of the two men and the social milieu .
On the negative side, too much space is taken up with nonessential details such as Governor Fuller's art tastes and more than we want to know about minor characters. Though all this does add color and tone to the sometimes dry nature of the underlying court case. Less explainable are the outright errors such as some biographical facts about Fred Moore. For example, Moore and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn did not first meet at the 1912 Lawrence strike. They met in Spokane where Moore began his legal career and work with the IWW. They were quite close at that time and there were even rumors of a secret romance.
For my taste, Watson spends too little time on the whodunit aspect. And there is really no room for this as the book is a like a pot luck party stew where if someone brings it, it gets tossed into the pot, for better or for worse. Watson does bring up good questions on the issue near the end of the book, considerations of which could together in themselves be the subject of a whole book. Some of these are: Why were Sacco and Vanzetti armed on the night of their arrest? What were they really doing that night? And I'll throw in one. What was their actual connection to Mario Buda?
Long live Anarchy!
(3 of 9 readers found this comment helpful)