News
The spring issue of the Paris Review is now online, with fiction from A.S. Byatt, Hiromi Kawakami, and Rick Moody among others, and a most interesting article by Aleksandar Hemon, which starts thus:
On the morning of March 2, 1908, a young Jewish immigrant named Lazarus Averbuch knocked at the door of the Shippy residence on Chicago’s North Side. George Shippy was Chicago’s chief of police and the young man demanded to see him. The maid told him to come back later that morning, and so he did, whereupon a shoot-out took place in which Averbuch was killed with seven shots, as in a fairy tale. Chief Shippy claimed that he had shot Averbuch to protect himself from an assassination attempt as soon as he saw the visitor, he said, he knew he was an anarchist because he looked ‘Armenian or Jewish.’ According to Shippy’s version, Averbuch arrived equipped with a gun, which Chief Shippy wrestled away. During the struggle Shippy’s son Harry, along with his driver, Foley, both sustained bullet wounds. The chief’s version does not add up, but the excited mainstream press was quick to believe him, and a slew of stories about the anarchist menace rearing its foreign head covered the front pages, frequently illustrated with pictures of the dead Averbuch. His violent nature was supposed to be manifest in his face and the shape of his head: The public marveled over his ‘low forehead,’ ‘large mouth,’ and ‘simian ears,’ all presumably markers of his anarchist proclivities.
While looking for a ‘curly-haired’ man someone had seen with Averbuch before the shooting, the Chicago police quickly started rounding up reputed anarchists, those resembling anarchists, as well as random foreigners who could one day turn into anarchists. Assistant Chief of Police Schuettler, in vigorous charge of the investigation, asserted: ‘It is almost impossible to pick up a man and determine whether or not he is an anarchist. We must follow them and learn their associates and habits from the moment they enter this country.’
It’s rather depressing to note how little has changed since 1908–the press is still quick to relate action with national origin, and law enforcement is still focused on immigrants or people of color as the source of the country’s problems. Hemon writes of the hysteria that surrounded the death of Averbuch, and describes how he got involved in researching this particular case as well as the larger context surrounding it, travelling to Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and finally, to Hemon’s native Bosnia. The essay also includes arresting black-and-white photographs taken by Velibor Bozovic, a friend of Hemon’s.
Over the weekend, the Lit Saloon pointed to this story coming out of the U.K.: A bookseller who’d been consigning unsold books to the trash heap has decided instead to dispose of them by burning them, coincidentally on the same weekend as Beltane, a local pagan festival. Unsurprisingly, the move made more than a few people angry, some of whom are quoted in Adrian Turpin’s Times article:
[T]he root of most objections is not about marketing or public opinion. It is far more instinctive, proof that book-burning remains one of the West’s most enduring taboos. Michael McCreath is chairman of Wigtown’s book festival, which takes place in September. ‘The whole thing has such horrendous historical connotations,’ he says.
The news has been picked up in other outlets. I can’t help but notice this little tidbit from James Hamilton’s article in the Sunday Herald:
Watson, a librarian to trade, added: ‘I think of Salman Rushdie [whose Satanic Verses was torched by militant Muslims] and the Harry Potter books burned in the US ‘ as far as I’m concerned by complete nutters. It’s the symbolism that bothers me. I just don’t feel happy about it. I’m seriously uncomfortable about the public burning of books because of the message it sends out.’
Conclusion: If you burn a book and you’re Muslim, you can be sure your religious inclination will be mentioned. If you burn a book and you’re not, you’ll just be called a regular sort of nutter.
MG reader Dan Olivas sends notice that May has been designated as Latino Books Month by the Association of American Publishers. I didn’t know that books had ethnicities! It’d be one thing if they’d called it “Latino Writers’ Month” or “Latino Voices’ Month” but “Latino Books” just sounds strange. Still, I can’t really find fault with any initiative that promotes books to people. So.
I was away last weekend and couldn’t be at Wordstock, but Jeff Baker’s wrap-up of the book festival in the Oregonian gave me a flavor of what I’d missed. This part, though, made my jaw drop:
The consensus around the convention center was that Wordstock’s first year was a smashing success for the community and the community of writers that calls the Northwest home.
“I’m really, really glad Portland has a book fair again,” said Ursula K. Le Guin. “It’s something we really needed. Look at the turnout!”
Le Guin’s presentation demonstrated the challenges any first-ever event faces. A healthy crowd of about 80, including a dozen children, tried to listen to the 75-year-old Le Guin while a few feet away, almost 2,000 people laughed and applauded as Vowell read from her new book “Assassination Vacation.” The effect was somewhat jarring, but Le Guin shrugged it off.
Call your agent, Ursula. You need to get on NPR.
Samir El-Youssef has just won the Tucholsky Award, given by PEN to “writers, journalists and publishers who face persecution, threats or exile from their home countries.” Most recently, El-Youssef co-authored a collection of stories with Israeli author Etgar Keret, titled Gaza Blues.