In 1925, Ossian Sweet, a proud African-American doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white Detroit neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes. And so it began-a chain of events that brought America's greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet's murder trial into a tapestry of narrative history. [Henry Holt]
Critic Reviews
|
Outstanding
|
Boston Globe Paul Butler
A masterful account.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Chicago Tribune Eric Arnesen
A remarkable snapshot of a historical moment. Skillfully infusing his narrative with dramatic tension and explorations of his principals' psychology and motivation, Boyle brings a novelist's touch to his history.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Christian Science Monitor Gregory M. Lamb
Writing with the immediacy of a journalist and the flair of a novelist, he's produced a history that's at once an intense courtroom drama, a moving biography, and an engrossing look at race in America in the early 20th century.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Los Angeles Times Steve Oney
Masterfully weaving crime reporting and social history, Boyle has produced a fine and moving work. [5 Sept 2004, p.R5]
|
|
Outstanding
|
Publishers Weekly
Explores the politics of racism and the internecine battles within the nascent Civil Rights movement [and] grips right up to the stunning jaw-dropper of an ending.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Salon Priya Jain
Boyle has a keen eye for detail and a laudable aversion to idealizing his subjects. Although his affection for Sweet is clear, he's also honest -- sometimes brutally so -- about Sweet's weaknesses.
|
|
Outstanding
|
The New York Times Patrician Cohen
An impressive work. Deftly weaving together biography, courtroom drama and social history, Mr. Boyle has produced a meticulously researched and engrossing book.
|
|
Outstanding
|
The New York Times Book Review Robert F. Worth
By far the most cogent and thorough account yet of the trial and its aftermath (another book, Phyllis Vine's "One Man's Castle," appeared earlier this year). One of its virtues is the way Boyle vividly recreates the energy and menace of Detroit in 1925.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Houston Chronicle Steve Weinberg
Using one dramatic case to illuminate the bigger picture, Boyle has written a book that ought to become a standard text and might just become a classic of historical literature.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Kirkus Reviews
The way history should be written.
|
|
Favorable
|
Library Journal Thomas J. Davis
This fact-filled, people-focused, readable work complements the growing literature on race in Detroit and in 20th-century U.S. urban development. [1 Oct 2004, p.93]
|
|
Favorable
|
Booklist Vanessa Bush
Boyle, a history professor, brings immediacy and drama to the social and economic factors that ignited racial violence, provoked the compelling court case, and set in motion the civil rights struggle. [1 Sept 2004, p.26]
|
|
Favorable
|
Entertainment Weekly Raymond Fiore
Boyle's page-turning account of the incident and the landmark murder trial is both exhaustive and exhausting: He spins a suspenseful narrative, but then abandons it for a 125-page analysis of Sweet's lineage.
|
|
