Nevermore: Mystery, History, Detroit, and Women in Science

Reported by Ambrea

Our Nevermore readers started the meeting with an international mystery:  Six and a Half Deadly Sins by Colin Cotterill.  Cotterill, who now lives in Chumphon, Thailand, begins his story in Laos in 1979.  Dr. Siri Paiboun is a retired coroner who receives an unexpected gift in the mail—a handwoven pha sin, a colorful skirt traditionally worn in northern Laos, with a severed finger stitched into the lining.  Paiboun is suddenly roped into a deadly scavenger hunt, a mystery leading to a tragic series of murders and a dangerous border skirmish in the north.  Our reader said he enjoyed Six and a Half Deadly Sins immensely.  Gifted with a grim sense of humor, Cotterill’s novel offers an intimate look at Laos in a time of turmoil and a man able to seek justice through the secrets he knows and the people he knows how to manipulate.

Our readers continued in the vein of mystery with The Lost Detective:  Becoming Dashiell Hammett by Nathan Ward.  Hammett, an ex-soldier and former agent for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, became a mystery writer in the late 1920s.  He wrote a number of short stories and novels, including The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man.  But after 1934, he suddenly stopped writing, becoming an elusive figure in modern mystery writing.  Full with insightful information into one of America’s earliest detective writers and packed to the gills with original research accumulated from across the country, The Lost Detective was an interesting glimpse into Dashiell Hammett’s life and career.  Our Nevermore reader was fascinated and, moreover, glad to see author Nathan Ward pull Hammett out of obscurity.

Next, our readers followed with The Only Woman in the Room:  Why Science is Still a Boy’s Club by Eileen Pollack.  Pollack, who was one of the first women to graduate from Yale with a bachelor of science in physics, became a successful fiction writer rather than pursuing a career related to her degree.  Like many women in STEM fields, Pollack was isolated in her studies and rarely encouraged to show an interest in science.  Her book, The Only Woman in the Room, explores the suggestion that men and women have a differing aptitude concerning mathematics and science—and, more importantly, explores the frequent social and institutional difficulties that women confront when studying the hard sciences.  Our Nevermore reader said Pollack, given her experiences as a fiction author, writes beautifully and shares her findings (as well as her experiences) in a way that informs and enchants.  Our reader also said The Only Woman in the Room would be an excellent resource for mothers of daughters who are scientifically inclined, because it would give incredible insight.

Our readers also looked at Orson Welles’s Last Movie:  The Making of the Other Side of the Wind by Josh Karp.  Orson Welles, who is famously remembered for his 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and Hollywood films, such as Citizen Kane, began a special endeavor in 1970 with a new movie (which Welles swore was not autobiographical):  The Other Side of the Wind, which featured a legendary but self-destructive director who returns to Hollywood after a self-imposed exile in Europe.  Although the movie was funded by the brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran and slated for only eight weeks of filming, it took twelve years to complete—and remains unreleased to the public.  In Orson Welles’s Last Movie, Karp offers readers an opportunity to see behind-the-scenes of one of Welles’s most bizarre and remarkable films.  While our reader hasn’t had the opportunity to finish Karp’s work, she said Orson Welles’s Last Movie was interesting nonetheless and she hopes to find out whether or not Welles was really the genius so many have believed him to be.

Last, our Nevermore readers looked at Detroit:  An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff.  LeDuff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, returns to Detroit to uncover why his beloved hometown has become one of the poorest cities in the nation.  Interviewing everyone he can find—union bosses, homeless squatters, ordinary people on the street, businessmen, and homeowners struggling to keep their homes—to find out what happened to his city, and what can be done to save it.  Our reader said Detroit was an exceptional book to read, giving it four-and-a-half stars out of five.  “It was so distressing to look at Detroit [now]…because it was a beautiful place at one time,” she said.  But, she continued, it was an enlightening look at Detroit and how its citizens are working to hold their beloved city together.

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

Reviewed by Kristin

Huge swaths of Detroit neighborhoods are being reclaimed by nature.  Trees, prairie grasses and wild animals are becoming prominent in areas that were once covered with houses, sidewalks and factories.  I recently viewed a news story on the amount of change Detroit has seen in the last few years.  Using images from the Google Street View Trekker, a set of cameras mounted on top of a vehicle, Detroit’s decline is being documented and brought to the American eye.  (To read any of several news stories portraying this change, do an internet search using the keywords “Google street view Detroit”.)  After seeing these images, I just happened to see Detroit: An American Autopsy and I knew that I had to read it.

Violent crime is rampant in Detroit.  Charlie LeDuff begins his first chapter talking about being held up at a gas station on the east side, and even says that he should have known better than to stop there.  LeDuff had left Los Angeles with his wife and baby daughter to return to the place where he had a family network:  Detroit.  He was not unaware of the dangers therein; his mother had faced violence working in her flower shop, his brother had succumbed to peer pressure and drugs, and his sister had run away from home as a young teenager.

LeDuff paints a vivid picture of the destruction by fire of a significant number of Detroit buildings.  In fact, he spent quite a bit of time with a local fire squad.  Describing the firefighters as the closest thing to cowboys in today’s urban culture, LeDuff details the half-broken equipment and damaged protective clothing that the squad has been provided in order to go out into the city and save lives.  Beyond just the outer trappings, LeDuff seems to get to know the firefighters through their struggles and feels the pain along with them when one is lost.

LeDuff is a journalist who is no stranger to criticism.  He writes on rough subjects and many of the politicians, police officers, and people on the street mentioned either have no interest in having their actions reported, or feel that they have been poorly represented.  LeDuff’s topics are rough around the edges, yet provide an intriguing peek into the gritty urban subculture.

Despite the grime and flames, despite the grim topic, despite the moments of despair, this is an oddly compelling book.  I found myself reading it avidly.  Perhaps my background played a role:  I was born in a northern town built on a manufacturing background.  Not Detroit, but close enough geographically and anthropologically that I recognize the decline and decay of towns which once thrived with automotive factory work.  I understand driving by a factory where my grandparents once worked, but now the only activity is tall grass growing through the cracks in the parking lot.  I have seen many houses, once graceful, now divided into apartments or fallen into disrepair and decay.

I have seen boom, and I have seen bust.  So has Detroit.

Nevermore's Picks: The Guilty One and Detroit: An American Autopsy

One of the beauties of the Nevermore Book Club is that the members read and report on their own books so folks don't always read the same book. Still, there are some books that make the rounds of more than one reader.  Here are a couple of books which made a big impression on our members:

The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne is highly recommended by Nevermore.  British solicitor Daniel Hunt is handed the case of an eleven year old boy, Sebastian, who is accused of murdering a younger child in this psychological thriller. As he investigates, Daniel is forced to relive parts of his own childhood with his drug-addicted mother and his time in foster care. The author asks a lot of hard questions about child welfare and the criminal justice system, but also explores the nature of love, family and forgiveness. The fact that this is a first novel makes it all the more impressive. 

 Our readers found it hard to put down, and drew comparisons to Defending Jacob by William Landay and The Child Who by Simon Lelic, both of which deal with the same shattering premise. All three offer ample room for discussion of the juvenile justice system (or lack thereof) while being entertaining at the same time. Landay's book offers a lot of twists and turns in addition to great court room scenes, while Lelic is less on the identity of the murderer and more about the consequences of taking an unpopular stand-- and yes, there are still twists and turns.

The other top recommendation is for Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie Leduff.  How did Detroit go from one of the most vibrant, wealthy cities in America to being one of the nation’s poorest, a symbol of decay?  Investigative reporter Leduff, a native of Detroit, traces the trail of corruption and mismanagement, all the while revealing the human faces behind some of the stories such as firemen forced to sell their brass poles to raise money for equipment or policemen taking the bus to crime scenes.  One story involved a corpse left so long that it froze into ice several feet thick.  As someone commented, it’s like watching a car wreck—it’s horrible and horrifying but you can’t look away.