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Those Bones Are Not My Child
Those Bones Are Not My Child is a staggering achievement, a major work of American the novel that Toni Cade Bambara was working on at the time of her death in 1995 -- a story that puts us at the center of the nightmare of the Atlanta child murders.
It was called "The City Too Busy To Hate," but two decades ago more than forty black children were murdered there with grim determination, their bodies found -- in ditches, on riverbanks -- strangled, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Bambara was living in Atlanta at the time, and Those Bones Are Not My Child is the result of twelve years of first-hand research, as she delved into the murders and the world in which they occurred. Evoking the culture of the late 1970s and early '80s with a keen eye -- the Iranian hostage crisis, disco, Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver -- Those Bones Are Not My Child powerfully dramatizes the story of one black family surviving on the margins of a seemingly prosperous city.
On Sunday morning, July 20, 1980, Marzala Rawls Spencer awakens to find that her teenage son has gone missing, even as the Atlanta child abductions are beginning to be reported. As she and her estranged husband frantically search for their son, the story moves with authority through the full spectrum of Atlanta's political, social, and cultural life, illuminating the vexing issues of race and class that bedevil the city.
Suspenseful, richly dramatic, profoundly affecting, Those Bones Are Not My Child explores the complex relationships within one family in dire crisis. And as Toni Morrison, who edited Bambara's manuscript, has observed, it is also "the narrative revelation of a major Southern city of the '80s, a revelation of what clogs the bloodstream of 'The City Too Busy to Hate.' "
It was called "The City Too Busy To Hate," but two decades ago more than forty black children were murdered there with grim determination, their bodies found -- in ditches, on riverbanks -- strangled, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Bambara was living in Atlanta at the time, and Those Bones Are Not My Child is the result of twelve years of first-hand research, as she delved into the murders and the world in which they occurred. Evoking the culture of the late 1970s and early '80s with a keen eye -- the Iranian hostage crisis, disco, Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver -- Those Bones Are Not My Child powerfully dramatizes the story of one black family surviving on the margins of a seemingly prosperous city.
On Sunday morning, July 20, 1980, Marzala Rawls Spencer awakens to find that her teenage son has gone missing, even as the Atlanta child abductions are beginning to be reported. As she and her estranged husband frantically search for their son, the story moves with authority through the full spectrum of Atlanta's political, social, and cultural life, illuminating the vexing issues of race and class that bedevil the city.
Suspenseful, richly dramatic, profoundly affecting, Those Bones Are Not My Child explores the complex relationships within one family in dire crisis. And as Toni Morrison, who edited Bambara's manuscript, has observed, it is also "the narrative revelation of a major Southern city of the '80s, a revelation of what clogs the bloodstream of 'The City Too Busy to Hate.' "
688 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
220 people are currently reading
5723 people want to read
About the author
Toni Cade Bambara
46 books491 followersToni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade (March 25, 1939 – December 9, 1995) was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor.
Toni Cade Bambara was born in New York City to parents Walter and Helen (Henderson) Cade. She grew up in Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant (Brooklyn), Queens and New Jersey. In 1970 she changed her name to include the name of a West African ethnic group, Bambara.
Bambara graduated from Queens College with a B.A. in Theater Arts/English Literature in 1959, then studied mime at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris, France. She also became interested in dance before completing her master's degree in American studies at City College, New York (from 1962), while serving as program director of Colony Settlement House in Brooklyn. She has also worked for New York social services and as a recreation director in the psychiatric ward of Metropolitan hospital. From 1965 to 1969 she was with City College's Search for Education, Elevation, Knowledge-program. She taught English, published material and worked with SEEK's black theatre group. She was made assistant professor of English at Rutgers University's new Livingston College in 1969, was visiting professor in Afro-American Studies at Emory University and at Atlanta University (1977), where she also taught at the School of Social Work (until 1979). She was writer-in-residence at Neighborhood Arts Center (1975–79), at Stephens College at Columbia, Missouri (1976) and at Atlanta's Spelman College (1978–79). From 1986 she taught film-script writing at Louis Massiah's Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia.
Bambara participated in several community and activist organizations, and her work was influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements of the 1960s. She went on propaganda trips to Cuba in 1973 and to Vietnam in 1975. She moved to Atlanta, GA, with her daughter, Karma Bene, and became a founding member of the Southern Collective of African-American Writers.
Toni Cade Bambara was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1993 and died of it in 1995, at the age of 56.
(from Wikipedia)
aka Toni Cade
Toni Cade Bambara was born in New York City to parents Walter and Helen (Henderson) Cade. She grew up in Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant (Brooklyn), Queens and New Jersey. In 1970 she changed her name to include the name of a West African ethnic group, Bambara.
Bambara graduated from Queens College with a B.A. in Theater Arts/English Literature in 1959, then studied mime at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris, France. She also became interested in dance before completing her master's degree in American studies at City College, New York (from 1962), while serving as program director of Colony Settlement House in Brooklyn. She has also worked for New York social services and as a recreation director in the psychiatric ward of Metropolitan hospital. From 1965 to 1969 she was with City College's Search for Education, Elevation, Knowledge-program. She taught English, published material and worked with SEEK's black theatre group. She was made assistant professor of English at Rutgers University's new Livingston College in 1969, was visiting professor in Afro-American Studies at Emory University and at Atlanta University (1977), where she also taught at the School of Social Work (until 1979). She was writer-in-residence at Neighborhood Arts Center (1975–79), at Stephens College at Columbia, Missouri (1976) and at Atlanta's Spelman College (1978–79). From 1986 she taught film-script writing at Louis Massiah's Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia.
Bambara participated in several community and activist organizations, and her work was influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements of the 1960s. She went on propaganda trips to Cuba in 1973 and to Vietnam in 1975. She moved to Atlanta, GA, with her daughter, Karma Bene, and became a founding member of the Southern Collective of African-American Writers.
Toni Cade Bambara was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1993 and died of it in 1995, at the age of 56.
(from Wikipedia)
aka Toni Cade
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
September 2, 2025
"While we may despise the treachery of lies, we seem to fear the squalor of the truth even more. Let us bow our heads and pray for the strength to overcome our own fearfulness...The government invented the term credibility gap to cover the distance between what officials know and what they tell us".
One of the most horrifying and saddest books about racial injustice I've read- this is the story of parents Zala and Spence who are looking for the son Sonny, probably abducted by a series of serial murderers who have murdered young black kids from the late 70s to early 1980s.
But because of the children's races and skin color, their senseless murders are met with indifference and ignorance, seen as disposable with no regard for their lives.
The actual events took place during the early 1980s, and Ms. Bambara creates a fictional yarn that is a race against time to find the missing Sonny, his worried and frantic parents becoming suspects themselves in his disappearance.
When Zala and Spence hear about a connection between Sonny’s disappearance with that of their landlord and an area in Miami where a young boy is found, things are a lot more harrowing and complicated than they expected.
A novel which echoed several themes (but quite the story) that brought the same amount of suspense and fear is Roberto Bolano’s opus “2666”. With a section where bodies of murdered women are relentlessly established, brings the same amount of sorrow and heartache when the description of kids’ bodies are found scattered all over Atlanta.
Edited by the late great Professor Toni Morrison, this book shows off her miraculous skills and a master of language to capture the harrowing emotions one might experience when they know no one cares.
Morrison editing this magnum opus shows how much she cherished her friendship with Bambara, and knew that she had a great responsibility both personally and politically to give justice to the victims of the Atlanta Child Murders.
Grim, serious, without a shred of humor, this belongs up there with the other great classics and writers of the black injustices and experience: Morrison, Baldwin, Ellison, Wright, Hurston, Angelou, Wideman and Whitehead.
Note- For a novel about The Atlanta Child Murders that is more on the personal side, read Tayari Jones’ Leaving Atlanta. It’s also equally heartbreaking.
One of the most horrifying and saddest books about racial injustice I've read- this is the story of parents Zala and Spence who are looking for the son Sonny, probably abducted by a series of serial murderers who have murdered young black kids from the late 70s to early 1980s.
But because of the children's races and skin color, their senseless murders are met with indifference and ignorance, seen as disposable with no regard for their lives.
The actual events took place during the early 1980s, and Ms. Bambara creates a fictional yarn that is a race against time to find the missing Sonny, his worried and frantic parents becoming suspects themselves in his disappearance.
When Zala and Spence hear about a connection between Sonny’s disappearance with that of their landlord and an area in Miami where a young boy is found, things are a lot more harrowing and complicated than they expected.
A novel which echoed several themes (but quite the story) that brought the same amount of suspense and fear is Roberto Bolano’s opus “2666”. With a section where bodies of murdered women are relentlessly established, brings the same amount of sorrow and heartache when the description of kids’ bodies are found scattered all over Atlanta.
Edited by the late great Professor Toni Morrison, this book shows off her miraculous skills and a master of language to capture the harrowing emotions one might experience when they know no one cares.
Morrison editing this magnum opus shows how much she cherished her friendship with Bambara, and knew that she had a great responsibility both personally and politically to give justice to the victims of the Atlanta Child Murders.
Grim, serious, without a shred of humor, this belongs up there with the other great classics and writers of the black injustices and experience: Morrison, Baldwin, Ellison, Wright, Hurston, Angelou, Wideman and Whitehead.
Note- For a novel about The Atlanta Child Murders that is more on the personal side, read Tayari Jones’ Leaving Atlanta. It’s also equally heartbreaking.
May 28, 2008
There is no doubt that this is a hard book to read. It takes place in Atlanta during the time of the Atlanta Child Murders. I guess I like this book more than most people, because I feel that Bambara did a good job of capturing the fear and tumult that Atlanta experienced. I still have my "Save the Children" button, that many people took to wearing as some sign of solidarity during those traumatic times. It didn't matter, though, we were all looking at each other with wary eyes. Bambara also depicted life on ghetto streets, where children were no longer allowed to play or go to the store alone, with gripping accuracy. The abduction of their child is every parent's greatest fear, and to have so many young bodies found thrown off bridges or covered by leaves in the woods tore Atlanta in two. I truly believe this is book is worth reading.
February 10, 2020
If Netflix (and other media creators) can stop masturbating to the likes of Ted Bundy and the same bunch for five minutes, focus can shift to horrific crimes like the one in this book, that victims' families are still fighting justice for. These victims deserve our attention.
January 5, 2015
Bambara died before she could finish this book, written and researched over a 15-year period. I would have liked to see what Bambara might have done with the editing process herself. Her friend, Toni Morrison, did the final edits, and it is clear that Morrison felt uncomfortable about making the cuts or decisions that the author herself might have made. I don't blame Morrison--Bambara is a master, and this was the work of a lifetime. How do you cut her words down? But I can't help but think that Bambara would have been harder on herself than Morrison was on her memory. The issue isn't the writing itself. Every passage is beautifully written. But the result is a sprawling novel of 700+ pages, which detail the lives and histories of several characters; intimately portray the dissolution of a family in the wake of a young child's disappearance; harshly critique the racism and problematic politics that allowed a city and a country to turn a blind eye to the murder and disappearance of dozens of Black children (including 3 three-year olds, murdered in the bombing of a daycare and the kidnapping of a number of pre-teen and teenage children from their neighborhoods); and explore the complex social movement of victims' families that developed to demand answers and seek justice themselves. Every passage was well written, but not every passage belonged in the same book. While we got detailed portraits of Sonny's parents, we have to wonder if Bambara would have kept in all the asides relating to their histories and daily struggles prior to Sonny's disappearance.
I think there were at least two distinct works in here: the fictional but very realistic and unapologetic look at a family in turmoil following their son's disappearance during the Atlanta child murders; and a non-fiction true crime novel, an In Cold Blood seeped not only in the murders, but in the politics and racism of a country that pretended to be post-racial while ignoring the hate crimes and serial murders that were destroying a community. I think both books are sorely needed. But the amalgamation didn't quite work. Bambara tried to frame her social and political critiques in the framework of a fictional story, which was awkward and cost us valuable opportunities to glean insight into the creation of STOP and of Atlanta politics. At the same time, it also often took us away from Marzala's story, so that hundreds of pages might go by without mention of the boy who's disappearance led the story off. It made it difficult to maintain an emotional connection to her fictional characters, and I think did a disservice to Marzala.
The Atlanta child murders are an ugly piece of our history, one that we know too little about and as a country tend to like to forget. The injustice cost dozens of lives, left families without answers, a man in prison who may or may not have been involved in the crimes, and ignored the hate crimes that were mixed up in this terrible period in history. It is no wonder that Bambara found fuel for 15 years of research; it is no wonder that her draft could not be contained in a slender volume. But I wish she had more time with it, more time to shape the stories that need to be told and remembered.
I think there were at least two distinct works in here: the fictional but very realistic and unapologetic look at a family in turmoil following their son's disappearance during the Atlanta child murders; and a non-fiction true crime novel, an In Cold Blood seeped not only in the murders, but in the politics and racism of a country that pretended to be post-racial while ignoring the hate crimes and serial murders that were destroying a community. I think both books are sorely needed. But the amalgamation didn't quite work. Bambara tried to frame her social and political critiques in the framework of a fictional story, which was awkward and cost us valuable opportunities to glean insight into the creation of STOP and of Atlanta politics. At the same time, it also often took us away from Marzala's story, so that hundreds of pages might go by without mention of the boy who's disappearance led the story off. It made it difficult to maintain an emotional connection to her fictional characters, and I think did a disservice to Marzala.
The Atlanta child murders are an ugly piece of our history, one that we know too little about and as a country tend to like to forget. The injustice cost dozens of lives, left families without answers, a man in prison who may or may not have been involved in the crimes, and ignored the hate crimes that were mixed up in this terrible period in history. It is no wonder that Bambara found fuel for 15 years of research; it is no wonder that her draft could not be contained in a slender volume. But I wish she had more time with it, more time to shape the stories that need to be told and remembered.
April 3, 2022
Like others I found this a difficult read and it took a while. It may not have been intentional (in light of the posthumous publication) but it felt to me as though the form and in places difficulty of the prose captured something about horrifying things also being in reality tedious, knotted, and neverending. It felt as though packaging the narrative in a more digestible format would have been a lie, maybe. Anyway, I’m glad I stayed with it, and I will probably read it over again to pick up on new or different things because there’s a lot I will have missed the first time round. It’s a commitment of a book.
September 1, 2022
An epic novel. Every word matters, every scene, thought that passes through each character's mind, every single detail matters in Toni Cade Bambara's These Bones Are Not My Child. What a heartbreaking novel -- one that has an inconclusive ending that totally mirrors reality of injustice. The wrong murderer is convicted and is a scapegoat. We go through the emotional journey of Black motherhood when a child goes missing through Marzala / Zala while she continues to raise 2 of her other children. We get glimpses and reflections of being a Black war veteran through Spencer (the father). All against the backdrop of community rallying together to protect, save, and deliver justice and accountability in a country that will never do that for us until we take matters into our own hands.
It's incredibly detailed and was clearly written for the Black working class. With Toni Morrison as the editor, it is a magnanimous work. One that I will certainly have to revisit to fully understand and comprehend.
It's incredibly detailed and was clearly written for the Black working class. With Toni Morrison as the editor, it is a magnanimous work. One that I will certainly have to revisit to fully understand and comprehend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 15, 2021
I wanted to know more about Atlanta Child murders in the 1980s. If you’re a mother it might be hard to read but you will have so much empathy for the mothers .
I am a Georgia native born & raised and I want to know everything that has happened good & bad .
I am a Georgia native born & raised and I want to know everything that has happened good & bad .
March 10, 2013
I have been looking at this book on my shelf for some years. I love the work of Toni Cade Bambara, especially her previous novel, The Salt Eaters. Those Bones is not an easy read, but it is an extraordinary one. It is the story of one woman, one family, one city and indeed all of the USA. The story is about a spate of murders that occurred in Atlanta n the early 1980s. More than 40 black children were abducted, sexually abused, beaten and murdered. But the establishment deemed them runaways and did nothing.
One morning the 13-year-old son of Mazala and Spence goes missing. They do everything to try to find him. The women in the community delve into what's happened, parents spend months doing daily searches, the men patrol the areas where the children have been found (those that were) dead.
This book gives a portrait of a city unable to answer questions from its citizens. Toni Cade Bambara illuminates how oppression works and one can see these events being repeated in many cities around the world.
A truly great read.
One morning the 13-year-old son of Mazala and Spence goes missing. They do everything to try to find him. The women in the community delve into what's happened, parents spend months doing daily searches, the men patrol the areas where the children have been found (those that were) dead.
This book gives a portrait of a city unable to answer questions from its citizens. Toni Cade Bambara illuminates how oppression works and one can see these events being repeated in many cities around the world.
A truly great read.
March 18, 2025
it's taken me 8 months to make my way with this one and i'm so glad i couldn't leave it entirely even if i did dip in and out. particularly the first 60% was hard because it seems to capture what it must feel like to fight on so many fronts for your child.
so many heartwrenching moments amongst the family that choked me up and made these fictional people seem so real amidst the real events.
so many heartwrenching moments amongst the family that choked me up and made these fictional people seem so real amidst the real events.
March 5, 2014
(FROM JACKET)"Those Bones Are Not My Child" is a staggering achievement: the novel that Toni Cade Bambara worked on for twelve years until her death in 1995-a story that puts us at the center of the nightmare of the Atlanta child murders.
It was called "The City Too Busy To Hate", but two decades ago more than forty black children were murdered there with grim determination, their bodies found-in ditches, on riverbeds-strangled, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Bambara was living in Atlanta at the time, and "Those Bones Are Not My Child" is the result of her painstaking first-hand research, as she delved into the murders and the world in which they occured. Evoking the culture of the late 1970s and earyl '80s with a keen eye-the Iranian hostage crisis, disco, Travis Bickle of "Taxi Driver"-"Those Bones Are Not My Child" powerfully dramatizes the story of one black family surviving on the margins of a seemingly prosperous city.
On Sunday morning, July 20, 1980, Marzala Rawls Spencer awakens to find that her teenage son has gone missing, even as the Atlanta child abductions are beginning to be reported. As she and her estranged husband frantically search for their son, the story moves with authority through the full spectrum of Atlanta's political, social, and cultural life, illuminating the vexing issues of race and class that bedevil the city.
Suspenseful, richly dramatic, profoundly affecting, "Those Bones Are Not My Child" explores the complex relationships within one family in dire crisis. And as Toni Morrison, who edited Bambara's manuscript, has observed, it is also "the narrative revelation of a major Southern city of the '80s, a revelation of what clogs the bloodstream of 'The City Too Bust To Hate.'"
It was called "The City Too Busy To Hate", but two decades ago more than forty black children were murdered there with grim determination, their bodies found-in ditches, on riverbeds-strangled, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Bambara was living in Atlanta at the time, and "Those Bones Are Not My Child" is the result of her painstaking first-hand research, as she delved into the murders and the world in which they occured. Evoking the culture of the late 1970s and earyl '80s with a keen eye-the Iranian hostage crisis, disco, Travis Bickle of "Taxi Driver"-"Those Bones Are Not My Child" powerfully dramatizes the story of one black family surviving on the margins of a seemingly prosperous city.
On Sunday morning, July 20, 1980, Marzala Rawls Spencer awakens to find that her teenage son has gone missing, even as the Atlanta child abductions are beginning to be reported. As she and her estranged husband frantically search for their son, the story moves with authority through the full spectrum of Atlanta's political, social, and cultural life, illuminating the vexing issues of race and class that bedevil the city.
Suspenseful, richly dramatic, profoundly affecting, "Those Bones Are Not My Child" explores the complex relationships within one family in dire crisis. And as Toni Morrison, who edited Bambara's manuscript, has observed, it is also "the narrative revelation of a major Southern city of the '80s, a revelation of what clogs the bloodstream of 'The City Too Bust To Hate.'"
March 4, 2009
Interesting subject, tedious presentation.
October 29, 2020
Outstanding book.
January 10, 2021
Toni Morrison called this book the author's magnum opus.
July 26, 2015
This started off beautifully, yet I found it degenerating into a confusing mess. At times it is a glorious weaving, and at other times it’s a giant knot of confusing threads with no coherent whole. Her weaving is beautiful, in fact her individual threads are beautiful, but all too often I was left confused and frustrated. She is at her best when writing of the individual lives, the interpersonal relationships, the meaning of family. She is at her worst attempting to convey facts, hints of possibilities, following up the potential clues of the mystery, tracking all the various characters and their actions. I couldn’t keep track of the cast of thousands, and she seemed to make no effort to give me their characters. Still some of the moments were exquisite. There is a beautiful scene where members of an extended family are wandering through a meadow, describing the properties of the various plants while ruminating on their love lives, that is so evocative, yet it contributes absolutely nothing towards the plot itself. I can see this working beautifully as an intertwined set of short stories, as a novel it left me seriously wanting.
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November 15, 2022DNF. (474 of 669 pages read).
This book literally took away my will to read. And the annoying thing is it’s not even a bad book. I’ve read WAY worse books (the guest list I’m looking at you), and finished them.
But there was something about this that I just could get on with. On paper it’s everything I want from a book, but in reality it made me never want to read anything ever again. I’ve been trying so hard because I NEVER don’t finish a book, but I have had to admit defeat after a long and tiresome war.
I think the most annoying thing about this is I can’t even put my finger on why I couldn’t get on with it. I like the writing, the story is one I’m fascinated by and I truly did want to get to the end but it was like ever page I read sucked more of my soul?
I haven’t even read anything in weeks because of it. I gave up on my reading challenge because of it. I don’t even know what else to say except I tried and I failed. I will make a ritual sacrifice to the book gods and hope that I can recover whatever it is that I lost trying to muddle my way through this novel.
I’m hoping by finally coming to terms with the fact that I won’t be finishing it, will allow me to move on a try and pick up another book again without too much PTSD. Send all your hopes and prayers. I need them.
This book literally took away my will to read. And the annoying thing is it’s not even a bad book. I’ve read WAY worse books (the guest list I’m looking at you), and finished them.
But there was something about this that I just could get on with. On paper it’s everything I want from a book, but in reality it made me never want to read anything ever again. I’ve been trying so hard because I NEVER don’t finish a book, but I have had to admit defeat after a long and tiresome war.
I think the most annoying thing about this is I can’t even put my finger on why I couldn’t get on with it. I like the writing, the story is one I’m fascinated by and I truly did want to get to the end but it was like ever page I read sucked more of my soul?
I haven’t even read anything in weeks because of it. I gave up on my reading challenge because of it. I don’t even know what else to say except I tried and I failed. I will make a ritual sacrifice to the book gods and hope that I can recover whatever it is that I lost trying to muddle my way through this novel.
I’m hoping by finally coming to terms with the fact that I won’t be finishing it, will allow me to move on a try and pick up another book again without too much PTSD. Send all your hopes and prayers. I need them.
August 19, 2015
“Lady, Black boys getting killed in the South just ain’t news.”
“And girls,” she inserted. “And women and men.”
“I know how you feel, but I don’t make network policy. The news of the moment is Iran, when it’s not the election or stories about international terrorism.”
Sounds like it could be this morning’s news. But it’s 1980 in Atlanta, and more than forty black children have in fact been murdered, in a pattern that can be traced around “the city too busy to hate.” This novel, Toni Cade Bambara’s masterwork, follows an estranged mother and father whose son goes missing just as the killings are finally becoming news.
I was a child in 1980, about the same age as Zala and Spence’s younger son. I was daily reminded of the U.S. hostages held in Iran, but I had no idea that in the next state, the deadly backdrop to this book was unfolding. Atlanta was supposed to be the Black Mecca of the New South, progressive and free. It had a black mayor and new black police officers; one of them, Sergeant B. J. Greaves, is a character in the novel. I never saw a black police officer the whole time I was growing up—or a woman—but I knew such things were possible, because they were characters in books.
It was in reading those same books at school that I first came across fiction by Toni Cade Bambara. “Raymond’s Run” is one of those unforgettable stories that has stayed with me since childhood. So to discover this big novel, published after her death in 1995, is a real pleasure.
A pleasure, despite the horror that is at the heart of the story. For Bambara’s writing is so beautiful, illuminating the most everyday details of a family’s life, which will never be everyday again. She is in absolute command of her characters’ perspective, the viewpoints of both parents, the younger son and daughter. Through their increasingly desperate efforts to find out what happened to Sonny and the other children, Bambara shows us a city in the round. The upwardly mobile Atlantans, the Vietnam vets like Spence, elderly black residents who have seen it all. Whatever their class or background, none of these characters are victims, except in the true sense of being victims of crime. They never whine. They have confidence and pride.
Because of the richness of detail with which she writes, Bambara does the best thing I think a novelist can do: she takes the reader into another world. I see the banana magnet on the car ashtray, the kids at the boys’ club, the African-identified activists in the park. I am back in the time, though not the place, of my childhood, its phones, furniture, school buildings. The horror of what is happening to the children is more real, not because Bambara writes violence (which is never gratuitous) but because she places it in the ordinary world, the one we live in.
Bambara was an important figure in both feminism and African-American studies, as well as an accomplished filmmaker. All of this comes through in a highly cinematic novel. We learn a lot as readers, but she is never preachy. Instead, she sets the story in the context of other events of the time: the Harvey Milk assassinations, the Jim Jones massacre, David Duke and Jesse Helms, the struggle of Black Britons and South Africans. The mystery grows so big that the main characters almost feel lost, as they surely must have in real life—yet Bambara regains the thread of their story just when we’ve given it up for lost.
From beyond the grave, Bambara tells a human story, at a time when we cannot be reminded too often that “Black Lives Matter.” To all of us, because we are part of each other, and part of the same world. Last week* many RedState activists were calling a broadcaster who challenged Donald Trump a whore and a lesbian, and the man in the White House a “nigger.” I only wish the country of this novel felt more distant than it does.
*http://www.economist.com/news/united-...
“And girls,” she inserted. “And women and men.”
“I know how you feel, but I don’t make network policy. The news of the moment is Iran, when it’s not the election or stories about international terrorism.”
Sounds like it could be this morning’s news. But it’s 1980 in Atlanta, and more than forty black children have in fact been murdered, in a pattern that can be traced around “the city too busy to hate.” This novel, Toni Cade Bambara’s masterwork, follows an estranged mother and father whose son goes missing just as the killings are finally becoming news.
I was a child in 1980, about the same age as Zala and Spence’s younger son. I was daily reminded of the U.S. hostages held in Iran, but I had no idea that in the next state, the deadly backdrop to this book was unfolding. Atlanta was supposed to be the Black Mecca of the New South, progressive and free. It had a black mayor and new black police officers; one of them, Sergeant B. J. Greaves, is a character in the novel. I never saw a black police officer the whole time I was growing up—or a woman—but I knew such things were possible, because they were characters in books.
It was in reading those same books at school that I first came across fiction by Toni Cade Bambara. “Raymond’s Run” is one of those unforgettable stories that has stayed with me since childhood. So to discover this big novel, published after her death in 1995, is a real pleasure.
A pleasure, despite the horror that is at the heart of the story. For Bambara’s writing is so beautiful, illuminating the most everyday details of a family’s life, which will never be everyday again. She is in absolute command of her characters’ perspective, the viewpoints of both parents, the younger son and daughter. Through their increasingly desperate efforts to find out what happened to Sonny and the other children, Bambara shows us a city in the round. The upwardly mobile Atlantans, the Vietnam vets like Spence, elderly black residents who have seen it all. Whatever their class or background, none of these characters are victims, except in the true sense of being victims of crime. They never whine. They have confidence and pride.
Because of the richness of detail with which she writes, Bambara does the best thing I think a novelist can do: she takes the reader into another world. I see the banana magnet on the car ashtray, the kids at the boys’ club, the African-identified activists in the park. I am back in the time, though not the place, of my childhood, its phones, furniture, school buildings. The horror of what is happening to the children is more real, not because Bambara writes violence (which is never gratuitous) but because she places it in the ordinary world, the one we live in.
Bambara was an important figure in both feminism and African-American studies, as well as an accomplished filmmaker. All of this comes through in a highly cinematic novel. We learn a lot as readers, but she is never preachy. Instead, she sets the story in the context of other events of the time: the Harvey Milk assassinations, the Jim Jones massacre, David Duke and Jesse Helms, the struggle of Black Britons and South Africans. The mystery grows so big that the main characters almost feel lost, as they surely must have in real life—yet Bambara regains the thread of their story just when we’ve given it up for lost.
From beyond the grave, Bambara tells a human story, at a time when we cannot be reminded too often that “Black Lives Matter.” To all of us, because we are part of each other, and part of the same world. Last week* many RedState activists were calling a broadcaster who challenged Donald Trump a whore and a lesbian, and the man in the White House a “nigger.” I only wish the country of this novel felt more distant than it does.
*http://www.economist.com/news/united-...
March 22, 2014
I wrote a long review about this book and magically it disappeared. I'm taking that as a sign to be brief about my feelings regarding this book and move on to the next novel that awaits me.
This isn't a good read. It is way too long and rather than focusing on the plot it reads like research on the Atlanta Child Murders instead of the novel that it presents itself to be. The characters seem to be thrown in as needed and the main character-the missing son- is rarely even focused on. The book completely lacks emotion. I am not certain that the mother even missed her son, Sundiata. It felt like the real joy was being apart of the movement to find the murderer(s) of the children.
I understand that writers use the creative non fiction genre to use fictional characters to develop factual plots, but it is way too obvious in this "novel."
However, from research I know that Bambara passed away before the publication of this novel. Her friend and literary heavy weight Toni Morrison is responsible for the end result. It is unfortunate that the reader will never know what Bambara would have done with her 1200 page manuscript had she lived to take part in the editing and publication.
Finally, there are passages in this book that read like beautiful poetry and are completely mesmerizing. However, those passages are too few and hardly enough to sustain the work. You must have a deep interest in the Atlanta Child murders and a lot of patience to read this book.
This isn't a good read. It is way too long and rather than focusing on the plot it reads like research on the Atlanta Child Murders instead of the novel that it presents itself to be. The characters seem to be thrown in as needed and the main character-the missing son- is rarely even focused on. The book completely lacks emotion. I am not certain that the mother even missed her son, Sundiata. It felt like the real joy was being apart of the movement to find the murderer(s) of the children.
I understand that writers use the creative non fiction genre to use fictional characters to develop factual plots, but it is way too obvious in this "novel."
However, from research I know that Bambara passed away before the publication of this novel. Her friend and literary heavy weight Toni Morrison is responsible for the end result. It is unfortunate that the reader will never know what Bambara would have done with her 1200 page manuscript had she lived to take part in the editing and publication.
Finally, there are passages in this book that read like beautiful poetry and are completely mesmerizing. However, those passages are too few and hardly enough to sustain the work. You must have a deep interest in the Atlanta Child murders and a lot of patience to read this book.
February 1, 2024
Such an impactful novel—it is a well done profile of Atlanta and the racial division of the city and the times, yet it clearly suffers from not having more decisive editing, as Bambara passed before she could so. Morrison’s work editing and pulling together the novel is commendable, but the novel reads as disjointed.
November 12, 2019
Toni Cade Bambara, a writer, documentary filmmaker and screenwriter, gives True Crime readers a unique viewpoint of the real Atlanta Child Murders. Bambara mostly writes from the eyes of Marzala, a mother of three whose oldest son goes missing during one of the worst murder sprees in Atlanta's history. Marzala and her family were not actual people during this time- - - all of them are based off of parents and siblings of the real victims. Not soon after Marzala does everything she can with the police to find her son, she joins a group of African-Americans that are outraged by the lack of progress to catch who is killing Atlanta's black children. This group forms what is called STOP (a citizen-run task force). For the majority of the book, Marzala with most of the black community in the area typed out letters to prominent government officials asking for help to stop the murders, also using Vietnam vets in the area to use their tracking skills to keep an eye on suspects, and investigating buildings that police refused to believe had anything to do with the childrens' disappearances and/or murders, which Bambara did an amazing job putting all the real facts together of the actual community members that were involved with this at the time. This story is upsetting, but enlightening on how politics may have caused so many children to be murdered. This is a story no reader will ever forget.
Bambara writes not in a normal narrative - - - just telling a story from specific viewpoints, but she often breaks off into smash poetry to depict a character's state-of-mind, which, sometimes can be off putting for the reader, breaking the flow of the story. Yet, the use of smash poetry combined with the era and the heart breaking subject at hand, separates Those Bones Are Not My Child from every True Crime book I have ever read. But a note for fans of True Crime, this story is from the view point of the victims' families and the search they went through to try and catch the murderer(s), unlike most TC books, which follow the police through the investigation leading to, usually, the capture of the perpetrator. From living in Atlanta during the time of the murders, Bambara was able to reconstruct the life of a black family in 1980's Georgia, while focusing on the effect these terrible crimes had on the surrounding community. Bambara did an amazing job on what most writers cannot.
The amount of characters, specifically the fictional ones, are very well created. She describes just enough to give readers the ability to tell them apart, showing every now and then from their own viewpoints. Out of all the characters, I came to really like Zala's two other children: Kenti and Kofi. One particular scene shows the strain of Sonny's disappearance on their family: " Zala parked the comb again and sat back. 'Listen, you two.' Kofi dropped down onto his knees. 'The police and the newspapers don't know what the hell is going on, so they feel stupid, because they're supposed to know, they're trained to know, they're paid to know. It's their job. Understand? But it's hard for grown-ups to admit they're stupid, especially if they're professionals like police and reporters. So they blame the children. Or they ignore them and fill up the papers with the hostages in Iran. Understand? And now... Jesus... they've got people calling those kids juvenile delinquents.'
'Don't cry.' Kenti tried to lean into her lap and got pushed away.
'They don't know a damn thing and they act like they don't want to know. So they blame the kids 'cause they can't speak up for themselves. They say the kids had no business being outdoors, getting themselves in trouble.'
'You let us go outdoors.'
'Of course I do, baby. We go lots of places, 'cause a lot of people fought hard for our right to go any damn where we please. But when the children go out like they've a right to and some maniac grabs them, then it's the children's fault or the parents who should've been watching every minute, like we don't have to work like dogs just to put food on the table.'
Kofi walked on his knees towards the bed, but he didn't lean on her like he wanted 'cause she might push him away. So he just put his hand on the mattress next to hers."
During the Atlanta Child Murders, victims were random, except for that they were children from the same neighborhood, and they were African-American. At first, police didn't believe a serial murderer was going around abducting children, but rather that 'poor, broken' families were killing their own. In the Prologue, Bambara shows that the victims' families and private detectives came up with more ideas of the motive than the police did:
" White cops taking license in Black neighborhoods.
The Klan and other Nazi thugs on the rampage.
Diabolical scientists experimenting on Third World people.
Demonic cults engaging in human sacrifices.
A 'Nam vet unable to make the transition.
UFO aliens conducting exploratory surgery.
Whites avenging Dewey Baugus, a white youth beaten to death in spring '79, allegedly by Black youths.
Parents of a raped child running amok with 'justice.'
Porno filmmakers doing snuff flicks for entertainment.
A band of child molesters covering their tracks.
New drug forces killing the young (unwitting?) couriers of the old in a bid for turf.
Unreconstructed peckerwoods trying to topple the Black administration.
Plantation kidnappers of slave labor issuing the pink slip.
White mercenaries using Black targets to train death squadrons for overseas jobs and for domestic wars to come. "
All of these theories are explored with evidence in Those Bones Are Not My Child. One scene in Part III, Zala's cop friend, B.J. shows up to her house to tell her to stop bringing attention to the investigation, " 'That Eubanks woman - - - your husband's friend? - - - she said you were bringing in the TV networks to blow the case open. I thought we had an agreement to keep each other informed. This morning I find out through the grapevine that you parents got a medium stashed in a hotel here in town, some woman who's been making headlines up north with cases that supposedly have the authorities stumped. If you knew how much work has been done on this case - - - no, listen, don't interrupt me. Then I find out - - - and not from you - - - that some of you parents are planning to tour the country cracking on the investigation. That's not too smart. And you should have told me.' " These two may have been fictional characters, but in Bambara's Acknowledgments, she states that all scenarios were true, and that she made B.J. to tell about the actual police officers who were involved with the investigation.
The tension between the police and the public is felt throughout the entire story. Despite all of the work the citizen task force put in, police arrested a man named Wayne Williams for the murder of two adult victims (who, due to their mental age, which was stated to be that of children, were placed on the victims' list of the Atlanta Child Murders): " Wayne Williams, charged with the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Nathaniel Cater and implicated in the murder of the other adults and children on the official list..." Zala, having worked for almost a year at the STOP offices, she, along with most of the community, doubt that Williams was a lone killer or even the killer at all. Williams never stood trial for the childrens' murders, but the police informed the public that he did it, case closed - - - although, after Williams' arrest, children were still being abducted and their bodies were still being found. Even after Williams' trial and the guilty verdict for two adult victims, some people stuck around to continue to investigate and claim Williams a 'scapegoat' of politics: " There were still pockets of interest and people who wouldn't let the case go. James Baldwin had been coming to town off and on; a book was rumored. Sondra O'Neale, the Emory University professor, hadn't abandoned her research, either. From time to time, TV and movie types were in the city poking around for an angle. Camille Bell was moving to Tallahassee to write up the case from the point of view of the STOP committee. The vets had taken over The Call now that Speaker was working full-time with the Central American Committee. The Revolutionary Communist Party kept running pieces on the case in the Revolutionary Worker. Whenever Abby Mann sent down a point man for his proposed TV docudrama, the Atlanta officials and civil rights leaders would go off the deep end. " At the end of it all, the questions still remain: did Williams kill all of those children by himself? Was he part of a pornographic cult that killed the children? Or is Williams completely innocent, and the murderer(s) are still out there? In Those Bones Are Not My Child, I guarantee you will be left questioning if the police were right.
All in all, the writing transitions can become confusing sometimes, especially the interludes of smash poetry, but I highly recommend this book to people who like the True Crime genre, especially of any interest in this specific case.
For more True Crime book reviews, check out my blog at GoreAndTea.com
Bambara writes not in a normal narrative - - - just telling a story from specific viewpoints, but she often breaks off into smash poetry to depict a character's state-of-mind, which, sometimes can be off putting for the reader, breaking the flow of the story. Yet, the use of smash poetry combined with the era and the heart breaking subject at hand, separates Those Bones Are Not My Child from every True Crime book I have ever read. But a note for fans of True Crime, this story is from the view point of the victims' families and the search they went through to try and catch the murderer(s), unlike most TC books, which follow the police through the investigation leading to, usually, the capture of the perpetrator. From living in Atlanta during the time of the murders, Bambara was able to reconstruct the life of a black family in 1980's Georgia, while focusing on the effect these terrible crimes had on the surrounding community. Bambara did an amazing job on what most writers cannot.
The amount of characters, specifically the fictional ones, are very well created. She describes just enough to give readers the ability to tell them apart, showing every now and then from their own viewpoints. Out of all the characters, I came to really like Zala's two other children: Kenti and Kofi. One particular scene shows the strain of Sonny's disappearance on their family: " Zala parked the comb again and sat back. 'Listen, you two.' Kofi dropped down onto his knees. 'The police and the newspapers don't know what the hell is going on, so they feel stupid, because they're supposed to know, they're trained to know, they're paid to know. It's their job. Understand? But it's hard for grown-ups to admit they're stupid, especially if they're professionals like police and reporters. So they blame the children. Or they ignore them and fill up the papers with the hostages in Iran. Understand? And now... Jesus... they've got people calling those kids juvenile delinquents.'
'Don't cry.' Kenti tried to lean into her lap and got pushed away.
'They don't know a damn thing and they act like they don't want to know. So they blame the kids 'cause they can't speak up for themselves. They say the kids had no business being outdoors, getting themselves in trouble.'
'You let us go outdoors.'
'Of course I do, baby. We go lots of places, 'cause a lot of people fought hard for our right to go any damn where we please. But when the children go out like they've a right to and some maniac grabs them, then it's the children's fault or the parents who should've been watching every minute, like we don't have to work like dogs just to put food on the table.'
Kofi walked on his knees towards the bed, but he didn't lean on her like he wanted 'cause she might push him away. So he just put his hand on the mattress next to hers."
During the Atlanta Child Murders, victims were random, except for that they were children from the same neighborhood, and they were African-American. At first, police didn't believe a serial murderer was going around abducting children, but rather that 'poor, broken' families were killing their own. In the Prologue, Bambara shows that the victims' families and private detectives came up with more ideas of the motive than the police did:
" White cops taking license in Black neighborhoods.
The Klan and other Nazi thugs on the rampage.
Diabolical scientists experimenting on Third World people.
Demonic cults engaging in human sacrifices.
A 'Nam vet unable to make the transition.
UFO aliens conducting exploratory surgery.
Whites avenging Dewey Baugus, a white youth beaten to death in spring '79, allegedly by Black youths.
Parents of a raped child running amok with 'justice.'
Porno filmmakers doing snuff flicks for entertainment.
A band of child molesters covering their tracks.
New drug forces killing the young (unwitting?) couriers of the old in a bid for turf.
Unreconstructed peckerwoods trying to topple the Black administration.
Plantation kidnappers of slave labor issuing the pink slip.
White mercenaries using Black targets to train death squadrons for overseas jobs and for domestic wars to come. "
All of these theories are explored with evidence in Those Bones Are Not My Child. One scene in Part III, Zala's cop friend, B.J. shows up to her house to tell her to stop bringing attention to the investigation, " 'That Eubanks woman - - - your husband's friend? - - - she said you were bringing in the TV networks to blow the case open. I thought we had an agreement to keep each other informed. This morning I find out through the grapevine that you parents got a medium stashed in a hotel here in town, some woman who's been making headlines up north with cases that supposedly have the authorities stumped. If you knew how much work has been done on this case - - - no, listen, don't interrupt me. Then I find out - - - and not from you - - - that some of you parents are planning to tour the country cracking on the investigation. That's not too smart. And you should have told me.' " These two may have been fictional characters, but in Bambara's Acknowledgments, she states that all scenarios were true, and that she made B.J. to tell about the actual police officers who were involved with the investigation.
The tension between the police and the public is felt throughout the entire story. Despite all of the work the citizen task force put in, police arrested a man named Wayne Williams for the murder of two adult victims (who, due to their mental age, which was stated to be that of children, were placed on the victims' list of the Atlanta Child Murders): " Wayne Williams, charged with the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Nathaniel Cater and implicated in the murder of the other adults and children on the official list..." Zala, having worked for almost a year at the STOP offices, she, along with most of the community, doubt that Williams was a lone killer or even the killer at all. Williams never stood trial for the childrens' murders, but the police informed the public that he did it, case closed - - - although, after Williams' arrest, children were still being abducted and their bodies were still being found. Even after Williams' trial and the guilty verdict for two adult victims, some people stuck around to continue to investigate and claim Williams a 'scapegoat' of politics: " There were still pockets of interest and people who wouldn't let the case go. James Baldwin had been coming to town off and on; a book was rumored. Sondra O'Neale, the Emory University professor, hadn't abandoned her research, either. From time to time, TV and movie types were in the city poking around for an angle. Camille Bell was moving to Tallahassee to write up the case from the point of view of the STOP committee. The vets had taken over The Call now that Speaker was working full-time with the Central American Committee. The Revolutionary Communist Party kept running pieces on the case in the Revolutionary Worker. Whenever Abby Mann sent down a point man for his proposed TV docudrama, the Atlanta officials and civil rights leaders would go off the deep end. " At the end of it all, the questions still remain: did Williams kill all of those children by himself? Was he part of a pornographic cult that killed the children? Or is Williams completely innocent, and the murderer(s) are still out there? In Those Bones Are Not My Child, I guarantee you will be left questioning if the police were right.
All in all, the writing transitions can become confusing sometimes, especially the interludes of smash poetry, but I highly recommend this book to people who like the True Crime genre, especially of any interest in this specific case.
For more True Crime book reviews, check out my blog at GoreAndTea.com
April 4, 2022
“Meanwhile, she would learn how to hem up the dragging flesh of her life with careful, tiny stitches.”
The beauty of Bambara’s writing is never in doubt. The story of one family’s and in particular one mother’s nightmare when her 12 year old son disappears in the middle of the Atlanta Child Murders years, is heartbreaking. The author mixes this fictional story into real events which normally I would love but in this case the humanity of the fictional is almost overshadowed by the massive amounts of conjecture, conspiracies (real and imagined), different task forces and citizen action groups. The book leaves little doubt that the tragedy that was Atlanta in the late ‘70s early’80s was neatly wrapped up and put away with the arrest of Wayne Williams when in actuality, even if he was guilty of some of the murders, he couldn’t be of all. But in placing all this information in the middle half of a 700 page book, it made the book almost impossible to finish. But I’m glad I did. The last quarter of the book is a beautiful story of a family gutted, trying to hem up the dragging flesh of their lives.
The beauty of Bambara’s writing is never in doubt. The story of one family’s and in particular one mother’s nightmare when her 12 year old son disappears in the middle of the Atlanta Child Murders years, is heartbreaking. The author mixes this fictional story into real events which normally I would love but in this case the humanity of the fictional is almost overshadowed by the massive amounts of conjecture, conspiracies (real and imagined), different task forces and citizen action groups. The book leaves little doubt that the tragedy that was Atlanta in the late ‘70s early’80s was neatly wrapped up and put away with the arrest of Wayne Williams when in actuality, even if he was guilty of some of the murders, he couldn’t be of all. But in placing all this information in the middle half of a 700 page book, it made the book almost impossible to finish. But I’m glad I did. The last quarter of the book is a beautiful story of a family gutted, trying to hem up the dragging flesh of their lives.
July 10, 2008
I have read two books by Toni Cade Bambara, and she was a brilliant writer. So brilliant, that i think she is too smart for me! I love her language but sometimes it was hard to follow for me - more so in The Salt Eaters. She was definitely not fond of the linear and her writings soak up layers and shifting times and characters. In other words, you may need to keep on yr toes. This book is a fictionalized story of true events that happened in and around Atlanta during the late 70's and early 80's in Atlanta's hay-day of having a Black Mayor for the Blackest city. It centers around one family and how they deal with the kidnapping of their son and the serial kidnappings and murders of many more Black children from their neighborhood and all over Atlanta. It really blends the personal and political well- this did happen, there were serial killings of Black children, an epidemic, that was largely ignored and downplayed by the police and the newly elected Black establishment. An extremely important piece of history written poignantly raw and exposed.
June 14, 2022
After reading the first chapter, I wanted to stop, but I went on because I also wanted to give this writer a chance and trust Toni Morrison's opinion. It was a waste of time. I still don't know what the real problem of this book is; I know that Bambara died before having the possibility to edit it, and maybe that's the reason it feels really "heavy". I expected a moving story from a mother's point of view, but what I've got is a cold list of facts about what happened in Atlanta during the 80s. I found it very difficult to read, and I'm convinced that it's because it has been written FOR americans who lived during those years, taking a lot for granted. I'm disappointed, especially because after 600+ pages, we still don't know what the hell happened to Sonny. It's all too vague. I don't recommend this book unless you're obsessed with Atlanta and the case of missing children.
January 2, 2016
A necessary read but difficult to follow. This work parallels reality and lets us know the more things change, the more things stay the same. I've always wanted to know what follow through, if any, occurred with this case. From this novel, I know those families never stopped searching for answers and justice.
September 13, 2020
Much of Bambara's writing here is breathtaking and she lifts injustice and personal pain beyond the mere documenting of her research on these cases and their aftermath. But the work also suffers from lack of clear editing and should have been much shorter. Nevertheless her opus has stayed with me, the musical language and evocation of Atlanta.
December 15, 2016
The book seemed a bit long, and the middle section seemed to drag a lot. The work was not edited when the author died, and one cannot think but that Bambara would have tightened up the work quite a bit. The opening section and the concluding sections, though, are quite compelling.
January 8, 2009
Shocking
March 22, 2022
2 out of 5 stars for the two-fifths of the book that were comprehensible. This book honestly had me doubting my ability to read.
June 17, 2018
I do not read mystery genre style books often, as it’s just not my interest, and this book definitely had qualities of mystery fiction that I find hard to follow - BUT this book is amazing. It’s speculative non-fiction. Filling in the gaps and view of a case that is an absolute miscarriage of justice and really makes me wonder how Black folk in America are not angrier. Bambara’s writing is timeless, using the context of just one case where Black voices are disregarded and the value of Black lives minimised to point to the damage caused in any context by systemic oppression of a people.
Some lines are so damn poignant I had to pause and just soak them up after reading:
“Legend making was the impulse to exempt the ordinary self from responsible action” for example.
An epic read, but worth it for anyone who seeks to understand better the complexity of experience in America.
Some lines are so damn poignant I had to pause and just soak them up after reading:
“Legend making was the impulse to exempt the ordinary self from responsible action” for example.
An epic read, but worth it for anyone who seeks to understand better the complexity of experience in America.
March 18, 2024
DNF.
I just couldn't. I was so excited to read this but honestly, within the first few pages, I was already floundering.
It is So. Dang. TEDIOUS. It was just too much of an effort to keep track of everyone involved and what was going on. I guess I was expecting more of a true-crime, murder-mystery vibe, but this is more an examination of social/racial issues going on in Atlanta at that time. And to be clear, my disappointment was not in the topic or subject matter, but the writing style. I just came to a point where the laborious slogging through of minute details, confusing tangents, monotonous and yet chaotic plotlines, was just not worth the effort. And this is a mountain of a book, so even though I was already half way through, I still had hundreds of pages to go. Nope, too much unread books to waste more time on this one.
I just couldn't. I was so excited to read this but honestly, within the first few pages, I was already floundering.
It is So. Dang. TEDIOUS. It was just too much of an effort to keep track of everyone involved and what was going on. I guess I was expecting more of a true-crime, murder-mystery vibe, but this is more an examination of social/racial issues going on in Atlanta at that time. And to be clear, my disappointment was not in the topic or subject matter, but the writing style. I just came to a point where the laborious slogging through of minute details, confusing tangents, monotonous and yet chaotic plotlines, was just not worth the effort. And this is a mountain of a book, so even though I was already half way through, I still had hundreds of pages to go. Nope, too much unread books to waste more time on this one.
Read
November 2, 2019I don’t feel like it is fair to rate this book as I only read 200 pages of it but i just could not get engaged in it. It didn’t capture my interest and I found myself looking on my phone or getting otherwise distracted.
It follows the quotidian life of 2 parents after their son goes missing and the racism they face trying to get the police to do anything about it. I think it is just too slow paced for my liking right now although the dragging monotony of life without any answers or progression echoes the parents experiences.
It follows the quotidian life of 2 parents after their son goes missing and the racism they face trying to get the police to do anything about it. I think it is just too slow paced for my liking right now although the dragging monotony of life without any answers or progression echoes the parents experiences.
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