Confederacy of Silence : A True Tale of the New Old South

by Richard Rubin

In this stunning twist on the timeless tale of an outsider fascinated by a closed society, a young Jewish writer goes back to Greenwood, Mississippi, where he had his first newspaper job, and covers a murder trial that challenges his notions of both the South and himself.

When Richard Rubin, fresh out of the Ivy League, accepts a job at a daily newspaper in the old Delta town of Greenwood, Mississippi, he is thrust into a place as different from his hometown of New York as any in the country. Yet to his surprise, he is warmly welcomed by the townspeople and soon finds his first great scoop in Handy Campbell, a poor, black teen and gifted high school quarterback who goes on to win a spot on Mississippi State's team—a training ground for the NFL.

Six years later, Rubin, back in New York, learns that Handy is locked up in Greenwood, accused of capital murder. Returning south to cover the trial, Rubin follows the trail that took Handy from the football field to county jail. As the best and worst elements of Mississippi rise up to do battle over one man's fate, Rubin must confront his own unresolved feelings about the confederacy of silence that initially enabled him to thrive in Greenwood but ultimately forced him to leave it.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Race, History, Memoir, Sports, African American

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Richard Rubin is the author of the upcoming BACK OVER THERE from St. Martin's Press. He is also the author of The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War and Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South, as well as scores of pieces for The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Smithsonian, among others. A fifth-generation New Yorker, he now lives in small-town Maine, which baffles his neighbors. You can visit him at richardrubinonline.com.

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great story (two stories, actually) by a great writer. Part one is the story of the author’s first job (in a rural area) after graduating from college (in a metropolitan area). It will be familiar to and enjoyed by anybody who’s ever had a similar experience. Part two is the story of a murder trial. The trial reportage was absolutely gripping. I’d give this book more than 5 stars if that were possible.

[Sara Van Dyck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Valuable and insightful. Granted, the author didn’t spend years in the Greenwood that he writes about, and the book came out in 2002, but I think that the events of this year are showing that his assessment of the how deep the roots of racism run in this country is still valid and how they play out on an individual level. I feel I have a better understanding of the complex attitudes of many Southerners . Rubin struggles with his own mixed feelings about the locals – how can some of the best people he has known, he wonders, also be the worst.

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a bit of an overwrought beginning, this turned out to be a great read. Rubin has a good ear and way with words. As a native Mississippian, I appreciated how scrupulous he was in trying to separate condemning the sin from demonizing the sinner. He was in a challenging situation as a cub reporter on a small town paper in a place so very different from any he’d ever experienced. He was tough on some individuals, but they seem to have survived it.

[Morris Massre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t really remember why I picked this book up. Perhaps it was the title or the cover. Those are usually the first two things I look at when deciding to read a book. But in the end I think it was the fascination I had with learning about a Jewish man’s journey from New York to Mississippi and how that would turn out because, unlike Richard Rubin, I am Jewish and was born and raised in the south. Rubin was there less than a year, but that year would leave a remarkable mark on his life.
Throughout the book I did not know whether to laugh, cry, reminisce or feel a sense of enlightenment, but I can safely say that I did all of the above. It seemed as if a lot of his time in Greenwood, Mississippi mirrored mine growing up in South Carolina, after all, it was about the same time. What I came to find out is this; for the most part my religion meant nothing to most and I was just accepted as a southerner, just like Rubin. On the other hand, there were many instances where some idiot would make a cross remark about being Jewish and I would get disgusted and just turn the cheek. Also, just like Rubin.
But I can safely say that we both fell in love with the south when we thought that could not have happened. Till this day I find myself going back often. Rubin takes us back to his year in Greenwood working as a cub reporter for the small time newspaper, and although not really a reporter with any experience with any knowledge of football, he takes a shine to the job and actually learns to love it and the people. On the other hand, he is frets about how disgusted he is with some of the same old racist nonsense that still haunts Mississippi and delves into it heavily at the close of the book while he is there seven years after leaving covering a trial of an old friend and former football star. Most people he talks to just say something like, “That’s the way it’s always been,” when referring to the black and white issues that still to this day pervade. There is not segregation per se, but like myself, white kids and black kids for instance did not sit together in classrooms or live in the same neighborhoods. You knew it wasn’t right, but what were you going to do about it? For me, I had no problem hanging out with my black school mates. But to be sure, it was them who felt more uncomfortable about it than me, as if they were scared what people might think.
The story has bits of history, comedy, biography and mystery all wrapped up into one. The history of Mississippi and its Jewish community is something I have heard of, but never really knew existed. It is so similar to South Carolina. Jews would somehow make their way south and go into business for whatever reason and end up staying, but as is pretty much always is the case, those same Jews would die out and slowly disappear. Rubin describes it in the businesses that are in all of these Mississippi Delta small towns with families became a part of the fabric of that community and thrived and were befriended by all. And like these small towns the same happened in my small town. Eventually the Jewish community leaves, integrates or just dies out. The saddest part for Rubin was when he wanted to go to the only small temple in the area, but there weren’t any more congregants to attend. It just sat there unused.
The comedy came in all of the characters Rubin ran into and associated with regularly. At one point he was invited to dinner with a very poor white family who couldn’t even afford electricity, much less running water or groceries and so Rubin at squirrel that evening and didn’t complain. He said it didn’t taste like chicken. His point was that it wasn’t’ just the black community that was poor in the Delta, poverty went both ways. The biography part of course is his time working for the paper and how he covered high school football, which in that part of the world is a religion. During that time he came to be very friendly with Greenwood’s start quarterback and followed his trek from high school to college, or some part thereof. The mystery is the plight of this same quarterback who failed in college career and ended up going to trial for murder. I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say whereas the OJ trial, which was going on at the exact same time, went on for months, this trial took only three days.
I give this book a resounding five stars. Pick it up and you might just learn something positive about the south you never heard before.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazone

One of the Three Best Books to Understand the South
10/10

I am an Alabamian, the scion of many settler families, both planter and yeoman stock. I consider Confederacy of Silence, A True Tale of the New Old South one of the three best books that I have ever read about my native country, this one by an outsider and the other two by an insider.

Rubin's powers of observation, curiosity, attention to detail, sensitivity to nuances, empathy with people, fairness, and honesty are extraordinary. He has the literary talent to express all that he observed and learned - and he was always learning.

The book held me like a mystery thriller.

By the time that I reached the section on the trial, I had two strong reactions. First, I thought: "Oh my, he is already entangled in the same dichotomy as many thoughtful Southerners: love/hate, or better, love/anguish." I also felt that I was reading another To Kill a Mockingbird and hoping that the ending would be better.

I have added Confederacy of Silence to my list of the now three best books for understanding the South. The other two are Viola Goode Liddell's With a Southern Accent (1948) and A Place of Springs (1979).

She too wrote with honesty giving everybody their due whether good, bad, or somewhere in between. She was born in 1901 and lived in or near Camden and the Alabama River in central Alabama.

She wrote about the life of her families and community in the 19th century and during her lifetime including the turmoil of the 1950s and 1960s.

The truth for both Liddell and Rubin is in the details.

The dichotomy of love/anguish expressed by both Rubin and Liddell also reminded me of Florence King whose hyperbolic humor and perceptions of the South I have always enjoyed. In her first chapter of Southern Ladies and Gentlemen she explained how Southerners are all rendered mad from dealing with the contradictions in their culture. Miss King, a Virginian, went to graduate school at Ole Miss where she encountered Mississippi women (Confessions of a Failed Southern Belle), a special breed for whose understanding Mr. Rubin has added lore.

Mr. Rubin perceived both the light and dark sides of the separate communities in Greenwood, Mississippi, and all the shades in between, i.e. real life and people. He sensed a concern for the future when he speculated that Mr. Myrick might become a public official in LeFlore County someday. Many of us are living the reality of that anguish.

The Jewish population in rural areas has declined in many places. It is happening even in cities such as Meridian, Mississippi. Mr. Rubin's description of Jewish society is especially poignant and informative.

William R. Erwin

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Below average book. For starters, Rubin overwrites. He includes unnecessary descriptive details and boring digressions from the main topic of the memoir. The book could have easily been 250 pages. Worse, the premise is invalid. He was a journalist in Greenwood for less than a year. It's shocking that he believes that was enough time for him to draw significant and serious insights into the region and the town. He complains about racist encounters and views of people, but never, not once, challenges them. They are nice to him so he can't challenge their racism is his basic defense. That's cowardice. A close scrutiny of the book begs the question: did Rubin leave Greenwood better than he found it? An honest answer has to be no.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in the story but the writing is so poor I can’t go on. This is how he learned to write at Penn? No one told him that “if” with “I” calls for changing “was” to “were” only in specific context around wishing? Too many “of which”es, “occurred” etc jump jarringly, like legalese, out of his (over)writing. Maybe he should have become a lawyer after all.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting but painful. I most enjoyed his discussion of things not directly related to the trial.

[Lanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Rubin is a very gifted writer and his style is very engaging. I grew up near Greenwood and consider the book to be pretty accurate. I really enjoyed it.

[Mark Grose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written book, but a little bogged down by personal details. Still, a page turner, some surprising twists. The history he revisited is quite important to the story.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I HATED this book. Not disliked or any lesser term. HATED. I managed to finished this book so I would know the outcome of the trial.

First off, I do not like the writer's pretentous attitude. (If I had to see him write IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE NY JEW again I might have lost it). Richard is so advanced intelligently, socially and morally than NO ONE is more perfect than him. When he makes mistakes in race or judgement calls, poor little innocent Richard is just doing what everyone else is. He knows its wrong, but damn its working for him so why challenge it? It's ok for him to do it too. It is just those people in Mississippi don't know any better. He's young, 21 and white. He's perfect.

I hated the "I'm an outsider" mentality to everything. Me, I'm just the Yankee Jew! Hee Hee! Going to get a few laughs here in impoverish Mississippi's rural delta because I can't get a job anywhere else. Yuck!

I hated the way Handy Campbell is treated in this book. He seems to be a character to Richard than an actual human being. He conformed to whatever image that R. R. needed at the time. A poor project kid with the worst luck. The hero of the gridiron. The dead-eyed kid in jail. The callus bitter angry criminal. I don't know Handy. The Lord only knows what happened that night. But I'm sad that R.R. managed to get a dime exploiting every negative concept (Some very true, some exaggerated for his own gain) about the South.

I learned nothing. I gained no perpective. I wasted hours of my time and a poor forest was killed to write this trash.

[Ireland Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Ruben writes a complex memoir of a "Yankee" outsiders experience in post Civil Rights Mississippi Delta. He explores the cultural caste system were race and class determine many of one's options and how one avails himself of those options. He is honest in his ambivalience about enjoying the benefits of the "Hospitality" state, while uncomfortable with the overt racism he encounters. His experience culminate in a riveting conclusi

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book.. especially since I moved from California to Texas. I never would have thought that any where in the US would there still be separation between blacks and whites. But any way, the book is a great read and very interesting... the author write great and you really feel what he feels...

[Tom Gilliam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came with high praise from one D.E. "Chunky" Snowden. I read most of it on a lazy unemployed Sunday, and its not bad. Written by a self-proclaimed "Ivy League New York Jew" its a memoir/true crime tale of a fallen Delta football star and the aforementioned writers struggle as a young liberal newspaperman in 1980's in Greenwood. A little preachy, but entertaining nonetheless.

[Cheryl S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book. I am interested in the story, but it just dragged and on and on with not enough new info to keep me going. I think the author had a profound experience during the year he spent in the south, I just wish he could have made it more interesting for me to read about it.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I live in Greenwood and I think the author did a great job describing Greenwood and Mississippi from an outsider's point of view. This is a true story and after speaking with people that remember this story, the descriptions and story are on target.

[Melrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a chilling book. I read it three or four years ago and it still makes my skin crawl. It's the story of a white man and his "coming of age" in Mississippi. A must-read if you are interested in American race and social issues.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't recommend this book highly enough. This is a fantastic book. If you're interested in improving race and class issues in the United States, this is a must read book.

[Pam]

02/25/08 rec via bookmooch

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting and disturbing book. Part coming of age memoir, part sports story, part social commentary and part true/crime. A sad, but important story.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Rubin is a tremendously descriptive author. Very well written memoir.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in the fall of 2005 and it continues to stick with me, especially after having read so much about Freedom Sumer in Mississippi this semester.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only complaint is that it was a little too detailed-- it seemed to drag on and on. I think the author could have reached the same conclusions in half the number of pages.

[Patricia Bunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

[Jlnelso · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved, loved, loved this book.