Foreign Gods, Inc.
by Okey Ndibe (Soho Press)
A New York City taxi driver who can’t quite capture the American Dream steers the action in Nigerian novelist Ndibe’s latest book. Caught in a cycle of alcoholism and gambling debt and unable to get a better job despite his Amherst degree, Ikechukwu Uzundo hatches a get-rich-quick scheme: He’ll steal the statue of a powerful war god from the small Nigerian village where he was born and sell it to Foreign Gods Inc., a lucrative New York art dealership. Unfortunately, the best-laid plans often go awry. But they can certainly make for an entertaining read.
The Empire of Necessity Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World
by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
Using the real-life maritime slave revolt that inspired Melville’s “Benito Cereno” novel as a jumping-off point, “Fordlandia” author Grandin takes a look at slavery. On a South Pacific sealing expedition, New England seaman Amasa Delano encountered what he thought was a slave ship in distress. But the Africans had revolted and taken over from their Spanish captors. Grandin recounts this rebellion, as well as gruesome details of the slave trade in South and North America.
Woody Guthrie’s Wardy Forty Greystone Park State Hospital Revisited
by Phillip Beuhler (Woody Guthrie Publications)
People’s troubadour Guthrie spent 1956-61 in this state hospital, in a psych ward. His brain was fine, but the Huntington’s disease which eventually killed him withered his body, and doctors weren’t sure what to do. Years after Guthrie’s stay, photographer Beuhler came across the long-abandoned hospital — and photographed it. Then, with help Guthrie daughter Nora, he added family letters, photos and accounts from friends to document the singer’s stay at what he called, in typical Guthrie humor, Wardy Forty.
A Star for Mrs. Blake
by April Smith (Knopf)
A fictional ode to the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who did not return from WWI; and to their mothers. Smith’s novel tells the story of Cora Blake, a widow in a small Maine fishing village in 1929. When the government offers to send mothers of fallen soldiers buried in Europe on an expenses-paid visit to their graves, Cora jumps at the chance, which also represents a ticket out of a dreary existence working in a factory. The journey teaches her more than she expected of war’s hard lesson, not to mention about herself.
A Curious Madness: An American Combat Psychiatrist, A Japanese War Crimes Suspect, and an Unsolved Mystery From World War II
by Eric Jaffe (Scribner)
Of the 28 Japanese military and political leaders charged with crimes against humanity, just one walked free. Civilian “philosopher-patriot” Okawa Shumei. He made headlines from the courtroom by smacking ex-Japanese Prime Minister Tojo, also on trial, in the head. The author’s father was the psychiatrist of the title.