Virginia Gazette News |

Kale on Books: A new look at Huck Finn’s story, a tale of Churchill and murder in Manteo

This book is one of a few that every year becomes an instant New York Times bestseller.

Percival Everett, a distinguished professor of English at the University of Southern California and “one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime,” has written another classic, “James: A Novel” (Doubleday, 320 pgs., $28).

Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for an earlier work, Everett has used Huckleberry Finn in a new adventure told by enslaved Jim, who learns he is about to be sold and moved away from his wife and daughter in Missouri to New Orleans.

Jim flees to Jackson Island from the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the Mississippi River to devise a plan. His buddy Huck Finn fakes his own death to get away from his abusive father “Pap.” The two team up like in the original Mark Twain saga and begin their journey by raft down the Mississippi.

In Everett’s gem, his Jim wants to earn enough money to return and buy his wife and daughter out of slavery. Huck simply wants to find a new life. Many of the twists and turns of Twain’s novel are here, but with Everett’s own twists and turns. In this, however, Huck doesn’t tell the story.

Instead, the narrator is the slave, Jim, who is literate and compassionate. His tale ultimately brings him together with Huck in a fashion, alluded to but not illustrated by Twain. It’s one of those turns that makes Everett’s narrative an immediate success.

John Warner in his Chicago Tribune weekly essay, Biblioracle, called the book “a masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own.” Warner added, “I almost cannot imagine a future where teachers assign ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ without also assigning ‘James’ alongside it.”

Also, in The Boston Globe, Walton Muyumba, professor, writer and critic, says, “Heir to Mark Twain’s satirical vision, Everett turns a boyhood memoir into a neo-fugitive slave narrative thriller … ’James’ is a provocative, enlightening work of literary art.”

‘Taking London’ is important WWII work

I’ve become a fan of author cum historian Martin Dugard.

For years he has worked as a co-author with Bill O’Reilly on the “Killing” book series, and more recently, Dugard has developed his own “Taking” series that demonstrates that the history and research so obvious in the “Killing” series were probably his efforts.

Dugard’s newest endeavor, “Taking London: Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization” (Dutton, 349 pgs., $32) is a dramatic portrait of the British leader’s efforts and the supporting salvation in the skies by the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain.

For the first time in history, a battle was not fought on land or on the sea, but rather entirely in the skies. As Dugard stresses, it was a band of elite pilots — a British Band of Brothers — who ultimately sacrificed and won.

Using Churchill’s own words, Dugard summarizes the hard work of the British fighter pilots and bomber crews who established air superiority over England in the summer of 1940. Speaking to Parliament, the prime minister said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

In essence, “Taking London” is the story of how Churchill, the very new prime minister, fought against forces within his own Conservative Party, refusing to yield to the Nazi pressure. He put his faith in the Royal Air Force to stave off the planned German invasion of his island nation.

Putting everything into perspective, at the time of Churchill’s dramatic speech, the Luftwaffe was averaging 1,000 airplanes in the sky over England each day, Dugard emphasizes. Production could not replace the British Hurricane and Spitfire fighters being lost. “Experienced pilots were even more difficult to replace than fighters,” he says.

“If too many pilots die, Germany wins. It’s as simple as that.”

In telling the pilots’ story, Dugard uses a number of them to illustrate various roles in the desperate months and weeks of the aerial confrontation. Among them was Group Capt. Peter Townsend, “The Veteran” in the saga, who after the war became involved in a romantic scandal with Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II. (But that’s another story for another time.)

Through Townsend, Dugard explains how veteran fighter pilots kept the younger men in line and focused on goals that eventually led to the British victory. Others involved pilots throughout the book were Geoffrey Wellum, Richard Hillary and Billy Fiske, an American who went to England to fly and fight.

Put all of these individual historical vignettes together, as Dugard as done, and you have a marvelous account of an extremely important segment of World War II history, made more important by the fact that the U.S. had not yet entered the fray.

Murder in Manteo

Investigative journalist John Railey, who has spent much of his life on the Outer Banks, wrote his second true crime book, “Murder in Manteo: Seeking Justice for Stacey Stanton” (The History Press, 192 pgs., $24.99).

Young Stanton came to the Banks after high school seeking a new work opportunity; she waited on tables. On Feb. 3, 1990, she was found dead in her apartment in Manteo’s downtown.

Stanton had become a favorite of townspeople and the method of her death — stabbed numerous times — was considered the most horrendous crime in many, many years, Railey explains.

And likewise, there was a rush to judgement as state and local police overlooked many leads and the community’s racial tension. Stanton was white and the chief suspect was Black, Railey adds.

Now proven an innocent man, Clifton Eugene Spencer was convicted. However, there were numerous appeals. During the ensuing years, two lawyers, Edgar Barnes, a local Roanoke Island attorney who later became a district court judge, and well-known North Carolina defense advocate Chris Mumma, took up Spencer’s case because they believed him; he said he was not guilty.

Railey’s own investigations convinced him, likewise, that Spencer had been railroaded. Facts were ignored and the initial defense attorney had presented a poor, terrible case.

In Railey’s view, Norman Judson “Mike” Brandon Jr., Stanton’s ex-boyfriend, was guilty and he presents evidence to support his conclusion. Spencer ultimately spent 17 years in prison before he was released. Brandon died in August 2010 never having been prosecuted for the murder.

The earlier true crime book Railey wrote, “The Lost Colony Murder on the Outer Banks: Seeking Justice for Brenda Joyce Holland,” also published by the History Press, takes a similar look at a 1967 case. Therein, he also presents new evidence that he uncovered and discloses the murderer in a case that was never prosecuted.

Have a comment or suggestion for Kale? Contact him at Kaleonbooks95@gmail.com.